GEORGES APERGHIS
​14 RECITATIONS

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Stephanie Lamprea, ​soprano

Stephanie Lamprea: Aperghis Récitations is the second solo album of Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea. This album encapsulates a five-year journey that Lamprea has taken with the work, allowing the work to shape her into the artist she is today. She has toured the work in the United States and Europe, and she has choreographed the work for multi-disciplinary settings. This album recording of the Recitations will be released in 2023.

ABOUT 14 RECITATIONS

 Georges Aperghis’ 14 Récitations is one of the most innovative and ambitious cycles in modern vocal repertoire. Not often performed in its entirety, the 45-minute non-semantic song cycle for unaccompanied voice has revitalized modern classical repertoire, rematerialized the voice as a dynamic instrument, and challenged the role of the performing vocalist. “Devoid of a semantic text and a classical Western vocal timbre,” composer Erin Gee asks, “how do composers conceptualize the role or purpose of the voice? What is the role of these non-semantic vocal utterances once they have been removed from a semantic and cultural context?” 14 Récitations sets non-semantic text with virtuosic movements of atonality, extended vocal techniques, puzzles, and repetitions. As Aperghis writes, “We see and hear a singer realizing a musical score, but at the same time we witness somebody who can’t speak properly... 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.”

Each movement of the 14 Récitations is a unique ode to the dynamism of the voice. These scores include structured improvisations, timbral collages, complex and rapid combinations of phonemes and extended techniques, and graphic scores shaped as triangles. Throughout the opus of non-semantic music are momentary slivers of translation which reveal a woman struggling to speak, but still communicating the meaning of her personal trauma. In studying linguistics, philosopher Mladen Dolar argues that “what singles out the voice against the vast oceans of sounds and noises, what defines the voice as special among the infinite array of acoustic phenomena, is its inner relationship with meaning… the voice has an intimate connection with meaning, it is a sound which appears to be endowed in itself with the will to ‘say something,’ with an inner intentionality.” All of the utterances of the voice do truly “say something”, and Aperghis excavates their inherent meaning in the creation of the 14 Récitations, a composition that redefines how the modern classical vocalist can communicate as a corporeal and transformative instrument.
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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/

PRESS

"On her debut solo album Quaking Aspen, Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea makes a bold artistic statement that’s exciting and innovative."

"...startlingly gifted soprano..."

"Quaking Aspen is an unusual yet fascinating, deeply enjoyable work of art and can be compared to difficult-to-interpret postmodern tomes. Like the dense novels of William Gaddis or Thomas Pynchon, enjoyment of it requires a particular frame of mind, but once it clicks, Quaking Aspen is a magical, intense, and deeply satisfying journey."

STEPHANIE LAMPREA FILTERS POETRY THROUGH BOLD VOCAL INTERPRETATION ON 'QUAKING ASPEN'
(PopMatters.com, January 2022)

“There was really wonderful layering between the synths and the overdubbed voices, and the voice that was reciting the poetry, the melody as it moved very sinuously through all sorts of keys and modes, really drew the ear in."

BBC SOUNDS: FREENESS - Imagist Visions
(BBC Radio 3, January 2022)

"Quaking Aspen showcases Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea’s incredible range. The new works on the album, which were composed for Lamprea and highlight poetry by female writers from the 19th through 21st centuries, feature everything from exquisite melodies to jagged-edged squeals to ominous hums. The focal point throughout is Lamprea’s vocals: She effortlessly switches tones and styles on every track, painting theatrical, detailed pictures that only need one thing to feel vivid—her voice." 

JANUARY 2022 IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
(The Road to Sound, February 2022)