Stephanie Lamprea and Alistair MacDonald present a concert of new works for voice and electronics, exploring revealed visions and dreams of women at points of self-discovery and actualisation. Alistair MacDonald’s Ecstatic Visions (2023) forges the sounds of Glasgow Cathedral’s great bell with abbess Hildegard von Bingen’s writings on gemstones and healing, a letter to a Benedictine monk, her visions, and two of her antiphons, in a series of kaleidoscopic, multi-channel illusions. Hildegard was revered not only as a nun, but a ‘visionary, mystic, healer, linguist, poet, artist, musician, playwright, biographer, theologian, preacher and spiritual counsellor’ (Priscilla Throop) and has been described as the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
Featuring the World Premiere of Finnish composer Asta Hyvärinen’s She, Miracle*
"The work "She, Miracle" has got its inspiration from my pondering of reality, dreams and existence and there are also many films that have affected my thoughts during the decades, like, for example The Tenant, American Psycho, Total Recall, Matrix and some films by Luis Buñuel.
There have also been a few actual situations that happened to me during the years when the borders of reality and dreams were mixed or unrecognizable.
However, the fact is that so-called "reality" doesn't exist similar for all of us: it's a relative and complex concept. For me, creating art is building reflections of the disintegrating world, in which more and more people are living in virtual reality, or are they dreaming, seeking a miracle?"
*Commissioned as part of part of the Northern Connection partnership project
