Talking with herself alone
for singing violist
Composed for Mattea Osenk
Commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) as part The ANAM Set 2025 and written for Mattea Osenk, with its world premiere during ANAM’s 2025 recital season at the Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne.
This ANAM Set commission was generously supported by the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation
Program note:
Talking with herself alone began with conversations between Mattea and I. She told me she had enjoyed performing a work which required her to vocalise as she played, so we agreed I would write her a piece for singing violist. As a singer of new vocal music, I am accustomed to seeing up-bow and down-bow markings on vocal lines that require both ingressive and egressive singing (up-bow for the inhale, down-bow for the exhale), and I have always found attractive and intuitive this analogy made between bowing and breath. So I began some sketches based on mapping bow gestures to the inhale and exhale in the voice, as seen in the opening measures.
I had set out to write a wordless piece, but as I working on the score I came upon Rilke’s gorgeous poem, O brunnenmund (O fountain mouth) and was struck by the line 'talking with herself alone'. As a result of this line I came to conceive of it as a duet for one person, with the lines in dialogue, rather than one accompanying the other. In several ways then, this work is linked to my 2022 piece I am a tree, I am a mouth, which is an album of duets with myself, setting poems from Rilke’s Book of Hours. There was a special intimacy in singing those solo duets; I hope this piece elicits a like experience for the singing player.
About the composer:
Jane Sheldon is an Australian-American soprano and composer who creates and performs exploratory chamber music. Praised by the Sydney Morning Herald for “a brilliant tour de force”, and The Washington Post for “a stunning performance,” Jane has established an international reputation for highly specialized contemporary opera and art music for voice. She has appeared with Ekmeles, Ensemble Offspring, Talea Ensemble, the Australian String Quartet, Contemporaneous, and Sydney Chamber Opera, where she is an Artistic Associate. She has worked extensively with composers as they create new works for voice and has performed at Lincoln Center Festival, Sydney Festival, Holland Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and Tokyo Festival. From 2012-2017 she toured with John Zorn, singing his music at the Barbican, the Louvre, the Guggenheim, Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival, Adelaide Festival, and North Sea Jazz. Recent performances include Mary Finsterer’s Antarctica at Sydney Festival and the world premiere of Dylan Mattingly’s Stranger Love for the LA Phil. Described as “riveting” (New York Times), Jane’s compositions focus on the experience of altered or transformative states of being. Recent work includes music written for Sydney Dance Company’s PPY Revealed, Sydney’s Powerhouse, and Ensemble Offspring, as well as the Australian premiere of poem for a dried up river with Sydney Chamber Opera for Sydney Festival. The latter was awarded Work of the Year (Dramatic) at the Art Music Awards in 2022. Jane’s most recent album is I am a tree, I am a mouth(“conceptually brilliant… a vocal and compositional triumph…” - Limelight Magazine). It was listed in the New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of 2022. Upcoming engagements include the world premiere of Jane’s Thunder: Perfect Mind at Harvard University; I am a tree, I am a mouth at New York’s MATA Festival; and the world premiere of Jack Symonds’ Gilgamesh for Sydney Chamber Opera and Opera Australia.