Soundstreams
text by Duncan McFarlane
Zorana Sadiq, soprano
Wesley Shen, piano
Daniel Morphy, percussion

The mathematician and philosopher Hypatia (4th-5th century AD) was one of Alexandria's most respected citizens and teachers. She was murdered during a city-wide political feud. The sensational myth that she was flayed by oystershells comes from a misreading of Socrates Scholasticus; nonetheless, her grisly end – kidnapped, flayed, mutilated, and then burned – stands symbolically alongside the burning of the great library at Alexandria.

she sells seashells by the seashore: 
shells sharp as shards of pots, broken 
roofs of broken homes, and floors, and rooms 
where books from ancient ships once rose; 
oystershells smoothed, shaped, sharpened through
the seas that whisper flesh from bone 
like linen slipping from the skin 
or smoke that slides up from the fires

ashes, ashes: sifting softly 
through the seasalt, to the seafloor; 
so she clothes herself with silence: 
bones of coral, eyes of pearl; 
nothing faded, all arranged into 
something new and strange.

(text by Duncan McFarlane)

Flay (for soprano, piano, and percussion)

Composer-in-residence @ the Canadian Opera Company (2022-)
Composer-in-residence @ Glyndebourne (2019-22)

Photo: Daniel Alexander Denino

Flay (for soprano, piano, and percussion)

Cecilia Livingston