What's On

Australian music legend Paul Kelly brings together an eclectic group of musicians in Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds to create a unique marriage of electronics, acoustic instruments and the human voice to celebrate winged creatures from the barn owl to the nightingale, from the thornbill to the falcon, from the magpie to the swan.

Paul Kelly said “Birds have fascinated poets for centuries, not just for their song and flight but as symbols: of hope, freedom, love, communication, peace, luck good and bad, and migration. And what better way to honour them than by sending songs out into the air?” 

Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds is a concert performance composed by Paul Kelly and James Ledger. The 2019 ARIA Award winning album of the same name brings together musicians from broad-ranging backgrounds to perform bird inspired poems, written by John Keats, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Judith Wright, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gwen Harwood, A D Hope and others.

Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds features Seraphim Trio with Anna Goldsworthy on piano, Helen Ayres on violin and Tim Nankervis on cello, along with composer James Ledger and singer-songwriters Paul Kelly and Alice Keath.

Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds will also be playing at the Twilight at Taronga 2020 Summer Concert Series at Taronga Zoo on  Friday 28 February, 6pm. All proceeds from the Twilight at Taronga 2020 Summer Concert Series will directly support the Wildlife Crisis Appeal for koalas, bats, wallabies, echidnas and other wildlife impacted by bushfires, heat stress and ongoing long-term drought.