A Cologne beech tree gave Graham Fitkin a composition. He performs it on 6 July at Odonien – for anyone willing to listen.
Before nation states, before roads, before everything we now call Europe, the continent was covered by a continuous ancient forest. The beech tree was its soul. TREELINE is an attempt to make that lost connection audible again.
Graham Fitkin cycles in summer 2026 from Romania through Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czechia, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to London. Carbon-neutral, over 2,500 miles, through the surviving remnants of Europe's beech forests.
At each stop he meets a tree. Listens to it. And transforms what he hears into music. Cologne is one of these stations – and Odonien is the place where the forest speaks to us.
TREELINE is an international art project by Graham Fitkin, produced by Artichoke. Cologne is one of ten European stations – organised by PIRATEx.
TREELINE is an evening between concert, nature and encounter. At its heart: Graham Fitkin with a composition created together with a Cologne beech tree. Complemented by musical guests, inspiring impulses and a shared wind-down at Odonien.
Cologne choir ChorGonzola opens the evening with a special live performance, setting the atmosphere that defines TREELINE from the very first moment.
More about ChorGonzolaThoughts, stories and fresh perspectives complement the evening and pick up on the spirit of TREELINE.
Graham Fitkin performs live on piano a composition created together with a Cologne beech tree. A concert between nature, technology and music.
More about Graham FitkinAfter the concert, Odonien becomes a place for conversation, encounters and drinks in a one-of-a-kind atmosphere.
More about OdonienTrees constantly emit signals. Fine vibrations in their trunks, structural oscillations from wind and temperature, biological impulses – that we would never perceive with the naked ear.
We recorded the Cologne tree – its vibrations, its silence, its rustling – and handed the material to Graham Fitkin as a starting point for the composition. What exactly lies within it, the evening will reveal.
The tree is not an abstract metaphor. It is source, material and silent co-composer.
Contact microphones that let the tree be heard from within – without damaging a single branch.
A tool that translates the recorded biological impulses of the tree into musical parameters – the foundation for Fitkin's composition.
Light installations that respond to the sound data of the evening. The entire site becomes a membrane.
Measurements, bark imprints and photographs of the Cologne tree are projected large-scale during the concert.
Graham Fitkin is one of the most distinctive British composers of his generation. His work moves between orchestral music, chamber sound, dance projects and technological installations – always with an instinct for what music triggers in people when it meets real experience.
He has composed for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Opera House and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Yet for years, one question has occupied him above all: how can music become the voice of nature? TREELINE is his most radical answer yet.
The project springs from a deep personal conviction: we take the world around us for granted because we never learned to truly listen. Fitkin wants to change that. Not with words, but with the sound of a Cologne tree.
"Every generation accepts the already degraded state of nature as normal. I want to shift that baseline. Trees speak – you just have to learn to listen."
Graham Fitkin
TREELINE thrives on special moments, voices and encounters that shape the evening beyond the concert itself.
ChorGonzola, a Cologne choir, opens the evening with modern choral music that combines real energy, closeness and community. Not a classical concert atmosphere, but a musical entrance that brings people together and sets the tone for the night.
There is hardly a place in Cologne better suited to this evening. Odonien is a free state for art and culture – born between railway tracks and industrial wastelands on Hornstrasse 85.
Odo Rumpf, artist and mechanical engineer, created a total work of art on 5,000 square metres from rusty steel sculptures, kinetic objects and lush vegetation. A place that does not deny industry but lives with it.
During the concert, light installations respond to the frequencies of the tree. The entire grounds become a membrane – industry and nature, connected for one evening.
Both tickets include the full concert experience, the introductory talk and the wind-down afterwards. Children under 12: free entry. Students receive the Explorer ticket for 5 EUR.
A concert evening in three parts: First, a short introductory talk by a local expert – about trees, their language, and the Cologne tree at the centre of the evening. Then a roughly 45-minute concert by Graham Fitkin on piano, in which the recorded signals of the Cologne tree become audible as compositional material. Afterwards, time for conversation, questions and drinks at the Odonien bar.
We recorded the Cologne tree – its vibrations, its silence, its rustling – and handed the material to Graham Fitkin as a starting point. He developed the composition for the evening from it. At other stops on the tour, Fitkin uses specially developed acoustic probes and contact microphones that translate biological impulses directly into music. In Cologne, the path was different – but the result is the same: the tree is source, material and silent co-composer.
Graham Fitkin, produced by British arts organisation Artichoke, cycles 2,500 miles through ten European countries in summer 2026 – from Romania to the UK. At each stop he listens to a local tree, records its acoustic fingerprint and composes a piece from it. The Cologne evening at Odonien is one of these European stations.
Anyone who is curious – about music, nature, or the question of what a tree actually has to say. You do not need to be a concert connoisseur. Odonien is an open, unconventional space. Children under 12 enter free, students receive the Explorer ticket for 5 EUR.
The Forest Ambassador ticket (50 EUR) gives you early admission and access to a small gathering before the concert. You meet Graham Fitkin in person, see the tree-sound technology demonstrated live on a tree, and can ask any questions you like. Above all, you directly help make this journey – and the attention it draws to European forests – possible.
6 July 2026 · from 6:30 PM
Odonien, Hornstrasse 85, Cologne.
