LUCY DHEGRAE ON COLLABORATING WITH KATI AGÓCS

Brava to Kati for this stunning new piece: Voices of the Immaculate. Excited to premiere this tomorrow night with the excellent @tercersonido (Third Sound!) at @millertheatreatcu (Miller Theatre at Columbia University). I wrote a bit about my experience with this piece here. Kati really included me in her whole compositional process and it has been such an honor to be that up-close-and-personal with her. Looking forward to letting this piece run free in the universe .

In June, July, and August of 2020 I spent many intense, creative hours on Zoom with composer Kati Agócs (pronounced KAH-tee AH-goach). She had been commissioned to write a new chamber work for Third Sound (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano) and me. Since we had the luxury of time, we moved slowly: Kati would send me PDFs of her sketches, usually about 10-20 pages of melodies with and without words. She would write each phrase beginning at three different pitches so she could hear which phrase (or parts of the phrase) fit best in my voice. Going back and forth like this I got to have a lot of input not only about what felt good vocally, but also what music and words were evocative and striking to me. We developed our own vocabulary about sounds and vocal effects. Even though it was through Zoom (the dreaded!! hehe), it was probably the most intimate experience I've had with a composer and their composition process. It didn't feel transactional, or that she was writing a piece for me; it felt like she was writing the piece with me. 

A few months later I was interviewed by a friend finishing their dissertation on the topic of collaboration. In this thesis they compared collaboration to cooperation: collaboration being when all parties feel they have artistic, personal stakes in something; cooperation being saying yes and making it work. It made me reflect on my past roles as a singer. I had been yearning for collaboration all along, but only had it here and there. But another thing I realized over the many months of not really working/singing: you sing differently when you feel like you own the piece, when it really reflects you. After all, our voice goes through our heart, and that's not a metaphor (check out this podcast with Stephen Porges about the Polyvagal Theory!). 

And that's what I'm excited to share with you: We are finally premiering Kati’s new piece, Voices of the Immaculate, at Miller Theatre. We workshopped the seven-movement work in September, and now we—myself and Third Sound— are ready to premiere it in its final version. I am so grateful to Kati for really including me as an intimate partner (and collaborator) in this piece. - Lucy Dhegrae

Composer’s note: Voices of the Immaculate was premiered December 9, 2021, in New York. You can check out a live audio recording from the workshop with Lucy and Third Sound here.

Check out Zachary Woolf’s review in the New York Times.

A YouTube video of a live performance of the piece at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia was posted on August 1, 2024.

Thank you so much to Lucy for sharing her impressions of our work together on the piece. This is the first in a series of posts by performers with whom I’ve enjoyed close collaborations, whom I’m inviting to write briefly about the collaborative process. Stay tuned for more posts! And thank you so much for reading.
- Kati Agócs