"An extraordinary evening of original chamber works for soprano, harp, cello, piano, and clarinet by composer and world-renowned Grammy-nominated jazz harpist Deborah Henson-Conant."

 

-Arts Fuse 

 

 

"Thirty years ago, [Deborah Henson-Conant] wrote a one-woman “opera” for her aunt, a soprano. Henson-Conant was, she recalls, looking for her place in the world as a woman. The cliché that a witch was one way in which a woman could be powerful intrigued her, so she investigated the matter through a one-woman opera for which she wrote the music and lyrics, Songs of the Pyre. The composition was for operatic soprano, cello (because her best friend was a cellist) harp, and piano. The second opera was about a goddess, Persephone Lost. She chose these stories because, she says, “I needed to understand what was inside them.”

 

The two pieces were premiered in the ’80s, and then sat in a box. They were digitally transcribed from the handwritten scores in 2012. Good timing, indeed. At Boston University, harpist Barbara Poeschl-Edrich invited Deborah to collaborate in a concert featuring the works, and the results, coached mostly by Poeschl-Edrich, were on stage at CFA Concert Hall on May 1.

 

The performances were excellent, and the soprano, Jeila Irdmusa, was riveting. The other polished players were Szu-Ning Tai, harp; Yun-Yun Lin, cello, Ling Lo, piano, and Celine Ferro, clarinet.

 

In Songs of the Pyre, Henson-Conant reflects chillingly on the question, ‘What would she have experienced?’ if she was condemned to death because of accusations of witchcraft? The church document The Hammer of Witchcraft was published around 1486. Three hundred years later, some nine million people have been put to death after they were convicted of being witches. “The persecution of witches never dies,” Henson-Conant pointed out. The music is adroitly attuned to The Songs of a Pyre‘s dramatic and scary narrative, which introduces us to a woman, deeply religious and oblivious of her “crimes,” the horrific accusations of witchcraft, her torture, her acceptance that she should ‘confess’ to her crimes, and her final escape into madness.

 

The second composition was the one-woman, one-act opera Persephone Lost, with text and music by Henson-Conant, based on the Greek myth of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, who was abducted by Hades, King of the Underworld. “I didn’t write this piece,” Henson-Conant recalls, “to tell the ‘real’ story of Demeter – but for Demeter to relate the emotional story of her very real loss… In the classic myth, Persephone returns to the earth each year. Her journey between underworld and outerworld explains the seasons. But in real life it’s not always so… there’s not always a return. The loss is final.” The “desaparecidos” (the disappeared) children in Central and South Amercia were on Henson-Conant’s mind when she created the piece. The music is wonderful, with lovely clarinet licks and some beautiful harp and cello writing. The lyrics, sung powerfully by Jeila Irdmusa, were as affecting as the music.

 

The fascinating thing about experiencing these two operas, or duo of musical-theater pieces, is hearing where Henson-Conant was musically (and emotionally) in the early ’80s. I loved these two operas, and look forward to hearing them on YouTube. The texts are sophisticated, clever, and emotionally satisfying. Do the compositions deserve to be heard more often? The answer is yes, and hopefully with this ensemble, coached so well by Barbara Poeschl-Edrich."

 

-Arts Fuse