Out now via New Focus Recordings!
GEORGES APERGHIS: 14 RÉCITATIONS
GEORGES APERGHIS: 14 RÉCITATIONS
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ABOUT
14 Récitations is a solo album of Georges Aperghis’ 14 Récitations (1977-78), a concert-length avant-garde song cycle for unaccompanied female voice, performed by Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea. Abandoning traditional use of text, the 14 Récitations set phonemes and vocal sounds with atonality, extended vocal techniques, puzzles, and repetitions. Throughout the opus, the listener witnesses a woman attempting in many ways to speak, but not being understood, and thus trapped in her trauma. “We see and hear a singer realizing a musical score, but at the same time we witness somebody who can’t speak properly…” Aperghis writes. “That is the human dimension of this work. We see people in their daily life struggle, people who are not very healthy, people with trouble expressing themselves - elusive mental portraits en miniature.” The resulting work is an ode to the dynamism and humanity of the voice, but it is also a manifestation of the woman’s complex journey of personal authenticity in a patriarchal world. PRESS
"This is not simply music; it’s performance art of the highest caliber. There is singing, shouting, screaming, laughing, all manner of vocal emotion... Lamprea, a fearless genius of a performer, is constantly moving the goalposts and redefining modern music by tackling the most challenging compositions with bravura and passion." STEPHANIE LAMPREA CREATES A FEARLESS INTERPRETATION OF AN AVANT-GARDE SONG CYCLE' (Chris Ingalls, PopMatters.com, February 2023) "She's giving us vocal gymnastics in some of the most fiendish music ever written for solo voice... Incredible Colombian American Soprano Stephanie Lamprea getting right under the skin of the first of the 14 Recitations by Georges Aperghis... tapping into the extreme physicality and explosive expressiveness of that music." BBC SOUNDS: NEW MUSIC SHOW (Kate Molleson, BBC Radio 3, February 2023) |
"The young soprano achieves to 'humanize' the stress and schizophrenia present in the music, navigating them with naturalness and spontaneity due to the cycle's complex emotional landscape. Due, perhaps, to her operatic training, Lamprea emphasizes rightly the dramatic component of the fourteen pieces, carrying out with it a work of formal construction without precedents. It is surprising that a work like this, whose text —as Tim Rutherford-Johnson rightly points out in his notes—“at best teeters on the edge of intelligibility”, becomes so intelligible and communicative in her hands."
"With this album, Lamprea demonstrates that she not only has a solid vocal technique and great musical intelligence, but she also possesses ambition, courage and a curiosity that, in view of her other projects, seems insatiable; a set of aptitudes that, if she continues like this, augurs a very promising future for her."
APERGHIS: RECITATIONS
(Jesus Castañer, Scherzo España, March 2023)
"Lamprea ventures onto the highly virtuosic black-ice of whispering, whistling, breathing, hissing, screaming, and (a few) sung notes. Her tour-de-force is a sportive vocal adventure of impressive proportions."
VIRTUOSES GLATTEIS
(Concerti.de, March 2023)
"Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea goes all out in this forceful new account, where her virtuosity is complemented by total commitment and vivid imagination."
THE BEST CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL ON BANDCAMP: FEBRUARY 2023
(Peter Margasak, Bandcamp.com, March 2023)
RECITATIONS & RECITALISTS: STEPHANIE LAMPREA SINGS APERGHIS
(ArkivMusic.com, April 2023)
"With this album, Lamprea demonstrates that she not only has a solid vocal technique and great musical intelligence, but she also possesses ambition, courage and a curiosity that, in view of her other projects, seems insatiable; a set of aptitudes that, if she continues like this, augurs a very promising future for her."
APERGHIS: RECITATIONS
(Jesus Castañer, Scherzo España, March 2023)
"Lamprea ventures onto the highly virtuosic black-ice of whispering, whistling, breathing, hissing, screaming, and (a few) sung notes. Her tour-de-force is a sportive vocal adventure of impressive proportions."
VIRTUOSES GLATTEIS
(Concerti.de, March 2023)
"Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea goes all out in this forceful new account, where her virtuosity is complemented by total commitment and vivid imagination."
THE BEST CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL ON BANDCAMP: FEBRUARY 2023
(Peter Margasak, Bandcamp.com, March 2023)
RECITATIONS & RECITALISTS: STEPHANIE LAMPREA SINGS APERGHIS
(ArkivMusic.com, April 2023)
ARTIST BIO
Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer, recitalist, curator, and improviser, specializing in contemporary classical repertoire. Trained as an operatic coloratura, she uses her voice as a mechanism of avant-garde performance art, creating “maniacal shifts of vocal production and character… like an icepick through the skull” (Jason Eckardt). Stephanie has received awards from the Concert Artist Guild, St. Botolph Club Foundation, the John Cage Orgel Stiftung, the Puffin Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Stephanie has performed as a soloist at IKLECTIK (London), Sound Scotland's 2021 soundfestival, Roulette Intermedium (New York City), Constellation Chicago, National Sawdust (NYC), and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 2022, Stephanie released her debut solo album, Quaking Aspen, in 2022, featuring new works for voice and electronics by Jason Eckardt, Wang Lu, Kurt Rohde, Hannah Selin, George N. Gianopoulos, and James May. The album was hailed by PopMatters.com as "a bold artistic statement that’s exciting and innovative... a magical, intense, and deeply satisfying journey." As a passionate educator and speaker, Stephanie has taught and performed in residency for several universities including the University of California at Davis, Temple University, and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She has presented her artistic research and performances for the 2021 Young Women Composers Conference (USA) and the 2021 Shared Narratives Conference (UK), and she was a featured TEDx Speaker for TEDxWaltham: Going Places. http://www.stephanielamprea.com/
Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer, recitalist, curator, and improviser, specializing in contemporary classical repertoire. Trained as an operatic coloratura, she uses her voice as a mechanism of avant-garde performance art, creating “maniacal shifts of vocal production and character… like an icepick through the skull” (Jason Eckardt). Stephanie has received awards from the Concert Artist Guild, St. Botolph Club Foundation, the John Cage Orgel Stiftung, the Puffin Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Stephanie has performed as a soloist at IKLECTIK (London), Sound Scotland's 2021 soundfestival, Roulette Intermedium (New York City), Constellation Chicago, National Sawdust (NYC), and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 2022, Stephanie released her debut solo album, Quaking Aspen, in 2022, featuring new works for voice and electronics by Jason Eckardt, Wang Lu, Kurt Rohde, Hannah Selin, George N. Gianopoulos, and James May. The album was hailed by PopMatters.com as "a bold artistic statement that’s exciting and innovative... a magical, intense, and deeply satisfying journey." As a passionate educator and speaker, Stephanie has taught and performed in residency for several universities including the University of California at Davis, Temple University, and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She has presented her artistic research and performances for the 2021 Young Women Composers Conference (USA) and the 2021 Shared Narratives Conference (UK), and she was a featured TEDx Speaker for TEDxWaltham: Going Places. http://www.stephanielamprea.com/