The Living Mountain by Jenny Sturgeon

The Living Mountain is an evocative, uplifting and compelling audio-visual performance inspired by the celebrated book of the same name, written by Aberdonian Nan Shepherd in the 1940s and still hugely relevant today.

Devised and performed by musician Jenny Sturgeon, The Living Mountain considers human connections with wild places through lyrical and melodic interpretation of the novel, and interweaves song with visuals from the Cairngorm Mountains National Park; filmed by videographer Robyn Spice, rewilding advocacy group Scotland The Big Picture and with archive imagery from the National Library of Scotland.

The meditative qualities of the combined audio and imagery provide a soothing and poignant exploration of what it means to connect with a landscape, and to find a sense of place. It marks a bold and significant step in Jenny Sturgeon’s development as one of Scotland’s finest singer-songwriters.

Sturgeon’s songcraft is at the centre of her engaging and honest performance. She accompanies her lyrics with a specially built guitar ‘The Nan Taran’ (made entirely from reclaimed Scottish wood and built by Rory Dowling of Taran Guitars), piano, shruti box and dulcimer and with her own field recordings from within the Cairngorms.