Music for Magpies was commissioned by Karin Preslmayr for viola da gamba with quarter-tone frets, and was subsequently transcribed for flute at the request of Cliff Dunn. The first movement is a direct transcription of the song of the Pied Butcherbird, an Australian bird with a sense of musical pitch and structure remarkably similar to humans. The second movement takes the song of the Hoopoe Lark as a starting point, but I've shaped the form of the song into something more music-like. After writing these two movements, I found that I liked trying to think like a bird so much that I made up three fictitious birds, the Ringed River Snike, the Pileated Pocket Grouse, and the Green-Rumped Antstalker: their songs make up the remaining two movements of the piece.
Performance duration (approx): 8'00
