About Singing Oak
Near Big Lake in New Orleans City Park, an old live oak has been turned into a musical instrument large enough to sit beneath. Wind chimes hang throughout its broad branches, but these are not a handful of porch decorations. They form an art installation tuned to a pentatonic scale, so the tree produces a shifting five-note soundscape whenever the air starts moving.
Artist Jim Hart designed the Singing Oak installation. The chimes were placed through the canopy and finished to blend with the branches, making some of them easy to miss until they move or sound. The largest is roughly fourteen feet long, a piece of suspended metal closer in scale to a structural component than a normal wind chime.
The effect changes with the weather. A light breeze can produce scattered tones from different parts of the tree. Stronger air sets more of the installation moving at once. Because the sounds come from above and around the listener instead of a stage or speaker, the oak can seem to be producing the music itself until the eye catches the hanging tubes.
The Singing Oak stands near the intersection of Wisner Boulevard and Lelong Drive by Big Lake. It is outdoors and best visited during City Park’s normal daylight access. There is no performance schedule because the wind controls that. Sometimes the strangest attraction in New Orleans is simply a huge tree waiting for the weather to play it.