Invented Folksongs - Anna Pidgorna

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In 2015 New Music Concerts commissioned Canadian Anna Pidgorna to create a piece based on her Ukrainian heritage for a concert featuring a new work by Odessa native Karmella Tsepkolenko. The result was Weeping, for mixed sextet based on rural Ukrainian traditional mourning songs, which Pidgorna had discovered through archival recordings during field work in Ukraine in 2012. Mesmerized by the sonic qualities and emotional power of these songs, a new chapter in her musical development began.

“Invented Folk Songs (redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/invented-folksongs) is a set of songs resulting from her traveling to Ukraine to study with traditional music practitioners. Returning from this period abroad, she subsequently arranged to study voice [at] Princeton with the intention of building her own hybrid vocal sound. The bold, powerful voice she has since cultivated, is couched here in matching ensemble textures that capture the drive and raw emotion of folk music, yet stray far from traditionalism in their form and sound. She has harnessed the strengths of both musical realms, rather than blending superficially. She finds the places where traditional playing overlaps with so-called extended techniques, and expands upon the compositional features of these folk songs that are ripe for experimentation… The lyrics, also written by Pigorna, function similarly, drawing on folkloric imagery and tropes to formulate relevant commentary, often with a strong feminist bent.” The booklet includes the lyrics in her hybrid Ukrainian dialects with full English translations.

Pidgorna is accompanied by the Ludovico Ensemble, a Boston-based chamber group specializing in modern music, known for focusing on specific and often unusual instrumentations. For this recording the instruments are violin, cello, double bass, cimbalom, piano and percussion. 

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