Song has always been used to mark the significant moments in a life, whether of celebration, transition, healing or grief. The lament is the starting point for this new project led by soprano Juliet Fraser. A small ensemble of stellar international artists will create an hour-long ‘ritual of letting go’ which seeks out the cracks between genres and traditions to offer something uniquely raw, timeless and unusually communal. 

THE RITUAL

Imagine a sequence of music and movement that lasts an hour and is performed by five musicians: in terms of training, they are two singers, a violinist, a pianist and a composer who also plays the santoor, though everybody sings and everybody moves. Inspiration is drawn from circular rituals such as the canonical hours, antiphonal structures such as weaving songs, and the slow march of a funeral procession. Music from earlier times and other traditions will sit alongside a handful of commissions, the old and the new speaking to one another across history and geography. Repertoire includes the Byzantine hymns of Kassia, Corsican polyphony and songs of longing by Josquin, Couperin and Catherine Lamb. Contemporary laments have been commissioned from Soosan Lolavar, Luke Nickel, Christopher Trapani and James Weeks. The staging is simple, using gestural sequences drawn from domestic and liturgical committals to create a ritual that is familiar yet deeply personal.

THE ENSEMBLE 

Juliet Fraser | soprano 
Christelle Monney | mezzo-soprano

Sarah Saviet | violin

Soosan Lolavar | santoor 

Eliza McCarthy | keyboard 

PERFORMANCES

21 June 2025: Aldeburgh Festival, Suffolk

13 September 2025: Klangspuren Schwaz, Austria

March 2026: MaerzMusik, Berlin

and more dates to come... 

ESSAYS

Since this project is all about doing things differently, I am experimenting with charting its development in a little series of essays. Part confessional, part traditional research, I am asking: What is the lament? Why am I drawn to it? What purpose might it serve today? 

• Ashes and Alchemy 
• The bird of grief 

‘Lament’ is co-produced by Britten Pears Arts, Klangspuren Schwaz and MaerzMusik—Berliner Festspiele, in partnership with Oxford House in Bethnal Green. The commissions by Soosan Lolavar and James Weeks were made possible thanks to the generous support of the Vaughan Williams Foundation.