The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra have collaborated with the Bostock Brothers for NZ's first ever ‘Chook Symphony’

It's the collaboration we REALLY didn't know we needed...

New Zealand’s only organic free-range chicken producer, Bostock Brothers, has teamed up with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) to produce NZ’s first-ever ‘Chook Symphony’!

Today, dressed in their black tie finery, the NZSO took to the local farm to debut the composition to the feathered flock in sunny Hawke’s Bay - how clucking good to be a chook!

Composer and sound designer, Hamish Oliver, after research on the Bostock Brothers' flock, found that the chickens "were responsive to the viola, oboe, and bassoon" so he combined "astring quartet with the squawkiest instruments of the woodwind family (oboe and bassoon) and added some inspiration from the chicken sound-world."

Designed to soothe and calm the birds, Hamish was delighted to have the opportunity to compose for this unique audience!

“It’s not every day that composing opportunities for a feathered audience come up and this has been a new kind of musical challenge for me, a definite career highlight - a quirky project that has a serious intent and purpose behind it too."  

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 “The partnership with Bostock Brothers is incredibly unique and we couldn’t be more captivated by it,” said NZSO chief executive Peter Biggs. “Never could we have imagined producing a composition, especially for a flock of chooks, let alone performing for them, but the opportunity was too good to pass up."

“In many ways the NZSO considers classical or symphonic music to be ‘organic’ relatively speaking and as a wider group we’re passionate about local business and ethical farming so there are some lovely synergies between us.