ECSTATIC VISIONS
Stephanie Lamprea, soprano | Alistair MacDonald, live electronics
Album released via Neuma Records on 20 February 2026
Label Catalog Number: Neuma 247 | UPC Code: 766162778477
Stephanie Lamprea, soprano | Alistair MacDonald, live electronics
Album released via Neuma Records on 20 February 2026
Label Catalog Number: Neuma 247 | UPC Code: 766162778477
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LINKS AND FILES:
High-res COVER ART Duo High-res HEADSHOT 1 and HEADSHOT 2 Stephanie High-res HEADSHOT 1, HEADSHOT 2 and HEADSHOT 3 Alistair High-res HEADSHOT 1 and HEADSHOT 2 Album DIGITAL BOOKLET and LINER NOTES Album ONE SHEET Ecstatic Visions is an album of new and recent works for voice and electronics performed by soprano Stephanie Lamprea and electronic musician Alistair MacDonald, featuring music by Angélica Negrón, Alistair MacDonald, Wende Bartley, Eric Chasalow, and Robert Laidlow. The record explores creation of myths, visions, and confessions, sourcing texts from mystics Hildegard von Bingen and Juana Inés de la Cruz to post-singular AI-generated texts, situating historical figures and modern technology together as oracles and worldbuilders. |
'...the question arises across the whole of this recording: who does a voice belong to once it enters the digitised space? In their collaboration, Lamprea and MacDonald show that even in a completely digital world, it can retain its capacity for intimacy, politics, selfhood, vision and creation.' - Tim Rutherford-Johnson, album liner notes for Ecstatic Visions
ALBUM LIVE PERFORMANCES
26 February: Ledger Recital Room, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
27 February: Inspace Gallery, Edinburgh
26 February: Ledger Recital Room, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
27 February: Inspace Gallery, Edinburgh
MUSICAL WORKS
Angélica Negrón’s Letras para cantar (2019) is an atmospheric and sensual setting of poetry by Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th-century writer, philosopher, composer, poet, and nun from New Spain nicknamed "The Tenth Muse" by contemporary critics. Originally composed for ModernMedieval, this arrangement features three voices (all recorded by Lamprea) and fixed media.
Alistair MacDonald’s Ecstatic Visions (2023-25) forges the sounds of Glasgow Cathedral’s great bell with Hildegard von Bingen’s writings on gemstones and healing, a letter to a Benedictine monk, her visions, and two of her antiphons, in a series of kaleidoscopic, multi-channel illusions. Hildegard was revered not only as a nun, but a ‘visionary, mystic, healer, linguist, poet, artist, musician, playwright, biographer, theologian, preacher and spiritual counsellor’ (Priscilla Throop) and has been described as the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
Wende Bartley’s Ellipsis (1988) maps the three stages of the moon (waxing, full, and waning), in association with three archetypes of woman (virgin, mother, and crone), in a ‘ritual celebration of spiritual power, rooted in the ancient traditions of lunar mythology... chronicling the spiritual and psychological empowerment of woman’s collective consciousness as it has evolved through time: The Age of Darkness, Creating a New Space, and The Age of Resonance.’ (Bartley, Ymx média).
Eric Chasalow’s “The Fury of Beautiful Bones” (1984) comes from his cycle The Furies. Setting poetry by Anne Sexton, this work explores the complexity of loss of love and endurance of the body and memory through the personification of bones.
Robert Laidlow’s Post-Singularity Songs (2023-24) is a set of artefacts and stories from this world. At its heart is a creation myth, which tells of how the world began, what reality is made of, and how the beings inside it came to be conscious. Much of the text is derived from conversations with the worldbuilding AI and from a specially created poetry-generating AI called GPT-Pyron. Returning certain ideas continually such as the sun, dust, death, time, and free will, Laidlow develops the results of GBT-Pyron further through poetry by Emily Dickinson and John Donne.
Angélica Negrón’s Letras para cantar (2019) is an atmospheric and sensual setting of poetry by Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th-century writer, philosopher, composer, poet, and nun from New Spain nicknamed "The Tenth Muse" by contemporary critics. Originally composed for ModernMedieval, this arrangement features three voices (all recorded by Lamprea) and fixed media.
