114 / / JANUARY 2017
he animal world has always been abundant
with natural, unique music: the mellifluous
and harsh call-and-response of birds;
diligent woodpeckers tattooing rapid-fire
rhythms on forest tree trunks; cicadas, in swamps and
meadows, emitting those wonderful, hypnotic mating calls.
Historically, we’ve viewed these sounds as functions of
communication, reproduction and survival. But what
happens when the animal kingdom encounters human-
made music? And what can we, in turn, learn about the
sounds our animal friends make in the wild?
A new Sky Arts programme, The Animal Symphony,
investigates this question to fascinating ends. The
programme follows hosts BBC presenter Chris Packham
and award-winning composer Nitin Sawhney as they spend
months researching how and why some animals respond
to music. Featuring an array of animal subjects and eye-
opening expert testimony, it concludes with the musical
suite of the programme’s title – written by Sawhney and
performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
especially for the programme’s various animal stars to enjoy.T
From howling wolves to head-banging
cockatoos, animals love a tune. In a
new TV programme naturalist Chris
Packham and musician Nitin Sawhney
dig out the ditties that drive nature wildP
E
T
Among the cast are Packham’s pet
pooches, Itchy and Scratchy, who prove
partial to indie band The Lightning Seeds;
a Berkshire-based wolf pack that howls
merrily along to Australian whale song; and
bird trainer Lloyd Buck’s pet starlings, Ernie
and Arnie, who enjoy the soothing piano
concertos of Schubert. There’s also US-based
Irena Schulz and her head-banging rock-
star cockatoo Snowball, not to mention disco
queen Ronan the seal, who can keep a beat
with almost metronomic precision.
Sawhney – a pioneering musician whose
work fuses Asian, jazz and electronic sounds- was initially sceptical about the show’s
concept. ‘Like me,’ explains Packham, ‘Nitin
was very interested, but he had his doubts
about the feasibility of the project, and, in fact,
doubts about any parallels there might be
between animals and humans when it comes
to uses or manifestations of music.’
It was a stunning performance by a
‘heavy metal’ nightingale that changed the