No tails required, but bow ties, evening dresses and a few good voices. As with a sweet wine, every droplet counts and I am very much looking forward to the whole 15 seconds of the sung grace tonight – as well as the rest of the celebrations of course! For the occasion of the Luxembourg Society’s 75th anniversary Royal Gala Dinner today, Tuesday 14th November,I have set benedictus benedicat for SATB choir. Tonight, another premiere is taking place in the heart of London. Get a festival pass and enjoy a few more days of contemporary goodness or stand by on the evening to grab a last-minute ticket. I will be in conversation with Lydia Rilling, the dramaturg of the Philharmonie and the brain behind the festival, as well as James Weeks, the director of EXAUDI, just before the concert at 19.45. The premier of Il Floridoro – Canto 4 can be heard this Thursday, 16th November, as part of the “Italian Madrigal Book” concert.
About 450 years later and Fonte’s words still resonate as she addresses fathers “not to consign to a lower station but to set her to tasks just like sons…for when confined to ordinary training, her education brings her small esteem.” Hear, hear! Equal opportunities and the education of girls is a topical subject and one close to my heart, and so I’m delighted to have stumbled upon a text by Renaissance poet Modesta da Pozzo, known under the pseudonym of Moderata Fonte (1555-1592), which superbly expresses the problematics of women’s social status in her time and vents her own feminist sentiments. For this year’s HOW DOES IT FEEL? – themed Rainy Days Festival, the Philharmonie Luxembourg have commissioned me to compose a new work for vocal ensemble EXAUDI. With nearly 800 million people illiterate in the world, two thirds of which are women, literacy is unfortunately still far from being the birthright of everyone.
She is perhaps no Frank Louis Neuhauser yet – he won the first spelling bee in 1925 by successfully spelling “gladiolus” – but her DIY Botanicum gives a great insight into a five-year-old’s mind and the process of connecting sound and meaning, something I find fascinating as a mother and composer. Little E has been keeping a gardening notebook where she jots down “fackts ubowt flowus” and curiosities of “muvu naychu” which wouldn’t go amiss in Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood. AUTUMN 2017 CATTAIL – TATTLETALE – VIKING CAT – TAIL, FIR, HAT
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