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Classica (France)

Modern-day feminist demands are sometimes seen by some as excessive in their outrageousness. But, when we come across a new piece like Great Women, a work for voice and electronics by Irish composer Gráinne Mulvey, we can only applaud with both hands in the light of such audacity which has created a success full of panache. Celebrating women who were politically engaged for an independent Ireland like the “Red Countess” Constance Markievicz, the insurgent trade unionist Rosie Hackett, and the former presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, Gráinne Mulvey produces a captivating vocal piece handling with finesse the sculpturing of musique concrète.

Between the fragments of texts from these remarkable women, and sometimes on top of it, the soprano Elizabeth Hilliard uses different vocal techniques, such as overtone singing, vocalizations or narrative fragmentation, to project the expressiveness of this piece, taking it out of the political manifesto to go elsewhere, to a visceral poetic horizon.

Keen on microtonality and very well versed in the electroacoustic field, the composer handles electronics with a highly masterful inventiveness to create a universe of psychic compression presenting these vocal expressions in a grand sonority. Nobly, the Métier label is releasing the 26 minutes of these Great Women on CD, a piece where time does not count in the face of the intensity of the inner journey.