More on... Nigel Shaw

Composer, Musician, and Flute Maker
Nigel Shaw is a long-established composer and musician whose journey with music began back in the mid 1980s.  He is also a wood carver and traditional flute-maker, making many of the instruments with which he performs and records.

Touch the Earth
Nigel says that the inspiration for most of his music stems from the spirit of the land, with its cycles of power, mystery and gentle beauty.  In the creation of his compositions he uses many handmade and ancient instruments including wooden and clay flutes, traditional whistles and recorders, smallpipes, dulcimer, psaltery, Eastern European overtone flutes, many types of drum (including djembe, cahon and darabuka) and percussion.  He combines these with sound recordings gathered from nature and contemporary musical instruments such as piano, harmonium and synthesisers, in a fusion of ancient and new to create his unique landscapes of sound and soul-filled melodies.

Own Roundhouse
His most ambitious project to date has been the building of a large Bronze Age style roundhouse, constructed from granite, oak trees and rye grass thatch.  This is very much a sacred place for him and also romantically a recording studio where he has recorded some of his recent music at night around the hearth fire.

Diverse Recordings
He has produced a renowned and diverse collection of recordings from the best-selling improvised meditation album, The River, to the classical voice and exquisite lament of Requiem: Well Of Souls.  In recent years Nigel has initiated and produced some unique and exciting sacred world music projects, such as the triad of Japanese/Tarascan/English flute players called Bamboo Cedar Oak, producing the album Ancestors based around forgotten songs of tribal people from the Siberian Arctic.