From the lark to the nightingale, village swallows and exotic species: Jun Märkl, who has enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership with the Tonkunstler Orchestra, leads the audience on a search for the birds in music history in this colourful programme, culminating in Ottorino Respighi's tone poem «Pines of Rome» The Italian composer was so keen on realism that at one point he intended to use recordings of the nightingale in this work. The soloist of the evening is the Japanese virtuoso Akiko Suwanai, who musically recreates the soaring flight of a lark in Ralph Vaughan Williams's touching romance.