No matter if you’ve never written music before, or if you’ve been a composer for years, Nenescape is building a Nene Songbook. We might not be able to go out and socialise in our stunning landscape, but we can take a (socially distanced) walk every day to get inspired about the beautiful River Nene.

Nenescape is looking for uplifting music about the Nene Valley (or any place within it) from any genre (pop, rock, folk, classical, country, jazz, etc) to help us grow Benjamin Till’s original songs. From a ditty to a concerto, they’d like to collect together the music of the Nene Valley. All entries will be watched by Benjamin himself, who will choose his favourite to win a hamper of Nene Valley goodies and a voucher to put towards a canoeing experience.

Watch the documentary and listen to Benjamin Till’s original composition and see the first nine songs in the Songbook that he composed on the Nenescape website. For more ideas, photos, poetry, stories, films and audio clips visit the ‘900 Voices of the Nene’ website. Get inspired!

Write a piece of music or a song of any kind about your town or village in the Nene Valley or about the River Nene in general. Submit the song or piece of music that you have written in any format:

• Video or audio recording of it being performed (either a link to the recording online or send us the recording itself)
• Sheet music or score
• Guitar tabs, percussive score, etc
• Any other format compatible with standard MS Office software

Send it to alison@rnrp.org or share it on social media using @Nenescape.

By sending it to us you allow us to share it online, on social media, in print and by any other publicly accessible means, with acknowledgement of you as the creator and you recognise that it may be freely copied, adapted and shared. The music will be archived on the ‘900 Voices of the Nene’ website. Your music will be added onto the Nenescape and Nene Valley websites, to form an online Songbook that will be shared to encourage more musical responses.

We’d love to arrange a concert to celebrate the Songbook, but given the current situation, we may not be able to. If we do manage to, we’ll invite everyone who has contributed music to perform their piece in the concert.