Alistair MacDonald’s Ecstatic Visions (2023-25) forges the sounds of Glasgow Cathedral’s great bell with Hildegard von Bingen’s writings on gemstones and healing, a letter to a Benedictine monk, her visions, and two of her antiphons, in a series of kaleidoscopic, multi-channel illusions. Hildegard was revered not only as a nun, but a ‘visionary, mystic, healer, linguist, poet, artist, musician, playwright, biographer, theologian, preacher and spiritual counsellor’ (Priscilla Throop) and has been described as the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
Wende Bartley’s Ellipsis (1988) maps the three stages of the moon (waxing, full, and waning), in association with three archetypes of woman (virgin, mother, and crone), in a ‘ritual celebration of spiritual power, rooted in the ancient traditions of lunar mythology... chronicling the spiritual and psychological empowerment of woman’s collective consciousness as it has evolved through time: The Age of Darkness, Creating a New Space, and The Age of Resonance.’ (Bartley, Ymx média).
Eric Chasalow’s “The Fury of Beautiful Bones” (1984) comes from his cycle The Furies. Setting poetry by Anne Sexton, this work explores the complexity of loss of love and endurance of the body and memory through the personification of bones.
Robert Laidlow’s Post-Singularity Songs (2023-24) is a set of artefacts and stories from this world. At its heart is a creation myth, which tells of how the world began, what reality is made of, and how the beings inside it came to be conscious. Much of the text is derived from conversations with the worldbuilding AI and from a specially created poetry-generating AI called GPT-Pyron. Returning certain ideas continually such as the sun, dust, death, time, and free will, Laidlow develops the results of GBT-Pyron further through poetry by Emily Dickinson and John Donne.
ARTIST BIOS
Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer, recitalist, curator, composer, and improviser, specializing in contemporary-classical repertoire. Trained as an operatic coloratura, Stephanie 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” (composer Jason Eckardt). She has been praised by Opera News Magazine for “her iconoclasm and fearless commitment to new sounds" and for her "impressive display of extended vocal techniques, in the honorable tradition of such forward-looking artists as Bethany Beardslee, Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara." Her work has been described as “stunning, harrowing, agonising, sonorous..." by The Guardian "divinely deranged" by the Herald Scotland, and that she “sings so expressively and slowly with ever louder and higher-pitched voice, that the inclined listener [has] shivers down their back and tension flows into the last row." (Halberstadt.de) She has performed as a soloist at Roulette Intermedium (New York City), Constellation Chicago, Kings Place (London), Southbank Centre (London), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the National Concert Hall (Dublin), the Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), the Hidden Door Festival (Edinburgh), and the Casa da Música (Porto). She has collaborated with leading new music ensembles and bands including the London Sinfonietta, Riot Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, the City of London Sinfonia, Sō Percussion, and Post Coal Prom Queen. Stephanie received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music where she trained with Maitland Peters and Lucy Shelton, and her Doctorate of Performing Arts from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and University of St Andrews, training with Jean Sangster and Anne-Liis Pool. She has received additional operatic training from Julian Kwok, and contemporary vocal training from Sarah Maria Sun. https://www.stephanielamprea.com/
Alistair MacDonald is a composer and performer who creates uniquely rich, spatialised music and sound. Often collaborative his work encompasses field recording, live electronics, interactivity and improvisation with live electronics. He makes standalone electroacoustic works, music for instruments and voices, music and sound design for dance, film and art gallery installations. Recent recordings include duo performances with soprano Stephanie Lamprea, Scottish harpist Catriona McKay, and Estonian singer Anne-Liis Poll. A solo CD of his electroacoustic works was published in 2017 by Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes. Collaborative projects include The White Cave (film/installation) with Jesse Jones, Stephanie Lamprea and Erin Thomson for the Singapore Biennale, 2025; The moss and the cosmos, (film, 2021), with Kim Beveridge, commissioned by The Cumnock Tryst, UK; music for the 1922 film Nosferatu (2018), with Phil Minton (UK) and Vlady Bystrov (Germany); The Last Post (trumpet and electronics, 2016) with trumpet player Tom Poulson commissioned by the St Magnus Festival 2016 and selected for the Made in Scotland showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe 2017; three works with dance company Reckless Sleepers (UK and Belgium 2018-22); works with Carrie