Stef’s debut album is released today, on Delphian Records!
Inspired by the Old English riddles of the tenth-century Exeter Book, Riddle Songs is a counterpoint of ancient and modern, sparking an adventure of the imagination into a world just out of reach. Featuring the incredible medieval music singer Hanna Marti and contemporary vocal ensemble Everlasting Voices, and produced by Paul Baxter, Riddle Songs weaves together sounds drawn from 1000-year-old manuscripts with lush contemporary harmonies and multilayered choral textures, underscored by the ripples of medieval harp and lyre, echoes of long-lost languages, whispers of myth and folklore, and the twinkling of tiny bells.
Check out Stef’s latest Covid-19 lockdown project, a musical reinterpretation of an ancient Sumerian ‘diatribe’ (basically a list of highly entertaining insults, inscribed in cuneiform script on a clay tablet, some time in the second millennium BCE) as an operatic Twitter troll battle! The project was a collaboration with mezzo-soprano Phoebe Haines and Sumerologist Daniel Sánchez Muñoz, written for a Twitter opera project, #SetOperaFree, by Aga Serugo Lugo.
For more information on the text, ‘Engardu the fool’ = Oxford Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) 5.4.11 ‘Diatribe Against Engar-dug‘, see Daniel Sánchez Muñoz’s bibliography here.
Here are some sample phrases from the text:
𒍢𒍝𒈜𒂊𒉈 zi2-za nar-e-ne – ‘croaker among singers’ Daniel notes that ‘ziza’ is a difficult word to translate. It literally means ‘closed (za) jaw (zi2 in the most recent transliteration system, ze2 in the former one)’. Daniel tends to think that it describes someone struggling to move his mouth correctly, which is pretty hard to translate! Dahlia Shehata has provided some comments which further illuminate this phrase. For more information, follow the link to her publication in the bibliography.
𒈬 𒉿𒅋𒈜𒂊𒉈 mu pe-el2 nar-e-ne – ‘disgraced reputation among singers’
On Sunday 2nd June, Stef will join forces with her fellow ancient-songstress, Hanna Marti (Sequentia Ensemble for Medieval Music, Moirai), to breathe new life into some of the oldest surviving British songs and poems. From the hammers of Pythagoras and the strings of the harp, to the melody of the nightingale and lament of the swan, all the songs in this concert have words expressing music’s celestial beauty from the medieval point of view. Hanna and Stef are joined by special guest Barnaby Brown (“hauntingly beautiful” Gramophone; “world class” – The Guardian), playing the early British triplepipe. Join them in one of Cambridge’s most ancient and atmospheric venues, the “Round Church”, to be blissfully transported by two-voiced harmonies, deep drones, Latin sequences, Hebridean melodies, Old English riddles, and musical storytelling, from the 10th to the 12thcenturies.
Hanna is a stunning soprano, harpist, and “reconstructionista”, specialising in early medieval song. She was born in Basel and grew up at the southern end of the Swiss Jura mountains. When she was a teenager she played electric guitar in various rock bands and wrote songs for her own group. She discovered singing and took voice lessons with Dorothea Galli (Zürich). After getting interested in medieval music, she studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. During those years Hanna Marti also became acquainted with the lute – studying with Peter Croton – and discovered the medieval harp.
In 2015 she completed a Masters Diploma (voice) at the Schola Cantorum as a student of Evelyn Tubb. Since finishing her studies Hanna Marti has focused most of her artistic work on medieval song. As a member of Sequentia ensemble she has performed internationally in various programs. A CD-recording with Sequentia was released in May 2018 on the label Glossa.
In her own ensemble Moirai (co-directed with Mara Winter) she specializes on the re-creation and reconstruction of medieval song.
Watch Hanna perform her stunning setting of Orpheus from Ovid’s Metamorphosis here:
“Marti sang an extended narration of the death and transformation of Orpheus, “Collis erat collemque,” from the Metamorphosis. Crossing the contingent line between declamation and song, this was the musical high point of the concert and the epitome of Sequentia’s art. Marti reconstructed the song with melodic material from other 12th-century settings of poetry from Antiquity, and used that as a platform for an enthralling improvisation. Her singing felt perfectly formed, with complete integration of the drama of poetry and music.”
