Death Rites And Rights

For Anastassiya Dranchuk's debut album 'Rites de Passage', the choice of pieces by Tchaikovsky, Say, Schubert and Liszt was no coincidence. The plays had and still have a special emotional meaning in Anastassiya's life. For her, the individual compositions represent rites of passage (rites de passage, a concept from ethnology): they tell of the transition from childhood to adulthood, peace/war, birth/death… In general, it is an emotionally and tonally very colourful, technically demanding programme, which has the most diverse dualities on the topic.

“When I wanted to exist, I couldn’t”. Mystical inscriptions on ancient Bosnian tombstones inspired this programme.

Brownswood are delighted to present Zara McFarlane’s, Songs of an Unknown Tongue a masterful work that underlines her continuous growth as an artist. Zara’s fourth studio album pushes the boundaries of jazz adjacent music via an exploration into the folk and spiritual traditions of her ancestral motherland, Jamaica. The album is a rumination on the piecing together of black heritage, where painful and proud histories are uncovered and connected to the present.

Louise de Penancoët de Keroualle (Lady Louise), a spy in the pay of Louis XIV, was the mistress of Charles II. Charged with keeping England under the influence of the Sun King, she forged close links between musicians on either side of the Channel. These political intentions generated a repertory as rich and brilliant as it was expressive. It is a genuine rediscovery that we owe to Ensemble Leviathan and Lucile Tessier.