Night Songs

Night Songs is an interspecies engagement between the ancient music of a uniquely Australian songbird - Cracticus nigrogularis (the Pied Butcherbird) and contemporary human musicians.

Night Songs is a compression of geography and time; the recordings and transcriptions of the birds by Dr Hollis Taylor come from Centralia, Western Australia, and Far North Queensland. Pied Butcherbirds sing their long form songs at night in spring, and this performance shrinks a twelve-hour period into a one- hour concentrated audio-visual encounter. Jon Rose has arranged this music for eight human musicians featuring Australia’s premiere new music group, Ensemble Offspring under the direction of Claire Edwardes.

Although there is video (recording a black-hooded bird at night is extremely problematic!), the performance of Night Songs exists to privilege the aural over the visual.

Duration: 60 minutes.

Ticketing: 
General Admission
Full Price: $45+bf
Concession: $35+bf

Audience warnings: use of strobe