Heggie/ Farahani/ Bueren - Woman

Soprano Lilian Farahani and pianist Maurice Lammerts van Bueren will combine their love for the music of American composer Jake Heggie (1961), with their passion for photography. They want to interpret Heggies compositions 'Eve-Song' and 'At the Statue of Venus' in both an auditory and visual way, by making an album with a corresponding photobooklet. "Women are definitely the stronger sex. I'm pretty sure the majority of men would not have the wherewithal to endure what is expected of women - nor what they have been subjected to throughout history. I was lucky enough to grow up around very powerful women who inspired and shaped me, and I have been compelled to tell their stories ever since. I am a diehard feminist." (Jake Heggie) "The two women represented on this recording might not seem to have a lot in common, but the Biblical Eve and the contemporary Rose are sisters to the core. They are dealing with what I find most interesting in all the characters I explore through dramatic music: a transformative crisis of identity. Questioning their lot in life in a moment of intensely vulnerable reflection. What could be more human? Eve-Song was Heggie's very first commission, written in 1995 for soprano Kristin Clayton on original texts by Philip Littell. At the Statue of Venus was composed 10 years later (2005) to a libretto by playwright Terrence McNally, and premiered again by Kristin Clayton. Not a song cycle, it is a real dramatic scena about a successful businesswoman waiting for a blind date in a museum, standing next to the goddess of love: the "feminine ideal" of Western culture. Old and new concepts of women and their roles crisscross through both of these works." (Lillian Farahani)