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The Arts Intel Report

For the Birds: The Birdsong Project—A Special Preview

May 25, 2022
15 Gramercy Park S, New York, NY 10003, United States

Randall Poster is a Grammy Award-winning music supervisor who works in the worlds of film and television. For a recent project close to his heart, however, he’s channeled his inner Cecil B. De Mille. The list of friends who’ve taken part in his avian-inspired burst of creativity—titled For the Birds: The Birdsong Project—reads like a cast of thousands (well, 242). Musicians from Yo-Yo Ma to Elvis Costello to Beck, actors Tilda Swinton, Matthew McConaughey, and Sean Penn, are among the many who have composed music and song, recited poetry and prose for the 20 albums on the project’s five-volume set. Poster woke up to birds during the pandemic, when there was little else to do but stare out the window and birdwatch. When he learned of the perils they face—the one-two punch of habitat loss and climate change—he decided to celebrate the music of birds while drawing attention to the ways they are threatened. On May 25, at the National Arts Club, Poster and Warby Parker are previewing The Birdsong Project with an evening of hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and live performances. Six-thirty to eight-thirty P.M. —Laura Jacobs