Falling Tree Productions

17/08/2026

EDIT *Four* Falling Tree documentaries at this year's Aesthetica Festival - Night Chorus by Shira Golden and Jess Shane, Problems with Julia Masli by Talia Augustidis and Julia Masli, The Metaphor Consultant by Jack Underwood and Eleanor McDowall and Siren Song by Kalli Anderson (originally broadcast in the Short Cuts Podcast episode 'Into the Night')

Listen to all four in the free Falling Tree archive: https://lnkd.in/evArSD4e

16/08/2026

🎶 It's the most wonderful time of the year!

It’s that time again. The next edition of Radiophrenia is rapidly approaching. Please note – our amended broadcast dates are now from the 5th - 20th September, taking in an extra weekend. A full 16-days of innovative, ground breaking sound and radio art, 24-hours a day. We received so many amazing submissions to our open call this year that we have had to extend the broadcasts just to fit everything in. Huge thanks to everyone who took the time to send in their work.

We will be broadcasting on 87.9FM from our new studio location at 5 Florence Street in Glasgow’s Gorbals. Our broadcast partners Resonance Extra (UK) and Radio Tsonami (Chile) will also be relaying the entire broadcast on their platforms via their webstream - and on DAB+ Digital Radio in Brighton & Hove, Cambridge, Greater London, Norwich, King’s Lynn and Peterborough.

Our new website is now live. Thanks to Verity Pease for this year’s visual design theme and to David Fulford at Blackhill Creative for the website design. The website includes all of the information on this year’s new radio commissions and live-to-air performances. The full broadcast schedule and information on our public engagement activities will be added over the coming weeks.

https://radiophrenia.scot/

Tickets are on now on sale for our two nights of Live-to-Air performances on Saturday, the 12th and 19th September. These events are limited capacity so don’t leave it too long! You can find details on all of the artists here.

https://radiophrenia.scot/live-to-air/

Tickets are available through Eventbrite here.

https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/radiophrenia-live-to-air-events-2026-4861266?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=odclsxcollection

We look forward to being back on the air and to sharing with you some of the incredible radio art we have selected from this year’s open call.

14/08/2026

"'The key to radio's future does not lie, as so many broadcasters seem to think, in doing more cheaply what television can do…Rather the key to radio's future lies in another direction: doing the things that television cannot do.'
— Jack Gould, 1952

Broadcast radio did not take Gould’s advice; at least not right away. But in a real sense, all of us making narrative podcasts much later understood his sentiments in a visceral way.

And people are still making the argument that audio matters. I’m heartened by pieces such as Doubling Down on Audio by Benjamin Cannon in Good Tape; or Luciano Banchero’s essay The Ensh*ttification of Podcasting (on LinkedIn).

You hear the argument demonstrated in sonic form with the work of audio production houses like Falling Tree Productions. The best producers continue to push audio-only work for the life-affirming brilliance it brings to listeners.

But we need more. Radio is an art form, not mere data transmission as the tech industry pushes us to believe..."

Great to see this new series of essays from audio producers in Julia Barton's Continuous Wave, this one written by Garrett Tiedemann. Read more here:

Filmmaker and sound designer Garrett Tiedemann became enchanted by the cinematic capacity of audio. He worries that podcasting is abandoning its world-building superpower for nothing in return.

29/07/2026

"Half-Life is an excellent example of how narrative and non-fiction storytelling can capture the truth and prompt listeners to press play on the next episode... I was spellbound."

You can catch a glimpse episode of Half-Life in Transom.org's latest episode of The Sound School Podcast - 'Sounds Cool' (!)

Sounds Cool! - Transom

23/07/2026

Great to see our BBC Radio 4 podcast Half-Life nominated in both the Documentary and History categories at this year's British Podcast Awards! https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/shortlist-2026

Listen to Half-Life on The History Podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002c4wq

Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall

Reading his great-grandfather's memoir, Joe Dunthorne discovers a disturbing confession.

12/07/2026

The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was a lifelong devotee of the poet Walt Whitman, carrying a volume of his work to the First World War and setting his words across the course of three decades. Indeed Whitman featured heavily in two of Vaughan Williams’ most important choral works - ‘A Sea Symphony’ and ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ - as well as numerous smaller pieces.

Tonight on BBC Radio 3, Laura Barton sets out to find out what it was about Whitman’s work that so appealed to the composer, exploring the various ways in which the poet’s expansive style and worldview both complemented and inspired Vaughan Williams’ approach. in Whitman and Vaughan Williams https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ylbl

That exploration takes her to Bolton to attend the annual Whitman walk, which celebrates the poet’s relationship with a group of 19th-century workers in the town. There, she meets Whitman’s latest biographer Karen Karbiener - and also his pet canary. Laura speaks with members of the Choral Societies of Twickenham to find out what it’s like to perform the great works Vaughan Williams created using Whitman’s verse, and also Huddersfield, where Dona Nobis Pacem was premiered in 1936. She finds that this story of two extraordinary artistic figures who are so intimately connected to their own respective countries nonetheless offers a counter to the fierce nationalism of our present moment.

Readings by Gil Vernon

Contributors: Clinical Professor Karen Karbiener, Dr. Jacob Downs, Katrina Ledbetter, Howard Ionascu, Gloria Haliday, Joey Cain, Matthew Watson.

Presented by Laura Barton
Produced by Geoff Bird

11/07/2026

Just one week left to slip into a dream-like night of radio before it disappears ✨🌙🪐 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0nrmccs

29/06/2026

Just two days left to pitch our 2027 series of Short Cuts Podcast!

Pitching form here: https://www.fallingtree.co.uk/pitch/
Listen here: https://podfollow.com/655015882

28/06/2026

Listen to all nine hours of Midsummer Dreaming - from twilight until the dawn chorus - on BBC Sounds now... https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xms3

"A must-listen for lovers of audio adventures, a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn celebration of the creative possibilities of radio...a vast selection box of sonic inventiveness" - The Telegraph

"It is so moving and thrilling to hear experimentation and art on the radio, to be given a portal into familiar-but-not-quite worlds with the connection of documentary and the soul-lift of music. We need more of this sort of thing." - The Observer

"Is there still a space for imaginative radio programming..? The answer is a resounding yes and, were proof needed, this Saturday BBC Radio 3 is devoting nine hours to mind-expanding features that push the boundaries..." - Radio Times, Pick of the Week

"An inspired night of radio for this solstice... audio alone allows our imaginations free rein to wander and invent, to create our own alternative worlds..." - The Quietus

"At its best, radio is a form of immer­sion. You should feel your­self sink­ing into it... [this] was a delight, a son­ic­ally layered thing that had a tidal pull to it." - The Herald

22/06/2026

"A must-listen... a vast selection box of sonic inventiveness..."

Midsummer Dreaming on BBC Radio 3 is one of The Telegraph's picks of the week: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/radio-podcasts-of-the-week-table-for-four/