Music Composed by Jessica Roch, with performances by Jessica Roch, Catriona Bourne and Caroline Lyons. Mixed and Mastered by Adam Znaidi. With thanks to Streetlight, Kensho Productions, Takudzwa Musavengana and Joe Swallow
Pandemonium – Creating Music for Birds
Parakeets are social beings. They want to communicate; with us, with other birds. Tragically, a lot of the vitriol directed towards them is because their “invasive” song doesn’t fit in the “British birdsong cannon”. This is despite the intricacies of Parakeet language, their propensity to develop new and novel vernaculars in different regions.
A group of Parakeets is known as a Pandemonium. Pandemonium can mean uproar, excitement, or chaos. But parakeets convening together is only disordered to the human ear. To fellow parakeets, an intricate chorus of complex speech is unfurling. Collaborating with musician and composer Jessica Roch, I set out to find ways to communicate with Parakeets in a more-than-human way. The result is Pandemonium: Music for Parakeets.
Pandemonium is a two-part written for flute, soprano, violin, synthesisers and electronics, using the language of London’s parakeets as source material. The live performance features two movements - Contact Calls and Eeyores - and is scored using a hybrid of traditional notation and graphic elements. The hybrid score, with graphic elements created by Christie Swallow, mirrors the birds’ textural vocalisations.
In Pandemonium, the flute, violin and soprano perform the parakeet "language" itself, while various synthesisersevoke the urban soundscapes and environments the birds have learned to thrive in.
The arranging process involved transcribing birdsong in multiple ways, as their calls are open to interpretation. Slowed down, they reveal hidden slides and rhythmic detail. Composing for a non-human audience posed a unique challenge - but within the perceived chaos, the birds revealed a compelling logic all their own.
Pandemonium was performed to the Parakeets at Clapham Common Bandstand in April 2025.
There is a rich history of communicating across species boundaries. However many initiatives focussed on either making animals approximate human speech, or dictatorially talking to animals. Tis project wanted to allow humans to speak Parakeet.
Humans were invited to Pandemonium, but they weren't the main audience. The concert was designed to privilege the Parakeets' line of sight over the humans', using eye catching textiles to shield performers from the wind while not infringing on the sightline from the tree canopies where Paraeets hang out.
Pandemonium was initially performed by Soprano, Violin, and Flute. The Flute and Violin components harmonised to mimic the Parakeet's Syrinx - a two-sided "voice box".
