Erotic Fragments

Each time soprano Alexandra Weaver and I have performed  we have had requests from people asking us to record it. And so, here is the result of a cold morning’s recording session in the beautiful setting of Woodhouse Opera, deep in the Surrey Hills (www.woodhousesounds.com). We competed with planes and the mandarin ducks on the pond outside the recording studio, but together with Robin Bigwood, recording engineer par excellence, I think we have done justice to this evocative and beautiful song cycle by the contemporary British composer, Martin Eastwood. The texts for Erotic Fragments are taken from the Song of Songs, or Songs of Solomon from the Old Testament. These are a celebration of sexual union between man and and woman, but, in the Christian tradition, has also come to be read metaphorically as the union between God and his people. 

Being immersed in the Art Sung project in which I link music and artwork to create multi media programmes, I thought that it might be interesting to turn this into an Art Sung video installation and so my quest to find the right artwork began. 

Close friends in the Netherlands introduced me to the Dutch photographer, Marinka Masséus and her work. Visiting her website, www.marinkamasseus.com. I found photos of great beauty and creativity. We met again at a New Year’s Eve party in The Hague last year. We had an interesting conversation about both our passions -music and photography- and so a collaboration was born.  She has very kindly allowed me to choose photos, which, for me, seem to capture both the essence of the texts and the music. 
Enjoy!