Opera Today has published a fantastic new piece looking at Gráinne Mulvey’s Great Women work for voice and electronics, recorded by soprano Elizabeth Hilliard. The article looks at the women whose words are heard as part of the piece, and breaks down the new recording:
Elizabeth Hilliard’s performance is a veritable tour de force of vocal sound, experimentation and expression. In conversation, the Irish soprano explained to me that, as a soprano, she has been working with Gráinne Mulvey (who is a member of Aosdána and Professor of Composition at Trinity University Dublin Conservatoire of Music) for over a decade now. Her initial musical training did not, however, begin in the field of vocal studies. When an injury prevented her continuing her studies in piano and violin, Elizabeth switched to the voice, supported by a very active vocal department at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. She worked to improve her German and French language skills, to develop her vocal and operatic technique, but her curiosity about contemporary music was strong. “I always wanted to explore contemporary repertoire as a pianist,” Elizabeth explains, “but I wasn’t good enough. There is just so much information to absorb and process; but, with singing there was an immediate and instinctive path into the music.”
A new mini-album or ‘EP’ is to be launched later this year by Métier, the new-music division of Divine Art Recordings. The sole work on the new recording is the 25-minute ‘Great Women’, for voice and electronics, by Irish composer Gráinne Mulvey, performed by Elizabeth Hilliard.
This work was commissioned by the Great Music in Irish Houses Festivalto mark its 50th anniversary in 2020 with funds from the Arts Council / An Comhairle Ealaíon, which also gave financial support to the recording project. The recording is to be made in Dublin in February and will be released to coincide with the Great Music in Irish Houses Festival 2021 in June.
The piece is a celebration of the strong, remarkable Irish women who have helped shape the social and political landscape through their striving for equality and liberation. Among those whose words are set are pioneering patriots such as Countess Markievicz and Rosie Hackett, alongside such equally inspiring contemporary figures as Ireland’s former Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, extracts from whose inaugural speeches are embedded in the textures of the live and tape parts.
The tape part includes readings from Markievicz’ letters and excerpts from Rosie Hackett’s account of events leading up to the 1916 Rising. The readings were recorded by renowned soprano, Elizabeth Hilliard, for whom this work was written and to whom it is gratefully dedicated.
Almost all sounds on the tape derive from those recordings treated in the manner of musique concrète (with just a very few “atmospheric” field recordings added), while the live part uses many extended vocal techniques such as overtone singing, fragmentation of text, vocalise, etc. The aim is to integrate the recorded sounds and live voice into a single continuum, giving the work a sense of unity reflecting the shared vision, aspiration—and, above all, struggle—of generations of Irish women through the last century.
Both composer and performer have earned recognition for their fine work in the contemporary music field, whether in concerts, recordings, teaching or adjudication. Gráinne Mulvey was born in Dublin, studied under Nicola LeFanu at the University of York and in Belfast with Agustin Fernández. She was appointed Professor of Composition at Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2018. Her music has been performed and broadcast across the globe, she has received numerous commissions and several of her works have been recorded by both Métier and other labels. Elizabeth Hilliard is an exceptional singer based in Dublin, widely regarded as an able, imaginative and dramatic interpreter of new music. She has worked in close collaboration with several composers and champions Irish art music and composers and is beginning to achieve recognition in the UK and USA as well as her native country.
Great Women (MDS 29007)
Work: Great Women
Composer: Gráinne Mulvey
Performer: Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano) with electronics
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