Before any of its melodies entered a studio, For the Love of Trees had already taken shape beneath branches in Ireland, Switzerland and the United States. Cellist and composer Clíodhna Ní Aodáin developed the album through direct encounters with individual trees, bringing her instrument into forests, listening for an initial vocal phrase and carrying that melody onto the cello. Across seven pieces, Linden, Rowan, Redwood and the Fairie Tree emerge through distinct rhythms, melodic gestures and changes in atmosphere.

The album was recorded in Boulder, Colorado, with Grammy Award-winning producer Mickey Houlihan, using the cello of the late Grammy Award-winning cellist David Darling. Ní Aodáin combines cello improvisation, voice and piano with atmospheric layers and field recordings, allowing each composition to preserve something of the environment where its central idea began. The focus track, Linden Tree, establishes the album’s spacious character through measured phrasing and a sense of calm strength. Released through Curve Blue, For the Love of Trees brings Celtic tradition into conversation with intuitive composition and contemporary healing music. Ní Aodáin’s purpose is direct: to encourage listeners to spend time among trees, listen closely and renew their connection with the living world. In this interview, she discusses the process of responding musically to nature, the character she discovered in different trees, the significance of recording with David Darling’s cello and the choices that transformed spontaneous forest improvisations into a complete album.

Clíodhna, it’s wonderful to have you with us. “For the Love of Trees” brings together seven pieces created through encounters with trees in Ireland, Switzerland and the United States, with each session beginning beneath a tree as a sung impulse before moving onto cello. What happened during the first of those sessions that convinced you this private listening practice could become an album?

Thank you for having me! This music really is all about listening.

I didn’t know after the first session that it would become an album. I simply went into the forest with the intention of listening, and something shifted. When you really become present and listen to a tree, it can be a profound experience – peaceful, calming and loving. I would sing whatever musical impulse arose and then find it on the cello. There was no plan and no pressure to create anything. I just kept returning to that space of communion with the trees. After the first time, I was hooked.

The seven pieces emerged gradually from this practice. It was less about deciding to make an album and more about continuing to show up for the music and allowing it to reveal itself.

That method asks you to trust the first musical impulse that arises, even though years of technique and familiar habits are already present in your hands. How do you recognise a phrase that belongs to the encounter itself?

I think the magic is always available to us.

Years of playing and technique don’t have to get in the way. In fact, I think they allow the music to emerge more freely because I don’t have to think about what my hands are doing.

The important thing is to listen and stay open. When I am really present, I don’t feel that I am composing in the conventional sense. I’m listening, responding and allowing something to come through.

“Linden Tree” became the album’s focus track, with its spacious arrangement carrying calm, strength and gentle wisdom. Which musical decision gave that calm an active presence within the piece?

The key decision was to leave space.

Rather than filling every moment with sound, I wanted the arrangement to breathe. The silences and the spaces between phrases became part of the music – almost like taking a breath before speaking.

The Linden tree has a very calming effect on me. There are many of them in Switzerland, often in the centre of village squares, and I like to imagine the many conversations that have taken place beneath them over the years.

When I sit under a Linden, I feel a deep relaxation on both a physical and spiritual level. I wanted the music to reflect that feeling rather than overwhelm it.

Among pieces named for individual trees, “Lament for the Trees” widens the frame toward grief and collective loss. What experience or observation gave that lament its place in the record?

There is so much deforestation happening globally, and the trees that are being lost are not being replaced. This breaks my heart.

I think it was important that the collection wasn’t only about the beauty and magic of trees. There is also grief in our relationship with the natural world, particularly when we see what is being lost.

Lament for the Trees gives that grief a voice. It comes from love – from caring deeply about something and feeling the pain of seeing it damaged or disappear.

The music began outdoors, then entered a Boulder studio with producer Mickey Houlihan, David Darling’s cello, piano, atmospheric layers and field recordings. Which element of the original forest sessions required the most careful judgment while you shaped the finished album?

The most fragile thing was the spirit of the original music.

We had to be very careful not to lose the openness and sense of connection that was present in the forest. The field recordings were part of that, but so was the space around the music.

I was incredibly fortunate to work with Grammy Award-winning producer Mickey Houlihan. He has a beautiful heart and an ability to hear beyond the notes. He is always looking for the beauty and the magic.

Creating the album was a real collaboration – both in person in the studio and through many long-distance conversations. We had to keep our hearts open and our imaginations fresh and connected.

The album rests on a relationship with trees that began years before these recording sessions. Which place, person or childhood ritual first taught you to regard a tree as an individual presence?

There was a Sycamore tree in the garden where I grew up in Ireland.

I remember climbing it as a child and spending hours up in the canopy. I would bring a book with me and read among the branches. It was a space where I always felt safe and never alone.

Looking back, I think that relationship was already teaching me something about trees as individual presences. They weren’t simply part of the landscape. They were companions.

Perhaps that is why, many years later, talking and listening to trees feels completely natural to me.

Your current practice uses the cello as a way of listening as well as performing. What was the turning point when the instrument began serving that second role in your life?

There wasn’t really a single turning point.

I’ve played the cello for my whole life, and I think the more time you spend with something – or someone – the better you get to know them.

The cello is a resonance chamber. Even without the bow, it will amplify sound. So I’ve gradually come to experience it not just as an instrument I play, but as something I can listen through.

I suppose the conversation is ongoing. I’m still discovering what the cello can say and what I can hear through it.

Martin Hayes heard in these pieces the lyricism he associates with the finest air playing in the Irish tradition, even though the melodies arose through spontaneous encounters in forests across three countries. Where did that distinctly Irish phrasing first enter your ear?

There is a Rowan tree outside my home in Switzerland, and the Rowan is traditionally a Fairy tree.

My musical exchange with that tree reminded me very strongly of the songs that came in off the Atlantic Ocean in the west of Ireland – sweeping, epic and soulful.

I think those sounds are very deeply embedded in me. I grew up in Ireland, and Celtic music has been part of my musical language for so long that I don’t necessarily have to consciously reach for it.

Perhaps it simply comes through when I listen deeply.

Listeners may bring grief, anxiety or major life changes to music described as healing. What responsibility do you accept for the space your work creates during those private moments?

My intention is to open a space where people can go to heal themselves.

I don’t see myself as someone who can heal another person through music. I think everyone has to take responsibility for their own healing journey.

But music can sometimes be the key that unlocks a state of flow, presence or gratitude. If this music helps someone slow down, breathe, feel connected or simply be still for a while, then I feel that it has served a purpose.

“For the Love of Trees” asks listeners to carry deep attention from music into their relationship with the living world. What concrete choice in your own life has changed through years of listening this way?

The way we eat as a family has definitely changed.

We eat seasonal, organic and locally sourced food whenever possible, and we are very aware of where and how our food is produced. We are lucky enough to have a garden, and growing things ourselves makes you appreciate the work involved in producing good food.

We also waste very little food.

For me, listening to trees isn’t separate from everyday life. It changes the way I see the world. Once you start paying attention, you begin to notice how interconnected everything is – the trees, the soil, the food we eat, the air we breathe and our own sense of belonging.

That sense of connection is really at the heart of For the Love of Trees.

All information provided is prepared in accordance with editorial standards and is intended to offer useful insights for readers. Please note that the opinions, interpretations, and evaluations expressed by the author may substantially differ from the viewpoints of our readers or the general public at large, and we respect the diversity of opinions.