Owls on Stilts is the second movement of a six-movement, multi-composer work, Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds. The Hawaii Symphony commissioned six composers to each write one movement of a piece that would be paired with an animated story to raise awareness of the birds of Hawaii – their past, present and future.

With its humorous, lighthearted character, Owls on Stilts acts as a sort of comic relief for the overall work. The movement focuses on the now-extinct Grallistrix, a species of stilt-owl that succumbed to the forces of environmental change human settlers of Hawai’i first brought with them roughly a thousand years ago. This movement imagines children magically drawn into a world long ago, before humans arrived, when these curious, comical-looking creatures roamed the islands. A staid opening in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum yields to a playful and bouncy romp through the past, before returning to reality.