woman.life.song @Wigmore

Without doubt the composition of my own that has brought the most complications in its wake is woman.life.song written in 1999 for the great American soprano Jessye Norman. For a start, the enormous libretto (by Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Clarissa Estes) resulted in a 45-minute continuous musical setting, daunting for all but the most powerful of singers. And its 19-piece band (the original idea was to team it up with Schoenberg's 'Erwartung') is hard to come by. Nevertheless, performances emerge every now and again; most recently by Andrea Baker and Chineke! at the 2021 Edinburgh Festival.

Thanks to another courageous and innovative performer, Gweneth Ann Rand, a couple of new versions are in sight. Birmingham Opera have been creating a new, staged, multi-singer production of the piece, which they will announce soon. But meanwhile, Gwen and pianist Simon Lepper are going to perform the whole cycle with its piano score, in Wigmore Hall this week (Tuesday 22 July, 7.30.) I don't believe 'woman.life.song' has been performed in its entirety as a duo before, and certainly not on such a major public stage.

Complicated or not, and independently of anything I do about it, this project, which many people thought crazy at the time, still bursts with life; thanks of course to its incomparable writers' team and the legendary singer who first made it all happen twenty-five years ago.

PICTURED: the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion, by Lina Ghotmeh