Created by celebrated Australian musician and composer Jon Rose, Night Songs is a remarkable sonic experience: an interspecies engagement between the 13-million-year-old music of the pied butcherbird and contemporary human musicians. 

Pied butcherbirds sing their long-form songs at nighttime in spring. Night Songs compresses time and geography, shrinking a 24-hour period of birdsong into a one-hour audio-visual encounter. Taking Dr Hollis Taylor’s recordings and transcriptions of these remarkable birds, Jon Rose has arranged this music for eight musicians from Australia’s premier new music group, Ensemble Offspring. 

In this playful presentation, a film of the pied butcherbird will take centre stage while Ensemble Offspring plays from the balconies. It’s an immersive concert experience not to be missed. 

Night Songs is perfect festival fare: celebratory and communal in spirit and immersive staging, and blessed with a welcome sense of ecological sensitivity and purpose.

REALTIME