Night Creatures with HOWL and Robert Macfarlane

Event Information

Delve deep into the enchanting setting of Oxford University Museum of Natural History at nightfall to experience vocal ensemble HOWL performing songs from their thought-provoking EP "Night Creatures". Both a celebration and a warning, the EP honours in music and lyrics the mysterious lives of owls, moths, glow-worms, sea turtles and other night-creatures. Night Creatures was created in collaboration with writers and naturalists Robert Macfarlane and Yuvan Aves singing their resonating poetry into song.



HOWL

HOWL is a vocal ensemble from the UK. Hailing from a range of diverse musical backgrounds from opera to folk and musical theatre, brought together through a love of complex, lush, haunting and often absurd vocal music. The group performs original compositions along with arrangements of folk songs and works by composers such as Meredith Monk, Moondog and Caroline Shaw, often weaving in their own soundscapes and field recordings to the live shows. They recently released their second EP ‘Night Creatures’ on Cosmo Sheldrake’s Tardigrade Records, a collaboration with acclaimed nature writer Robert Macfarlane, which they celebrated with two sold out shows at London’s Kings Place. This collection of original compositions explores the life of certain nocturnal animals – moths and glow worms, for example, among them.

Their debut EP was produced by Cosmo Sheldrake and released on Tardigrade Records in 2022. HOWL also provided vocals on Cosmo’s album ‘Eye To The Ear’, are the featured artist on his track ‘The Feet Are The Link’ and they recently toured the UK opening for him at venues including two sold out dates at EartH Theatre in London.

Other live highlights so far include Smugglers Festival and a performance at the Tate Britain in a restating of Hannah O’Shea’s iconic feminist performance ’Litany of Women’ to mark the final day of the Women In Revolt exhibition. The group have also worked with artists such as Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler, Johnny Flynn, Mr Jukes and Barney Artist and Josephine Foster.

HOWL is Kate Huggett, Elly Condron, Natty Pela, Rose Stachniewska, Lydia Samuels, Rosalie Warner, Clay Slade, Helen Potter and Heloise Turnstall-Behrens.



Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is a bestselling, award-winning author who is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people and place. His books include Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind, as well as the book-length prose-poem, Ness. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, won prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theatre, radio and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated closely with artists including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, "The Lost Words" and "The Lost Spells." As a lyricist, he has written songs and albums with musicians including Cosmo Sheldrake, Karine Polwart and Johnny Flynn, with whom he has released two albums, "Lost In The Cedar Wood" and "The Moon Also Rises" and an EP, "Six Signs." He collaborated closely with Hayden Thorpe on Thorpe's 2024 album, "Ness", and with the vocal ensemble HOWL on a four-track EP called "Night Creatures", released in May 2024. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the EM Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2022 in Toronto he was the inaugural winner of the Weston International Award for a body of work in the field of non-fiction. Robert Macfarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and his new book, "Is A River Alive?", about the deaths and lives of rivers, is due out in May 2025.


7.15pm Museum open with handling collections of night creatures and bar open
8pm HOWL performance with Robert Macfarlane, including 'in conversation' with Rob Macfarlane and the band
9.30pm Museum open for more exploring of night creatures
10pm close




Co-promoted by Oxford Contemporary Music and Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Photo: Marika Kochiashvili


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OCM is supported using public funding by Arts Council England. OCM is a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner supported by PPL. Supported with funding from Oxford City Council. Affiliate Organisation of Oxford Brookes University.
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