World Premiere of Charlotte Bray’s Crossing Faultlines at dream.risk.sing, Oxford Lieder Festival

Lana Bode joined soprano Samantha Crawford to perform the world premiere of a groundbreaking new song cycle by Charlotte Bray and writer Nicki Jackowska. Lana and Samantha said, “When we began our research for dream.risk.sing, the lack of existing art song repertoire that explored women's professional lives was a big disappointment. We found plenty of repertoire that objectified women or that described domestic situations but, unable to identify anything that we could relate to as working women, we decided that it was something that we could ‘fix’.  Once we started to look for appropriate composers, Charlotte Bray was an obvious choice. An eminent mid-career composer and a working mother, she had an innate understanding of the complexities of women’s professional lives. Rather than work with existing texts, we decided to commission Nicki Jackowska, a seasoned poet with a particular understanding of contemporary music who had previously worked with Charlotte and whose poetry we all loved.  It has been a real privilege to be part of bringing this cycle to life.”