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 which will have its first performance at the Aldeburgh Festival on 21 June 2025. 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 a small ensemble: two voices, a violin, a santoor and a mictro-tonal keyboard — though everybody will sing and move. 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 two short commissions, the old and the new speaking to one another across history and geography. Source materials include the Byzantine hymns of Kassia, Corsican polyphony and lamentations by Josquin and Couperin. Two new laments have been commissioned from Soosan Lolavar and James Weeks. The staging is simple, using gestural sequences drawn from domestic and liturgical committals to create a ritual that is unique yet familiar.

THE ENSEMBLE 

Juliet Fraser | soprano 
Christelle Monney | mezzo-soprano

Sarah Saviet | violin

Soosan Lolavar | santoor 

Eliza McCarthy | keyboard 

PERFORMANCES

21 June 2025: Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, Suffolk

13 September 2025: Klangspuren Schwaz, Austria

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 (published on Substack)

‘Lament’ is co-produced by Britten Pears Arts and Klangspuren Schwaz, with the generous support of the Vaughan Williams Foundation