Marshlight Reed Orchestra — Heron Reed Musicians Reference Sheet

The story of Marshlight Reed Orchestra

A fictional story inspired by the artwork.

The Marshlight orchestra kept a seventh chair empty for the wind. On still evenings the audience simply heard six players. On blustery ones the reeds beyond the bandstand played a seventh part. One spring evening that part sounded before the musicians had even unpacked their cases. The conductor raised her baton and waited.

The sound came again, three notes in quick succession. A little farther down the bank another stand of reeds replied. The youngest heron carried her flute along the footpath and tried the three notes. A boy on the far shore raised a tin whistle in answer. Behind him stood his father with a bundle of saplings.

They were planting along a bank the winter floods had stripped bare. They had made a tune for passing the saplings from hand to hand. The boy played the first two notes when a root was ready and the third when the soil had been pressed down around it.

The herons moved their chairs to face the far bank. They played until the last sapling stood upright, leaving space in every phrase for the whistle to answer. In the printed program the conductor gave the new piece a simple title, Three Notes for Planting. The seventh chair stayed empty for whoever needed it next.

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