Sorores (Frauenpartita) (2011) for clarinet, bass clarinet,

Sorores (Frauenpartita) for clarinet, bass clarinet, violin and violoncello was commissioned by the film director John Michalczyk for the documentary Women in the crosshairs: Victims and Activists in Conflict Zones. Sorores refers to women who share the experience of being victims. They become cross-cultural sisters through traumas familiar to them all; emotional divisions, suffered exploitations, abuses and retributions expose their shared bloodline. Why Frauenpartita? Etymologically, the word _partita_ stems from the verb _partire_, ‘divide’, of which the past passive participle _partitus_ takes on such meanings as ‘shared, divided, parted, distributed’; _partita_ is the feminine (Frauen) form…

A musical partita contains structural divisions that unfold as variations. Sorores is organized as a collection of six interlinked profiles: psychological transformations resonate in constantly shifting musical shapes. Material presented in the opening movement undergoes constant manipulation and reappears in altered guises throughout the work, a musical illustration of fortitude and resilience becoming of the ‘sisters’.  The two movements entitled ‘Offerta fraternalia’ are a ‘brother’s’ homage- a tribute to the strength and beauty of ‘das ewig Weibliche’.