Sarah Defrise - Sings For Cathy, A Capella Album, A Tribute To Cathy Berberian

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: SR525
Barcode: 5411867115250
Release Date: 10 Dec 2021
Genre: Experimental / Avant-Garde / Industrial / Noise

Sarah Defrise dedicates her first new music album to the American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian. The disk features exclusively a capella pieces which were written for Cathy by some of the most prominent composers of her time. Berio's Sequenza III, Cage's Aria and Cathy's own Stripsody have become new music 'hits', but 'For Cathy' also presents lesser known repertoire such as Henri Pousseur's Phonème pour Cathy, Bussoti's fragment from Passion selon Sade and Entretien, a piece for electronic tape composed by Sarah Defrise as a tribute to Berberian. Sarah took an active part in the editing process of the disk in order to create a coherent sound object, displaying the endless possibilities of the human voice. Cathy Berberian (July 4, 1925 - March 6, 1983) American mezzosoprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, Sylvano Bussotti, Darius Milhaud, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Igor Stravinsky. As a recital curator, she presented several vocal genres in a classical context, including arrangements of songs by The Beatles as well as folk songs from several countries and cultures. As a composer, she wrote Stripsody (1966), in which she exploits her vocal technique using comic book sounds (onomatopoeia), and Morsicat(h)y (1969), a composition for the keyboard (with the right hand only) based on Morse Code.