Hollis Taylor

Hollis Taylor is an American-born Australian zoomusicologist and composer and a violinist and fiddler. She has argued that birdsong should be approached as music. In 2025 Taylor and her partner, Jon Rose, were recipients of the Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music.

Early life and education Taylor was born in the United States. She graduated from West Linn High School in West Linn, Oregon. She was the 1982 Oregon Old Time Fiddle Champion. During the 1980s and 1990s she headed the Hollis Taylor Band, an acoustic country trio, and was a member of other groups. She became concertmaster at Wolf Trap. She co-composed with Jon Rose Bitter Springs Creek 2014, which featured butcherbird songs she recorded in the MacDonnell Ranges in 2014

In 2017, she produced a double album, Absolute Bird, which featured birdsong, cane toad, and other field recordings.

In 2019, Taylor was appointed an Australia Research Council Future Fellow at Macquarie University.

Books

Is Birdsong Music? (2017). Indiana University Press.

Recognition In 2025 Taylor and her partner, Jon Rose, were awarded the Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music by the Australasian Performing Arts Association and the Australian Music Centre.

Personal life Taylor has lived in Sydney since 2002.