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...
Suzie Purkis
Oskar McCarthy
Caroline Kouma (start at 4:55)
I Should Have Been Sea [Voice and String Quartet Version 2019]
4 mins, female voice with string quartet
Elephant Woman - Jo Shapcott Settings [2001]
3 mins, solo female voice • Nothing left except to grow into my elephant skin…
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.’
Cabbage Dreams - Jo Shapcott Settings [2009]
7 mins, voice and piano • After dark cabbages are proud and brilliant, supercool…
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.’
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.
Wee Wifey [2002]
5 mins, baritone and piano • Dramatic.
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.
Sleep Close [1999]
5 mins, soprano and piano • A tender lullaby to the child poet Gabriela Mistral never had.
Three Loves [1992]
6 mins, 3 female voices • Three medieval females explore three aspects of love.
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.
