#3 of our series of 2015 festival previews

Dean is following in the footsteps of Tate and Sculthorpe, as well as living composers such as John Rodgers and David Lumsdaine, who are among several Australians who appear to have created a modern tradition of celebrating birdsong in their works. With the dynamic young Aurora Orchestra, who specialise in playing from memory, expect a powerful sense of direct communication with the audience.

Later this month Chris Dingle will describe how he brought the piece to life in a guest blog for NATURAL LIGHT. He will also be speaking at a pre-concert event at the Royal College of Music, which will be broadcast on Radio 3 during the interval.

Those whose southward route from Canada takes them across Lake Superior suddenly change direction halfway across the vast lake, lengthening their non-stop flight over water considerably, for no apparent reason. Biologists, and some geologists, believe that a mountain once blocked the monarchs' path. The most energy-efficient route had them veering east around it before turning south again. The mountain wore down over millions of years, but evolution has not caught up. The butterflies still make their detour.

Music and great nature broadcasting are two of the BBC’s biggest reasons to exist, and the Proms is the natural place to bring the two together, in a concert of music from the series Life Story, composed by Murray Gold. Sir David Attenborough and members of the production team present footage from the series in a Sunday afternoon family concert on 30 August.
You can read NATURAL LIGHT's feature series on the 2014 Proms here, and keep up with the nature featured in this year's festival in a forthcoming series of articles and reviews.