Songs from the Solent
Richard Walters’ artist residency in the Solent Seascape, UK.
Richard Walters
Richard Walters is a British singer-songwriter and composer whose work blends intimate storytelling with a deep sensitivity to place. Known for his reflective lyrics and collaborations across music, film and theatre, his practice often explores connection – between people, memory and landscape. Raised in the south of England, Walters has long been drawn to the coast, where shifting tides and open horizons provide both inspiration and perspective.
About the Residency
Adding a visual dimension to the release, renowned linocut artist Angela Harding has created a bespoke map of the Solent. The map highlights the locations that inspired each song, allowing listeners to connect the music directly with the places that shaped it.
The Solent is a narrow stretch of sea separating the Isle of Wight from mainland England. It is a landscape shaped by tides, mudflats, saltmarsh and seagrass meadows – habitats that support internationally important populations of seabirds, fish and marine life. Beneath and beyond its busy shipping lanes lies a complex coastal ecosystem that protects communities from flooding, stores carbon and provides nursery grounds for species such as seabass and cuttlefish.
Yet the Solent is also a place under pressure. Historic land reclamation, pollution, habitat loss and climate change have reduced seagrass meadows and degraded saltmarsh. The Solent Seascape Project is working to restore these vital coastal habitats and reconnect people with the sea on their doorstep.
During his residency, Richard Walters immersed himself in this landscape – meeting oyster farmers, scientists, conservationists and community groups – to understand how restoration is unfolding and how culture and creativity can help tell its story. His residency culminated in the album Songs from the Solent, a body of work shaped by the voices, histories and ecological rhythms of this tidal world.
Listening to a tidal landscape
Spending time along the shoreline, Walters walked saltmarsh at low tide, watched wading birds trace the mudflats and joined field teams surveying fragile seagrass beds. He learned how these underwater meadows stabilise sediment, improve water quality and provide shelter for juvenile fish – and how their loss has altered the ecological balance of the Solent.
Conversations with marine biologists and restoration practitioners revealed the scale of ambition behind the project: replanting seagrass, restoring native oyster reefs and re-establishing saltmarsh to buffer rising seas. For Walters, these encounters became starting points for songwriting. The rhythms of tides, the language of restoration and the lived experiences of coastal communities filtered into melodies and lyrics that reflect both fragility and hope.
Community, culture and coastal identity
Central to the residency was time spent with the people whose lives are intertwined with the Solent. Walters met fishers working to restore native oyster populations, volunteers involved in beach cleans and citizen science, and local residents who carry generations of maritime knowledge. Their stories revealed a deep cultural connection to the sea – one shaped by livelihoods, recreation and shared memory.
These exchanges became collaborative moments. Workshops and conversations invited community members to reflect on what the Solent means to them and how its future might look. In translating these voices into song, Walters sought not to speak for the community, but to echo its concerns and aspirations.
The resulting album celebrates local identity while acknowledging environmental challenge. It reflects a coastline where industry and ecology meet, where ports and shipping coexist with mudflats and migratory birds, and where restoration offers a renewed sense of stewardship.
“Spending time with the people working to restore the Solent changed the way I hear this place. The tides, the boats, the stories – they all carry a kind of music.”
Richard Walters
Rafts
Music as a catalyst for restoration
For Walters, the residency affirmed the power of art to deepen engagement with the natural environment. Through Songs from the Solent, listeners are introduced to the hidden life of seagrass meadows, the importance of oyster reefs and the quiet resilience of saltmarsh.
The album was launched through performances and community events around the Solent, bringing together conservation partners, residents and new audiences. In sharing the music locally, the project reinforced the idea that restoration is not only a technical process, but a cultural one – rooted in pride of place and collective responsibility.
By weaving together ecology, memory and melody, Richard Walters’ residency demonstrates how creative practice can sit at the heart of landscape-scale restoration. In the Solent, where tides shape both nature and identity, song becomes another way of caring for the sea.
Download and stream ‘Songs from the Solent’ on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Bandcamp.
Visit the project page to learn more about the Solent Seascape.
Songs of the Watershed: Katja Malinen on music, memory and restoration
Recording the voices of a changing landscape
Artist residency open call: Cumbria Connect
