Venegas brings the mythological figure of the cursed young priestess into today’s ‘MeToo’ era. Venegas: “Medusa’s transformation from woman to monster is a good example of the horrors that rape victims carry with them. With this story I want to unfold the nightmare of women who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of abuse.”
Fridman: “I know that Saskia feels enormous urgency to tell this story. This subject is not easy. Playing the music is also often very difficult for me. I am the channel through which Saskia tells her story to the audience. That’s why I want to do it well.”
Medusa, which will eventually consist of four parts, is still being developed. “Our collaboration is very intense,” says Fridman. “When I start playing a piece, it is an obsession for me to get to the bottom of the message of the story and the intention of the music. Seventy per cent of that process is communication. Saskia and I have become real friends. I am now practising hard on the second movement and I expect to premiere it during the Erato festival. I will also play five other compositions. The pieces by Fjóla Evans and Wilma Pistorius were written for me as well. I also sing in Zulu in one of them.” She laughs. “That was quite a challenge in the beginning, but now I have mastered it.”
When asked what rituals mean to Fridman, she says: “Rituals are a part of all human societies. The first music was made during rituals: outside around fires, in a temple or in a church. I find the relationship between rituals and music so interesting that I am doing artistic research on a sub-question and writing a paper. I hope to get my PhD soon. The pieces I play in Rituals were inspired by the magical powers of spells and invocations. And by nature itself. The greatest source of what we call divine.”
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention