The Birds Belong to All of Us

This piece for wordless voice and small ensemble was composed as part of Ellen Reid’s Soundwalk, a site-specific work created for urban parks around the world. The title comes from Christian Cooper, a black birdwatcher whose confrontation with a white dogwalker in Central Park, New York, in 2020 made headlines around the world and on social media. In the piece, Reid’s music imitates the birdsong of the various species that Cooper listed in an interview with her, the final words of the interview giving the work its title.