"I wrote the text long ago, but never really 'heard' it until a week ago when soprano Jeila Irdmusa sang it to me at a rehearsal for this Thursday's "Mythic Women" concert at Boston University [...] As a composer & librettist, the experience of hearing my own words coming back to me through another artist can be dramatic, and deeply personal.

 

When an artist interprets it powerfully, her artistry reveals my own work to me.  It comes back at me.  Not like a mirror – but as human expression: a personal story I’m listening to.

 

I hear her words, her story, her emotion. It’s familiar but heightened. As if, on the page, the music, the words have been slumbering and only truly wake when they’re performed by artists who make it their own."

 

 

"With singer Jeila Irdmusa, I often get the eerie feeling that she and I are two sides of one voice.  

 

As the composer, I give her a voice: the story, the words, the music on the page – and as a performer, she gives me my voice.

 

And for the first time, outside the page, as my words become hers, I truly hear the piece.

I hear myself. I finally get what I was aching to say.

And it often pierces me to the core."

 

- Grammy-Nominated Composer, Deborah Henson-Conant

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