The Art House Presents
Songbird - Ensemble Offspring

Songbirds celebrates the breathtaking virtuosity of Australian birdsong with an array of original Australian chamber works commissioned by Ensemble Offspring. Be transported into the Australian bush by the familiar sounds of nature’s own musicians, with a little help from Australia’s leading composers. 

After devoting her life to documenting pied butcherbird song in Central Australia, Hollis Taylor composed her trio Bitter Springs Creek 2014, pairing live instrumentalists with ancient bird sounds. Fiona Loader’s Lorikeet Corroboree follows an upbeat journey which interweaves the chatter of rainbow lorikeets with the sounds of ground-dwelling composers – including fragments from Papageno’s Magic Flute and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. Gerard Brophy makes flamingos dance and hummingbirds buzz in his three-movement tour-de-force Beautiful Birds. 

First Nations composers Nardi Simpson and Brenda Gifford share Indigenous perspectives on the sky and its many inhabitants. Brenda Gifford’s Mungala (Clouds) evokes clouds building across the sea, while Nardi Simpson’s Of Stars and Birds interprets a significant Yuwaalaraay story about the creation of the southern cross.

Performed by Lamorna Nightingale (flutes), Jason Noble (clarinets) and Claire Edwardes (percussion), Songbirds captures the magical bird calls of the red centre, virtuosic avian displays and Indigenous musical perspectives on these beguiling creatures of the sky.