In Rome, I have been working on a commission for voice and orchestra that I will premiere next season with the New York Philharmonic. A twist on the ancient legend of Orpheus, this piece uses theatricality, self-reflectiveness, the juxtaposition of musical extremes, and the materiality of sound in the service of musical storytelling. For Open Studios, I will perform an earlier piece of mine that makes use all of these same elements: Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say for flute and voice, with text by Lydia Davis, alongside flutist Audrey Perreault. This duo holds a special place in my heart, as it marked the beginning of an ongoing search for ways to communicate multiple simultaneous meanings as both a composer and a performer.

Bio

Described by the New Yorker as "one of the great originals of her generation," composer/performer/writer Kate Soper has been creating unique and uncategorizable musico-theatrical spectacles for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Koussevitzky Foundations and has been featured as a composer/performer on the LA Phil Green Umbrella series, Chicago Symphony MusicNOW, and New York Philharmonic CONTACT series. Her large-scale works include the monodramas Voices from the Killing Jar and IPSA DIXIT as well as the operas Here Be Sirens, The Romance of the Rose, and The Hunt. She is the vocalist and Co-Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble.

Audrey G. Perreault is a Canadian new music flute player based in Vienna, Austria, who is interested in using the voice with the modern flute. She completed a Doctorate in flute performance in 2015 at Université de Montréal (Ca) with Lise Daoust and, from 2019 to 2020, studied with the musicians of Klangforum Wien during postgraduate studies at the Kunsuniversität Graz (Performance Practice in Contemporary Music). She is a founder of the Austrian quartet between feathers (At) and LaKT ensemble (At), as well as a member of the Quasars Ensemble (Sk). G. Perreault works with ensembles such as Schallfeld Ensemble, Ensemble Reconsil, Ensemble XXI. Jahrhundert, Ensemble N and performed in worldwide festivals such as La Semaine du Neuf in Montreal, Wien Modern in Vienna, Melos-Ethos in Bratislava and New Music Forum in Ljubljana.