A Sonic Exploration of Mary Mallon's Life, Confinement and Death; North Brother Island; The East River

Composed, recorded and performed by Sister Ursuline.


In The East River

Sister Marie Ursuline was admitted to Willard Mental Asylum in 1919. Her religious devotion was said to be a symptom of pathological delusion, and her petition to be released was unsuccessful. She died after 30 years of forced confinement following psychological collapse, which lead her to develop alternate identities. Her body was used for scientific purposes, and buried in an unmarked grave.

Composed, recorded and performed by Sister Ursuline.

Sister Ursuline

An Exposition on the Activity of Badminton; Lapses in the Standard of Victorian Etiquette.

Composed, recorded and performed by Sister Ursuline.

The Duke Of Beaufort

A song that explores the motivations behind the creation of the Cherhill White Horse, conceived by Dr Christopher Alsop in 1780.

Was he mad, as records suggest? Was he terrified of death, as I suspect? Did he have a religious vision, as I imply in song form? We will never know.

Composed, recorded and performed by Sister Ursuline.

Cherhill White Horse (Dr Alsop's Dream)

Cher Ami, a female homing pigeon who served in the Battle of Argonne during WWI, became a war hero after saving the lives of the remaining members of the Lost Battalion, who were trapped in the Argonne Forest by enemy troops.

Arriving at her loft covered in blood, missing a leg, blinded, and shot through the breast/wing, she delivered the telegram containing the co-ordinates of the battalion to Allied Forces. Written by Colonel Charles Whittlesey, it read:

"WE ARE ALONG THE ROAD PARALELL 276.4. OUR ARTILLERY IS DROPPING A BARRAGE DIRECTLY ON US. FOR HEAVENS SAKE STOP IT."

Composed, recorded and performed by Sister Ursuline.

Cher Ami

A spoken piece based on the scourge of Invalidism during the 19th Century.

Composed, recorded and performed by Sister Ursuline.

Somatic Fictions

Sister Ursuline is a Sydney-based singer-songwriter and cellist. Dubbed a “sonic historian” by performance artist Betty Grumble and “found-object artist of musical influences” (Dirge Magazine 2015), she draws on historical sources and folk stories to create otherworldly narrative songs: asylum-bound nuns, shape-shifting witches and iron-willed aristocrats inhabit “echoing, off-kilter tale[s]… of madness, illness, obsession and suffering…” (Brian Ennis, 2015). She has headlined as a solo performer on Australia’s East Coast - in live performance, she uses effects and looping on the fly to create a multi-cello ensemble and vocal harmonies.

Sister Ursuline

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