Vocalist Lucy Dhegrae Explores The Trauma Of Sexual Assault In THE PROCESSING SERIES

Lucy Dhegrae, vocalist and founder of the acclaimed Resonant Bodies Festival, will open The Processing Series on November 23 at National Sawdust, with a program entitled More Beautiful Than Words Can Tell. The four-concert residency will explore the nature of trauma, and how music can help us to recover and process the aftermath of a traumatic experience.

The series grew out of Dhegrae's own experience as a survivor of sexual assault, the trauma of which left her unable to sing. Over time, through activities like meditation, individual and group therapy, and the act of sharing her story, she was able to find her voice again, and has risen to be one of the most acclaimed new music vocalists performing today, heralded by The New York Times for her "vocal versatility and an omnivorous curiosity."

Says Dhegrae of the series: "Trauma is an experience that evolves within oneself over a lifetime. The Processing Series embraces the ever-morphing relationship of a person to their traumatic memory, and each concert in the series zooms in on one aspect of the experience at a time, acknowledging the incomprehensibility that is the aftermath of trauma, and the infinite vastness of experiences therein."

Each of the four concerts has a theme; the opening concert on November 23 focuses on the struggle to articulate an experience after trauma, and features the world premiere of Osnat Netzer's Philomelos, which explores the "unspeakable" residual effects through the lens of Shakespeare's character Lavinia, from Titus Andronicus, who, despite having her hands cut off and her tongue removed, still manages to identify her rapist by writing his name with a stick in the sand. Additional works on the program continue to address themes of frozen voices, broken language, and the body's ability to communicate beyond language: Dithyramb by Jason Eckardt begins the concert with out of body experience of non-linguistic communication; Her Disappearance by Bethany Younge, Rapana by Maria Stankova, and ?Corporel by Vinko Globokar move through mostly wordless repertoire and body percussion; and No by Caleb Burhans closes the program with a simple and powerful display of communication, where the only text in the piece is the word "no."

The Processing Series continues with additional concerts in January, March and July 2020.

November 23, 2019 | 7:00 PM

National Sawdust (80 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11249)
More info

Lucy Dhegrae, mezzo soprano
Amy Garapic, percussion
Pala Garcia, violin
Nathaniel LaNasa, voice/PVC pipe

Program

OSNAT NETZER: Philomelos (world premiere)
New works by Dhegrae
BETHANY YOUNGE: Her Disappearance
JASON ECKARDT: "Dithyramb" (from Tongues)
VINKO GLOBOKAR: ?Corporel
MARIA STANKOVA: Rapana
CALEB BURHANS: No

"Vocal versatility and an omnivorous curiosity" (New York Times) are the hallmarks of mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae, a passionate vocalist with a flexible technique that fits a variety of styles. She is an Artist in Residency at National Sawdust for the 2019-2020 season, presenting a multi-concert project, The Processing Series, which explores trauma's relationship to the voice. Ultrafizz, her duo with pianist Nathaniel LaNasa, also has residencies at both Yellow Barn (Putney, VT) and Princeton University. In March 2020, Dhegrae will make her 92Y debut singing George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill with Talea Ensemble.

Dhegrae, who is "everywhere new music is being sung" (New York Classical Review) regularly premieres new vocal works and operas, and has worked closely with such composers as Unsuk Chin, Jason Eckardt, Susan Botti, Alexandra Vrebalov, and Sky Macklay. She has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Talea Ensemble, the Albany Symphony, among others, at such venues as Miller Theatre, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center. Her opera premieres include Trillium J by Anthony Braxton, Andy: A Popera (Bearded Ladies Cabaret), A Marvelous Order by Judd Greenstein, and Ashley Fure's The Force of Things. Dhegrae's festival appearances include Darmstadt (Germany), Klangspuren (Austria), Mostly Mozart, Bard Music Festival, Gesher Music Festival (St. Louis), and Aldeburgh Music Festival (as a Britten-Pears Young Artist).

Dhegrae was the 2018 recipient of University of Michigan School of Music's Emerging Artist Award, and among the first cohort of fellows with Turn the Spotlight, a new mentorship program for young professionals. As "adventurous mezzo-soprano" and "raconteur" (The New Yorker) she directs Resonant Bodies Festival, an international presenter of boundary-pushing contemporary music vocalists, which she founded in 2013. She has taught at SoundSCAPE (Cesena, Italy), Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada), and Bard College Conservatory's Graduate Vocal Arts Program; and has been invited to present lectures at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music, CUNY's Graduate Center, NYU, and William Paterson University. She graduated from the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program (MM in Vocal Performance '12) as well as the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (BM in Vocal Performance '08) and is a core member of the new music ensemble Contemporaneous.

About National Sawdust

National Sawdust's mission is rooted in music discovery that is open, inclusive, and based in active mentorship of emerging artists, while building new audiences and communities of music devotees. By supporting emerging artists, programming groundbreaking new music in our state-of-the-art Williamsburg venue, and developing and touring new, collaborative music-driven projects, National Sawdust is reshaping the landscape of contemporary music.

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