New York Classical Review on Sequentia’s performance of 31 April 2017 at Corpus Christi Church, New York City
About Barnaby Brown
Barnaby Brown leads the revival of the northern triplepipe, the precursor of the bagpipe in Britain and Ireland. He also champions the art of canntaireachd, a chant which imitates the sound of the Highland bagpipe, and plays pibroch on a reproduction of a chanter owned by the Blind Piper of Gairloch (1656–1754). Recently, he began exploring pipes reproduced from Ancient Greek, Sumerian and Paleolithic finds.
His passion for giving a contemporary voice to ancient instruments led to three projects with Delphian Records. In Praise of Saint Columba was released in 2014. This was followed by Spellweaving (2016) – a companion to his PhD research at the University of Cambridge – and Set upon the Rood (2017), on which he plays triplepipes and a Graeco-Roman aulos. His latest release (also on Delphian) is Apollo and Dionysus, on which he performs alongside Stef, on the Pydna and Louvre auloi.
“Barnaby Brown was the most riveting, using vulture bones and Sardinian cane pipes to play stirring Celtic drones. At no point did the quality drop below world class, and all of it without a lick of electricity.”
***** The Guardian, review of Wysing Polyphonic festival, July 2016
Check out Barnaby introducing the incredible triplepipe here:
In March 2019 Stef joins the mighty medieval music ensemble Sequentia to work on a new programme, ‘Charms, Riddles, and Elegies of the Medieval Northlands.’ Having been an admirer of the group’s work for many years, she is hugely excited to begin this collaboration with director and performer Benjamin Bagby, soprano and harpist Hanna Marti , flute and lyre player Norbert Rodenkirchen, and Anglo-Saxonist and poet Craig Williamson. In addition to the privilege of working with some of the finest and most creative medieval music performers in the world and a beautifully sensitive translator of Old English poetry, this project brings the opportunity for Stef to fulfil a lifelong dream of singing the Old English elegy known as ‘The Wife’s Lament’—a bitter lament of abandonment and betrayal that anyone who has ever suffered a painful breakup can relate to!
The premiere performance is on Friday 1st March at Swarthmore College, PA, USA. Further performances will follow, including Boston Early Music Festival, in June 2019. Benjamin Bagby introduces the program thus:
These are songs of magic, healing, exile, of the uncertainty of fate, of a wandering poet/singer searching for a patron, funeral songs and celebrations of life-giving magic herbs. Their sources are varied: the Old English Beowulf epic, the Old Icelandic poetic Edda, and the few poems surviving in ancient songbooks such as The Exeter Book. Each of these songs is a glimpse into another time far from ours, and into the souls of poets, warriors, valkyries and seeresses, bards and philosophers, whose creations were the first to be written down in English and other Germanic languages. In addition to songs in English, there will be Old High German and Old Icelandic songs of conjuring, magic, and lament as well. The world of the pagan medieval north, just turning to Christianity, will be explored, using the oldest sources known to us today. The featured instruments will include 6-string Germanic harps, triangular harps, wooden flutes and a swan-bone flute.
Sequentia, Charms, Riddles, and Elegies: photo by Reto Marti
The program will include performances of the following:
Old English riddles;
the Anglo-Saxon magic Charm of Nine Herbs, a story of healing;
from the Old Icelandic ‘Edda’, the Song of Grotti’s Millstone: two giant slave-girls are forced to grind out magical wealth for King Grotti, until they rebel…
Deor, the lament of a tribal singer no longer favored by his chieftain;
the Wanderer: a powerful song of lonely travel in icy winter, fate, and regret;
Wulf and Eadwacer: the mysterious lament of a woman cut off from her man;
some of the oldest recorded songs of the German-speaking peoples.
Stef contributed three tracks to the fifth and last album of the European Music Archaeology Project series by Delphian Records, ‘Apollo and Dionysus: sounds from classical antiquity.’ Her sparse, gentle arrangement of two songs by Mesomedes of Crete opens the album, and she also sings Armand D’Angour’s reconstruction of the Delphic Paean of Athenaios of Athenaiou and a new reconstruction of Pindar’s 12th Pythian Ode with aulos player Barnaby Brown.
