Emily Wittbrodt – wearing words

For her song cycle ‘wearing words’, Emily Wittbrodt opens up compositional techniques borrowed from classical music to the experimental, improvisation and the imperfect. The Cologne-based cellist, composer and improvisation artist began her approach with ‘make you stay’. The new cycle now moves between experimental pop, avant-garde and art song. Wittbrodt focuses on the text, whose musical embedding and the bringing together of musicians of different stylistic provenance is consistently further developed and realised. Five texts written by herself tell of a time of sultriness, upheaval and uncertainty, performed by opera singer Sandro Hähnel. She deliberately wrote the songs for her vocal range, which is why Hähnel’s voice floats transparently and brightly above the density of the texts, carried and commented on by an ensemble of harpsichord, piano, accordion, clarinet, percussion and cello. Wittbrodt has been part of NICA artist development, the NRW musician development programme, since autumn 2024.