With their brand new string-laden single ‘Two Of Us’ in the iTunes top 3, Birds Of Tokyo are excited to announce a handful of special concerts with three of Australia’s most prestigious Symphony Orchestras.
Each night the five piece will be joined by over 50 of the country’s best classical musicians for an evening that showcases brand new music as well as reinterpretations of some signature Birds Of Tokyo classics. Appropriately the tour will commence in Perth, where the band was founded over 15 years ago before heading east for strictly limited performances in Melbourne and Sydney.
WEST AUSTRALIAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
FRI MAY 1 / PERTH CONCERT HALL
SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
THU MAY 7 & FRI MAY 8 / SYDNEY TOWN HALL
SAT MAY 9 / SYDNEY COLISEUM THEATRE, WEST HQ
MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
WED JUNE 3 & THU JUNE 4
ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE, HAMER HALL
“We’ve wanted to do this ever since we collaborated with much smaller ensembles on our Broken Strings tour a decade ago”, explains the group’s guitarist, songwriter and producer Adam Spark. “Obviously lots of artists do orchestral tours where they basically just play all their hits but this is a genuine collaboration on new music as well and that makes it a pretty unique creative experience for us. It’s daunting to be playing with such gifted musicians but it’s also a privilege so we really want to make the most of this opportunity.”
The dates will take place in the iconic seated venues that these Symphonies call home so the shows will be in marked contrast to the massive outdoor concerts the band has done over the last 6 weeks supporting Cold Chisel in parks, wineries and stadiums across Australia.
“The fact that Birds Of Tokyo can pivot from playing summer festival events with a classic rock band to playing concert halls with Symphony Orchestras is testament to both their music’s broad appeal and the different creative possibilities their work presents” said Natalie De Biasi of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. “The Orchestras are looking forward to doing something very different at these shows.”
Renowned arranger and conductor Nicholas Buc will work on the orchestrations. Nicholas has worked with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Chris Botti, Amanda Palmer, Missy Higgins and Ben Folds. In 2019 he teamed up with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, arranging their film music for a new show with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Birds Of Tokyo are Australia’s most successful contemporary rock band. Since forming in Perth over 15 years ago they have enjoyed chart topping albums and had eleven singles make Triple J’s prestigious “Hottest 100” including their uplifting anthems ‘Plans’ and ‘Lanterns’. They have won APRA’s songwriting award for “Rock Work Of The Year” an extraordinary six times since 2012. The group enjoyed a particularly successful time of late after their inspiring song ‘Unbreakable’ was the theme for the Invictus Games at the end of 2018. They followed that up in 2019 with two of their biggest ever hits – ‘Good Lord’ and ‘The Greatest Mistakes’ – which both provided some much needed catharsis for singer, Ian Kenny’ following a traumatic marriage breakup. Now the band is riding high on the charts once again with ‘The Two Of Us’ – an epic waltz that Channel 7 chose to use to promote their forthcoming AFL season. Birds Of Tokyo have made it clear that all these singles are building toward a highly anticipated new studio album.