The CD is available from Delphian Records, as well as amazon, Spotify, itunes, and the usual streaming services. Order here!
Press:
“From ancient to modern at the flick of a switch: with music from over two millennia ago and music written yesterday, our sonic choices are disorientingly diverse … Apollo & Dionysus does not claim to be reconstructing the sounds of classical antiquity, but aims to create something more ambitious. The reconstructed instrument technology is impressive, from the growling trombone-like lituus and the eloquent twin-piped aulos, to the water-driven hydraulis organ. I was convinced by Stef Conner’s Delphic Paean, while the duet aulodia is pure Steve Reich.” — The Observer, September 2018
“Blowing the dust off our musical past – Delphian’s final disc with the European Music Archeology Project taps into the most authentic ancient sound world yet.” — Gramophone, September 2018
One of the UK’s leading contemporary string quartets, The Ligeti Quartet will premiere Stef’s new piece Singing Strings – A Contemporary Quartet in Conversation on Wednesday 26th October at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. The innovative programme Remembering the Future explores connections between music for strings, past, present and future and also includes works by Stravinsky, Bach, Webern, Gubaidulina and Haas. Stef’s Singing Strings is part contemporary string quartet, part theatre piece, part essay about the contemporary string quartet, part stream of consciousness rant and part children’s entertainment… if for no other reason, come along and enjoy the novelty of some of the finest contemporary classical performers on the scene shouting “PLINKY PLONK MUSIC!!” at each other during their performance!
Following the premiere, the quartet will perform the piece in London, Bristol and Dorchester. Full details of the tour are available on the Ligeti Quartet website.
You can buy tickets for the Cambridge performance HERE.
Stef is hugely excited to be re-forming Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (previous incarnation of the amazing Northumbrian folk group The Unthanks) for one day only on Sunday 17th September, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the band’s Mercury-nominated album The Bairns.
On stage with Rachel and Becky Unthank, Australian Womad 2009
Stef will be joining Niopha Keegan, Rachel and Becky Unthank and Adrian McNally to perform the acclaimed album as part of their Home Gathering Festival, alongside other top notch artists, including The Unthanks (in their modern form!), Joan as Policewoman, Lisa Knapp and Beth Orton. You can book tickets HERE to hear Stef playing songs that utterly changed her approach to music-making, for the first (and probably the last) time, since 2009…
The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Magnus Lindberg, will premiere Stef’s latest piece Calling the Night Gods on Wednesday 12th July, alongside works by Henry Purcell, James MacMillan and three other exciting young composers, Alex Paxton, Yvonne Eccles and Nathan Dearden.
The concert is part of the LPO ‘Debut Sounds’ series and takes place at St John’s Smith Square in London. The programme centres around Purcell’s Come, Ye Sons of Art, written in 1694 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Mary II of England, which was given as a creative springboard to inspire new works. Stef’s piece is a response to the evolution of ‘royal praise’ or regime-glorifying music throughout history. Fragments of Babylonian royal praise poems and ritual incantations form the backbone of the piece, casting the orchestra as a kind of shaman, calling on the ancient Mesopotamian gods, both to glorify their ruler, and to reveal to them the future. As the main incantation unfolds, it gives way to quotations from pieces of music that have been used throughout history to keep populations enthralled by their leaders; the quotations are fleeting at first and gradually become overwhelming, wrenching the piece towards its crushing conclusion. The future, from the perspective of the Babylonians, is indeed revealed, painting a bleak picture of the roll of music in propagandising on behalf of come of history’s most heinous tyrants.
Tickets are available now from the LPO website: BOOK ONLINE
You can also read a brief interview with Stef on the new piece here: READ NOW.
This February, Stef will be singing on BBC2’s ‘Great British Railway Journeys’ as part of the East Grinstead to Guildford episode, which sees presenter Michael Portillo visit Dorking’s Leith Hill Place, birthplace of Vaughan Williams and host to Stef’s frequent choral and folk singing workshops.
Stef will be performing her own piano and voice version of Vaughan Williams favourite folk song, Bushes and Briars, inspired by RVW’s choral arrangement of the same song.
