JASMIN ALLPRESS

2026 Year of Birdsong

Welcome to this new undertaking for 2026! Each month I will be recording and creating a combined musical portrait of birdsong and piano, interweaving music and the natural world. Please enjoy following this throughout the year as I wander into new and exciting territory...

February

Mid-February I headed out of London with a friend in search of somewhere more rural, with the hope that we’d find a quieter place to capture birdsong and avoid the sounds of traffic. I’d seen on google maps that there was an RSPB site near Tunbridge Wells - Broadwater Warren. Ever the idealist, I pictured being surrounded by such an infinite number of birds that I wouldn’t be able to choose between them. The reality was that after the constant rain of this year the ground was sodden and much of the reserve was cordoned off, presumably due to flooding. The best we could do was wade through bog and laugh about it afterwards.

However, it wasn’t a trip wasted as we stumbled across a patch of private woodland near to the reserve, giving way to an eerily sparse collection of trees and the sound of a singular robin. I was struck by the way the robin sings, he chatters and then pauses. There is a rhythm to his tune in that he always leaves silence in between his utterances. It made me think about space, and the reality of recording birds in that you also record their environment. I’m closer to accepting that anywhere remotely near a major city picks up the sounds of aeroplanes and traffic. In a way it seems fitting to capture these birds in the surrounds of their authentic habitat, whatever that sound may be.

I wanted to mimic the robin’s chatter in my own playing and took the words of an Emily Dickinson poem as inspiration - there develops a melody from it which is repeated and altered in various ways throughout. The thing I love most about this recording is that it captures a duet right at the very start - between the robin and what I think is a great tit. They speak in each others’ silences and organically overlap. In a way it gave me a blueprint for duetting with a robin from the beginning.

The Robin is the One

by Emily Dickinson

The Robin is the One
That interrupt the Morn
With hurried — few — express Reports
When March is scarcely on —

The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon
With her cherubic quantity —
An April but begun —

The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest
Submit that Home — and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best

January

It’s January 31st and the first month of a year long project I’ve decided to undertake: each month recording a bird’s song and improvising with it on the piano, then piecing them together as one musical offering.

I have always loved the sound of birds, even though I’d be hard pressed to identify any on mere sound alone beyond the immediately obvious blackbird, crow, robin and the occasional chiffchaff. Living in the city can often feel isolating and the sound of birdsong on a dull day is a breath of fresh air. Birds symbolise a life beyond the confines of tarmacked roads and continually growing infrastructure, and it always feels such a relief to hear them. As a pianist I am fascinated by the music of their calls, the variety of songs and their interweaving voices as they layer on top of one another - an inter species improvisation. I am curious as to how the piecing together of music from person and creature sits, does this give a new context to the bird’s song, do they act as a duet? Each month is intended as a sketch of sorts, a musical experiment and a snapshot into the year’s calendar - twelve reflections as the earth moves through it’s annual cycle.

Over Christmas 2025 I decided to gift myself a portable audio recorder and set out to record birdsong in whichever form it appeared - tuning into the nuances and individual languages of these birds and learning to recognise them by sound. I began on one of the first days in January keen to catch the early risers, so as the sun was breaking, I headed for the woods. No agenda, my ears and mind were open to whoever sang. There was one song that rose above the rest, a unique array of calls, lighthearted and spontaneous. I pressed record. What I heard was an incredible beauty and elegance. Yet, it struck me how much human interference the recorder also picked up: aeroplanes, trains, sirens and so many motorbikes. It seems obvious that noise pollution would exist in the city, but I had never heard it so loudly before. It seemed cruel that these birds who have existed long before us are offered such a harsh accompaniment to their songs of the morning. I took myself home once the woodland was sufficiently lit and the dawn chorus had simmered down. I uploaded the files and listened through to what I’d recorded. It upset me how many of the recordings felt unusable, consumed by the sounds of commuter traffic. What I managed to salvage you hear on this first track, a short minute and a half of song which I hope captures the essence of this magnificent bird. After much research, I believe this to be a song thrush. Resident in the UK all year round, the song thrush is a woodland bird often heard at first light and as darkness falls at the end of the day. The male’s song includes over a hundred different phrases which they repeat two or three times before continuing with a new phrase. I played around with a few different ideas on the piano and settled on something which is a Satie-esque take on the thrush’s repeated phrases.

As Robert Browning wrote:

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!