Songs

Pig - Jo Shapcott Settings [2002]

2 mins, voice and toy glockenspiel • You think of me as clean tasty, don’t want to know about the mud...

start at 4:55 for Pig

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Elephant Woman - Jo Shapcott Settings [2001]

3 mins, solo female voice • Nothing left except to grow into my elephant skin…

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Watching Medusa - Jo Shapcott Settings [2016]

5 min, female voice and egg shakers • ‘…every vocal trick in the book… superbly and imaginatively sung by the soprano Loré Lixenberg.’

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Cabbage Dreams - Jo Shapcott Settings [2009]

7 mins, voice and piano • After dark cabbages are proud and brilliant, supercool…

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Rhinoceros - Jo Shapcott Settings [2019]

4 mins, soprano and piano • ‘Marvellous examples of ‘expressionist’ songs of the kind made popular by Cathy Berberian. These are dramatic, sometimes disturbing, colourful and adventurous settings that impress and move the listener.’

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Gigerlette

4 mins, soprano, bass clarinet, percussion and violin • Saucy cabaret song - the blossom-white Gigerlette invites an unsuspecting guest to ‘tea’ that involves more than cake… For voice, bass clarinet, percussion (including the irresistible flexatone) and violin.

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Wee Wifey [2002]

5 mins, baritone and piano • Dramatic.

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O Vos  [2000] 

3 mins, 3 sopranos • Spiralling angelic sounds generated by the Fibonnacci sequence and inspired by the 12th century philosopher, poet and composer Hildegard of Bingen.  

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Sleep Close [1999]

5 mins, soprano and piano • A tender lullaby to the child poet Gabriela Mistral never had.

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Three Loves [1992]

6 mins, 3 female voices • Three medieval females explore three aspects of love.

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Song of Osun (live) [2002]

8 mins, voices, jazz band, drums • Live with jazz band and Cuban bata drums celebrating Osun, the Yoruba goddess of honey, water and the manifestation of the divine feminine. 


Sky-burial [2005]

27 mins, soprano and string quartet • An evocation of a woman’s journey from life into death, setting Kathleen Jamie’s elusive poem.

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