PROGRAM NOTE & PREMIERE HISTORY

“So, like a child after its mother, I flutter.” - Sappho

‘Awakened Flutters’ is a collection of duos retracing Sappho’s fragments in Ancient Greek where the violin and soprano seamlessly interchange their voices, awakening the new, here and now, bringing this ancient language out of sleeping.

The first five pieces were composed soon after I felt the first flutter of my baby within the womb at the beginning of the pregnancy. The live performance premiered in Laurindo, Brazil (2017) in the Capela Santa Maria, with Kaoko Amano (soprano) and Marianna Oczkowska (violin), just a couple weeks after the birth of my daughter.

Part 2, A Silver Birth, was composed in memory of the birth which happened over a full bright, silvery moon in the middle of a hot Summer.

“The stars about the full moon lose their bright beauty when she, almost full, illumines all earth with silver.” – Sappho

Part 3, Crown Thy Earth, is in reflection of this world which nurtures us, and keeps us safe, if we respect and honour her as Mother Earth.

Part 4, Holy Temple, is an encounter amongst the icy water babbling through apple branches, a journey to a temple set in quiet nature, in the ancient world beyond.

Part 5, Sappho’s Echo, are fragments, reminisces that are “in a thin voice”, between the flute and voice, where the immediacy of the flute voice extends itself to the fragment, lost in time and space, and erupting into a new kind of meaning, like floating on the wings of birdsong. The ancient Greek is no longer heard as a sentence, but as syllables of these poetic utterances, melting into the flute song.