Basler Madrigalisten | ensemble dialogue | Soloists & Percussionists | Raphael Immoos | Fritz Hauser | Brigitte Dubach

Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch

ensemble dialogue | Basler Madrigalisten | Raphael Immoos conductor | Irina Ungureanu soprano | Rebecca Ockenden soprano | Barbara Schingnitz mezzo-soprano | Leslie Leon mezzo-soprano | Daniel Issa tenor | Robert Koller baritone | Jan Sauer baritone | Tiago Mota bass | Alexandre Babel percussion | Rie Watanabe percussion | Michael Weilacher percussion | Daniel Eichholz percussion | Fritz Hauser stage director | Katja Nestle costumes | Brigitte Dubach lighting

Jewish custom ascribes great significance to honoring the memory of the deceased. And so those who take part in mourning stay at home for a week of “sitting shiva,” during which period they are visited, cared for, and comforted by members of the community as they commemorate the dead. In Tante Hänsi (2006), the Swiss composer Mela Meierhans addressed herself to Christian folk rituals of mourning in her homeland and, in Rithaa (2010), to Islamic traditions. Now, in Shiva for Anne, the concluding third part of her Afterlife Trilogy, she explores Judaism – while also commemorating the British poet Anne Blonstein, who was originally to have written the libretto but who died in 2011.

Mela Meierhans : Shiva for Anne