Fertig, on music for glass percussion, electronics and live flame-working, including Le Sirenuse (film, 2014) selected for the Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition 2015 and Flames and Frequencies (performance/film, 2013) selected for the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass 2014. (USA, Germany, UK); Silver Wings and Golden Scales (installation, 2007) with Jennifer Angus commissioned by the Chazen Museum of Art, Wisconsin, USA; and The Imagining of Things (installation, 2013) with Brass Arts, Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK. Other commissions include music for The Scottish Ensemble, The Paragon Ensemble, BBC Radio Scotland, Reeling and Writhing, the Australian ensemble Elision, choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh and Theatre Cryptic. His music is published by the Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes. https://alistairmacdonald.co.uk/
Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer, recitalist, curator, composer, and improviser, specializing in contemporary-classical repertoire. Trained as an operatic coloratura, Stephanie 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” (composer Jason Eckardt). She has been praised by Opera News Magazine for “her iconoclasm and fearless commitment to new sounds" and for her "impressive display of extended vocal techniques, in the honorable tradition of such forward-looking artists as Bethany Beardslee, Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara." Her work has been described as “stunning, harrowing, agonising, sonorous..." by The Guardian "divinely deranged" by the Herald Scotland, and that she “sings so expressively and slowly with ever louder and higher-pitched voice, that the inclined listener [has] shivers down their back and tension flows into the last row." (Halberstadt.de) She has performed as a soloist at Roulette Intermedium (New York City), Constellation Chicago, Kings Place (London), Southbank Centre (London), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the National Concert Hall (Dublin), the Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), the Hidden Door Festival (Edinburgh), and the Casa da Música (Porto). She has collaborated with leading new music ensembles and bands including the London Sinfonietta, Riot Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, the City of London Sinfonia, Sō Percussion, and Post Coal Prom Queen. Stephanie received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music where she trained with Maitland Peters and Lucy Shelton, and her Doctorate of Performing Arts from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and University of St Andrews, training with Jean Sangster and Anne-Liis Pool. She has received additional operatic training from Julian Kwok, and contemporary vocal training from Sarah Maria Sun. https://www.stephanielamprea.com/
Alistair MacDonald is a composer and performer who creates uniquely rich, spatialised music and sound. Often collaborative his work encompasses field recording, live electronics, interactivity and improvisation with live electronics. He makes standalone electroacoustic works, music for instruments and voices, music and sound design for dance, film and art gallery installations. Recent recordings include duo performances with soprano Stephanie Lamprea, Scottish harpist Catriona McKay, and Estonian singer Anne-Liis Poll. A solo CD of his electroacoustic works was published in 2017 by Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes. Collaborative projects include The White Cave (film/installation) with Jesse Jones, Stephanie Lamprea and Erin Thomson for the Singapore Biennale, 2025; The moss and the cosmos, (film, 2021), with Kim Beveridge, commissioned by The Cumnock Tryst, UK; music for the 1922 film Nosferatu (2018), with Phil Minton (UK) and Vlady Bystrov (Germany); The Last Post (trumpet and electronics, 2016) with trumpet player Tom Poulson commissioned by the St Magnus Festival 2016 and selected for the Made in Scotland showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe 2017; three works with dance company Reckless Sleepers (UK and Belgium 2018-22); works with Carrie Fertig, on music for glass percussion, electronics and live flame-working, including Le Sirenuse (film, 2014) selected for the Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition 2015 and Flames and Frequencies (performance/film, 2013) selected for the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass 2014. (USA, Germany, UK); Silver Wings and Golden Scales (installation, 2007) with Jennifer Angus commissioned by the Chazen Museum of Art, Wisconsin, USA; and The Imagining of Things (installation, 2013) with Brass Arts, Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK. Other commissions include music for The Scottish Ensemble, The Paragon Ensemble, BBC Radio Scotland, Reeling and Writhing, the Australian ensemble Elision, choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh and Theatre Cryptic. His music is published by the Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes. https://alistairmacdonald.co.uk/