Melodia’s founding commitment to rediscover and perform music composed for women’s voices and musical instruments has lead the group on a bold journey of discovery. Many works that have disappeared from the repertoire, their scores abandoned in dusty boxes and on sagging shelves, have been brought back to life by the Melodia singers and Cynthia Powell, Artistic Director. Add to that ten commissioned works by some of today’s emerging and accomplished women choral composers and Melodia’s 17-year history resounds with the music of treble voices, strings, winds, piano and all kinds of percussion.
The joy of performing these works is compounded by the opportunity to rehearse and perform with some of the leading women instrumental musicians working in New York today. Two musicians who have worked with Melodia for numerous concerts are flutists Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim, who together perform as Flutronix. In addition to concerts, our music-making together has included participation by Melodia in a recording of a work the duo created entitled She Is, featured on their CD Flutronix 2.0, released in 2014.
Since then, both individually and together, Allison and Nathalie have continued to reach new heights as both performers and composers, pushing back boundaries and racking up a growing number of awards and accolades.
Just recently, the duo participated in the Boccaccio Project, a commissioning initiative of The Library of Congress. Inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th-century work The Decameron, a written piece about escaping the deadly effects of the Black Plague, the Boccaccio Project is a collection of micro-commissions responding to the Coronavirus pandemic.
For the creation of the Flutronix piece, entitled Have and Hold, Allison was paired with Nathalie to write a new work for a flutist who also sings, and electronics. “Have and Hold reflects the desire to be near others during an extended period of social distancing and isolation. Personally, I have realized that being around people and experiencing life with them not only brings me great joy, but fuels my energy, creativity and spirit. This piece is truly dedicated to all of the people in my life who I miss dearly and long to be near again,” said Allison.
All the musicians of Melodia profoundly miss being able to sing together during the pandemic and look forward to the day when we can once again prepare and perform great works with Nathalie and Allison and our other instrumentalists. Our hope is to commission the duo to create a new work for the group that we can jointly perform when gathering and sharing music together is again part of our lives.
Melodia Women's Choir 