Released today is the newest album from the Ragazze Quartet on Outhere music.
The project emerged from a collaboration between Katharine Dain, the Ragazze Quartet and the Wonderfeel Festival, and has so far comprised three editions. For each, three female composers wrote a piece for soprano, string quartet and a solo instrument, inspired by a woman from mythology or history. This album, released by the Ragazze Quartet in collaboration with Katharine Dain and various soloists, features a selection of five songs from the song cycles.
The first cycle tells the stories of Circe, Penelope and Medea, women from Greek mythology, two of whom (Circe and Penelope) feature in Homer’s Odyssey.
The second cycle gives voice to heroines of the Aegean Sea: the mythical Şahmaran, half-serpent / half-human, Kassia, born around 805 in Constantinople and the only female composer in Byzantine church music, and Suat Derviş, the 20th-century Turkish writer.
The third song cycle is dedicated to three women who were denounced or persecuted as witches: the Basque midwife Maria San Juan de Garonda, the mythological goddess of magic and witchcraft Hecate, and the legendary 16th-century English prophetess Mother Shipton.
The album is available to listen on all major streaming platforms now:
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