Musician of the Month: Caterina Schembri

On November 14th I am releasing my debut album Sea Salt & Turpentine on the Ergodos label with a launch concert at the National Concert Hall. The album is a collection of chamber and vocal works I composed over the past two and a half years for Ficino Ensemble and Michelle O’Rourke in rotating subsets. It also features original lyrics and text written by me.

The music is an intimate portrait of my inner landscapes and explores some of my main creative interests: a focus on colour and nuance, rich soundscapes, naturalistic imagery, obnubilated symbols, connections with the written word, and literary allusions translated into music. With this music, I want to create a sense of suspension, spaciousness, and introspection.

And with water printed unto my bones
I break asunder from the flock…

Out of this light,
Into this dusk.

The title piece, Sea salt and turpentine, plays last and it carries the soul of the album. Written for string quartet and two voices, Sea salt and turpentine is about finding a sense of refuge in nature and creativity. It is mapped as a ritual of individual affirmation and sensorial connectivity with the landscape. I find solace and moments of deep reflection and stimulation in proximity to the ocean; this piece condenses in one moment a constellation of rebirths. Its germinal idea alludes to Virginia Woolf’s poetic novel The Waves, a work that has been very influential to my creative work and perception of the world.

I decided to open the album with a solo viola piece for Nathan Sherman, creative director of the ensemble and key collaborator in this project. Soft charcoal over moonstone is the opening gate to the sound universe of the album. It explores the idea of chiaroscuro through the viola, contrasting light versus shade and all possibilities in-between. The title establishes a visual reference, the charcoal as a dark drawing tool over a shiny luminous material, the moonstone. These two opposing forces emerge in many shades providing the palette and arc of the piece.

When light bleeds out of the day.
To see your gestures blur,
Deform,
Wolfsbane blue, underwater
Screams cross a long distance
Embellishing themselves.

These eyes, these hips, these hands
Clothes spread wide and mermaid-like
Let the light flicker mercurial…
Let the light flicker and fade.

There is a willow for voice, viola clarinet, and harp is the first piece I composed in this collection, written in 2022 as part of the Ficino Ensemble Composers Workshop it was also my first link to Ficino Ensemble. Depicting Ophelia’s death, the text of There is a willow opens with a quote from Hamlet and then evolves into original text. I wanted to explore her experience first-hand, things her eyes might have seen, but also thoughts that could have crossed her mind. I am fascinated by the timelessness of this character and her representation of the feeling of surrendered disembodiment that a first heartbreak can generate. The text is scattered with images of flowers that carry a symbolic meaning, a secret message.

This idea of floriography (the meanings of flowers) was the main inspiration for the visual aspect of the album, flowers and trees that carry a symbolic meaning are found in the lyrics of three of the pieces. To create the cover, I made cyanotypes using flowers I collected around Dublin, the dry flowers were then organised on top of the finished cyanotype and beautifully captured in photo by my dear friend Néstor Romero Clemente.

Cold storm pines tangle and expand
Tracing maps of empty cities,
Empty palms.

My fingers follow scarlet roads
Of chins, of ears,
Of mouths that turn to stone

If I wake up slowly,
I’m off the shore.

The third track of the album, I wake up in the night when I dream in black and white explores the elusive nature of dreams and the arrested rhythms of broken expectations. The musical gestures trace blooming lines that crest and die out traversing the liminal space between reality and dream, disclosing fragments of the darker corners of the mind often ignored during daytime. The visual idea of an unknown silhouette coming in and out of focus without fully revealing itself, beautiful and slightly unsettling.

This piece was written for String Quartet and speaker, it features a segment of spoken word. I loved working on this element as it was the first time I wrote a piece of standalone text in this context. The text was brewing in my head for a while and came together on a winter afternoon in Paris.

This piece is one of three in the album that include vocal elements, I was very lucky to work with vocalist Michelle O’Rourke on all three of them. Her care for nuance, her versatility, and her understanding of intention and meaning elevate the text and the music.

The full instrumental ensemble comes together for It was only half as far.

In the twenty-first poem of Pictures of the Gone World (1955), Lawrence Ferlinghetti opens up with the line: ‘Heaven // was only half as far that night // at the poetry recital…’ and proceeds to describe a scene that to distant eyes could seem simple or mundane, but that encapsulates an instant of bliss to him. I always loved this image of the wide distance to the ether shrinking, a vivid and clear representation of those moments of fleeting elation that often come unexpectedly, in ordinary scenarios, leaving deep imprints behind. It was only half as far echoes the times in which this sentiment shone a light on me.

This album is the result of a collective effort, it has been a great joy to work with a team of exceptional musicians; Ficino Ensemble and Michelle O’Rourke gave the richest and most soulful performances I could have wished for. The care and artistry in the capture and production of the record are all in the hands of co-producer Garrett Sholdice and sound engineer Edu Prado, with the final touch from mastering engineer Christoph Stickel.

Sea salt & Turpentine found its perfect home in Ergodos. The label, founded by composers Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice is a beautiful ecosystem of careful curation for music projects that I have long admired and that has been a very active part of my creative life. I am proud to see my music there and always grateful to the two powerhouses in this operation Garrett and Benedict.

Link to Album Launch at the National Concert Hall on Thursday November 14th.

Feature Image: Néstor Romero Clemente