World Premiere: Four Women

Program Notes
Four Women, evolved from the composer’s original 2017 work Helenas Odysee, presents four archetypal women whose experiences together form an allegorical journey through a woman’s life.

• Helena embodies youth, desire, vulnerability, and the pursuit of love.
• Clytemnestra represents exile, loss, betrayal, and the complexity of anger and vengeance.
• Cassandra is the abused, visionary woman whose insights are ignored or disbelieved.
• Aphrodite embodies love, consolation, community, and self-empowerment.
•
Individually, they are distinct; collectively, they symbolize the universal stages and challenges of women’s lives. Every woman, in some form, experiences aspects of these archetypes as she navigates life.
Originally inspired by encounters with refugee women in Landsberg, the piece reflects on displacement, family separation, and cultural adaptation. With the perspective of 2025—through the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and global authoritarianism—Four Women speaks to resilience, solidarity, and the sustaining power of love and human connection.
Music, dance, and visual art interact throughout the piece, creating a collaborative, immersive narrative. The four archetypes’ separate and overlapping journeys invite audiences to witness the complexity of women’s experiences and recognise the shared strength, courage, and humanity that unite them.