Silver on the Tree began in 1987 with a collective of musicians brought together to provide the soundtrack for some of Glastonbury's famous community Mystery Plays, in collaboration with local feminist author and playwright Kathy Jones. The name alludes to the Silver Branch that was the ancient bardic staff of office. Their material is rooted in their British spiritual heritage, the ancient archetypes of this land and the inspiration of traditional Celtic forms of music and poetry.

Silver on the Tree's live shows were built up from sharing chants, carols and songs around the hearth-fire, which laid the foundations for their trademark close vocal harmony arrangements. This is underpinned by Lydia's unique shamanic understanding of mother drum trance dance rhythms. Later albums make increasing use of instrumental textures, augmenting the acoustic guitar with Appalachian dulcimer, mandolin, medieval pipes and recorders, Celtic harp and violin. The picture above shows Dreow Bennett, Viv Andreae, Oshia Drury, Lydia Lyte, Eliett MacKrell and Tim Hall performing at a recent gig.

There are three albums currently available through Silver Branch Productions: Eye of the Aeon, Mystic Spiral, and Morning Glory.

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http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/sott/

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