LUX FEMINÆ 900 – 1600

Ref: AVSA9847

• Montserrat Figueras

Lux Feminae is a homage to the light of Woman. Having sung of that light for so long through music and poetry, I naturally became aware that it has not always been free to shine. Lux Feminae is also a story with music about women and an invocation to femininity, as the key to the spiritual world. Lux Feminae focuses on seven aspects of woman in ancient Hesperia, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Seven is a sacred number that has been revered by sages and mystics through the ages: it is the union of 4 (the four elements, the four colours from which all the colours in the artist’s palette are made…) and 3 (the Trinity, the Pyramid…), symbolising the union of all things both spiritual and earthly, a union which is also embodied in the figure of woman. Seven is the number of the climes, the seas, the heavens and the days of Creation; this sacred dimension is also found in music and poetry and, indeed, in ourselves, since we have the capacity to make sacred or profound everything that we experience and do. Over and above sacred music, there is a sacred way of making music.
Lux Feminae represents an interval of intimacy, the description of a delicate, secluded space which must be protected, an inner garden at the centre of which we find the anima, light, Beauty. The manner of singing, therefore, also draws on that intimacy, while also incorporating strength, rhythm, dance and the dramatic power of words. The different traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam have all felt the need to express that intimacy through the same symbolism: the inner garden, the cloister, the castle of interior mansions as spaces of quietude, knowledge and meditation.
Lux Feminae is a celebratory disc because the best approach to life is to celebrate everything and take time to celebrate. It is a hymn to the place of woman through history, focusing on her aspects of light: mysticism, sensuality, motherhood, love, lament, rejoicing and wisdom. Women sing the story of humanity, celebrating the beauty and possibility of being sweet as honeycomb on the tongue; celebrating mystical love, the fruitful womb and the tender breast that nurtures God; celebrating the experience of giving birth, of motherhood and nursing a child; the gift and duty of transmitting life, teaching and being teachers of life; celebrating the experience of joy, even in the midst of grief and loss. All the protagonists of the poems and songs in Lux Feminae embody and bear witness to that light.

Montserrat Figueras