Natalia Beylis

A blackbird at dawn inspired a living score: Natalia Beylis’ work, ‘Around Here, The Birds Plant The Trees’, is a 52-minute longform journey about land stewardship grown from the sounds and textures of a single field in Leitrim, Ireland. This recording of 'Around Here, The Birds Plant The Trees' captures the piece as it existed on Friday 12 December 2025. I mention a specific date, because the score for this work is constantly shifting and provides a new variation each time it is played, echoing the cyclical nature of the things that inspired it.

Natalia Beylis is a musician and composer based in County Leitrim, Ireland.  Largely known for her solo instrumental work and her sound collage work, ‘Around Here, The Birds Plant The Trees’ marks her first piece written for an ensemble. Developed with and performed by Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh - Viola, Eimear Reidy - Cello, Tóla Custy - Fiddle, Ultan O'Brien - Viola, Willie Stewart – Percussion with Natalia conducting, The acoustic music in this recording is the sound of a field and the sky full of life from dawn till dusk. Each note and pause evokes the rhythms of growth, decay and regeneration, inviting audiences to hear the land and its inhabitants as active participants in the music.

With this instrumental piece, Natalia hopes to highlight issues around land guardianship that personally affect both her and the land where she lives.  Specifically, issues related to the detrimental effects of monocultural commercial forestry.  The seed of this composition began as Natalia stood in a field in Leitrim at 6 a.m., looking across at a recently clear-felled wasteland and reflecting on a conversation with a farmer friend about how birds are the architects of the living landscape. Through strings and percussion 'Around Here, The Birds Plant The Trees' captures this interplay between personal stewardship, natural agency, and industrial impact.  The rustle of beetles in the hedgerow, the squeak of a leaning Sitka spruce, a lone curlew’s call — these became the pulse and melody of the composition. Birds, squirrels, wind, and human hands act as co-composers, inspiring a shifting soundworld of oaks, saplings, and human heartbeats. This is a piece about listening to the land, its past and possible futures, and your own place within it.

Natalia wanted to figure out how to affect positive change with this work and one of the ways is by donating a portion of the proceeds of sales from this album to ‘Save Leitrim’, a voluntary group of people based in Leitrim who are trying to change government policies which allow large multinational corporations to buy up land for monoculture Sitka Spruce plantations which are having a devastating effect on the environment, people and nature in many parts of County Leitrim and beyond.