FEMALE VOICES 2023: Recital. In die Ferne gesungen. Komponistinnen und ihre Wege über drei Jahrhunderte

With the concert series FRAUENSTIMMEN, whose concerts have been held regularly since 2010, the Maria-Anna-Mozart-Gesellschaft organises Austria's longest-running concert series dedicated to the music of female composers.

Works by Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940), Elise von Schlik (1792-1855), Joseph von Auernhammer (1758-1820), Marianne Czegka (1786-1849), Julie von Webenau (1813-1887), Vilma von Webenau (1875-1953) und Sylvie Bodorová (*1954)

"The world is full of haste and superficiality and we are here to make others stop and think for a moment. [...] Music is the greatest gift - it is always with us when we need it," writes Czech composer Sylvie Bodorová. Since the 1970s, Bodorová has composed works for a wide variety of instrumentations and occasions. The Prague-born composer has brought music to Brno, Bratislava, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the USA, for example. She draws inspiration for her compositions from folklore, nature and current events, among other things.

Her conception of music as a vehicle of inner expression, the diverse sources of her creative work and her cosmopolitan and attentive manner are shared with many contemporaries and predecessors both from the Czech Republic and from other countries. Although many different developments have taken place in compositional aesthetics over the last three centuries, and different styles have emerged in the process, it seems that music has been a consistent constant in the expression of human emotions and a reliable refuge in exciting and uncertain times.

The concert presents selected Czech and Austrian women composers from three centuries who, through music, set out on a journey into the inner self, into the complex and multifaceted culture of the home town or into other cultures. Not infrequently, these paths reflect a kind of longing for inner and outer security, for adventure or for human relationships. The female composers presented here took completely different directions, but their paths metaphorically and/or physically cross at some points. The concert invites you to explore these paths more closely and to immerse yourself in musical worlds of very different times.