Hole in the Ground

Last year, musician, artist, polymath and all-around sweet guy Jem Finer built a radio telescope in the Parks in Oxford. This year, funded by an award from the PRS Foundation for New Music, he’s looking in the opposite direction: he’s dug a well in the King’s Wood, in Kent (Southeast England) and made it into a giant, wonderful musical instrument: Score for a Hole in the Ground. Or perhaps it’s a whole orchestra, playing itself. Its tulip-like horn set in the usually secluded woodland was as wonderful to look at as the burbling sounds were to hear — even when nobody is in the forest. When I was there, last weekend, there were plenty of people there, drowning out the music except when you listened carefully, so I look forward to returning on a still autumn day.