Julie Comparini

Art songs by Rita Strohl and Lili Boulanger

The French composer Rita Strohl (1865–1941) was an extraordinary musical talent who enjoyed early success as a composer. In 1912 she deliberately withdrew from the Parisian music scene to found the Theâtre La Grange in the small town of Bièvres. Her disappearance from Parisian musical society brought artistic independence, but also a loss of public recognition, resulting in a near-complete fall into oblivion. Only recently have some of her works been rediscovered and performed.

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) did not retreat from society by choice. Suffering from chronic lung infections and Crohn’s disease from early childhood on, she was forced her to live largely in isolation and died at the age of 24. Nonetheless, she left behind a remarkable body of work and was the first female composer to win the prestigious Prix de Rome.

Rita Strohl and Lili Boulanger almost certainly never met. And yet, their artistic voices seem to recognize one another: in their choice of poetic texts and the delicacy of their musical settings, in the intensity of their expression, and in their ability to shape vast and radiant soundscapes from a place of seclusion. Their imagined artistic dialogue is suggested here in the intimate form of a song recital.

Julie Comparini, contralto
Joelle (Yonit) Kosovske, piano

Saturday, May 9th, 2026, 6:00 pm
Klosterkirche Lilienthal
Klosterstr. 14, 28865 Lilienthal
Free admission, donations welcome
More information

Friday, May 15th, 2026, 7:00 pm
Ev.-luth. Kirchengemeinde St. Martini-Lesum
Hindenburgstraße 30, 28717 Bremen
Free admission, donations welcome
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Saturday, May 16th, 2026, 4:30 pm
Villa Ichon
Goetheplatz 4, 28203 Bremen
Tickets € 20 / € 15 reduced
Reservations: lesvoixretirees@use.startmail.com
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The "Torfkahn Barock" concert on the Findorff Canal in Bremen is back! Six musical ensembles perform on six historical peat barges at six stops between the "Port Piet" restaurant at the Findorffer Torfhafen and the "Segel-Club" sailboat harbor in Bremen-Blockland. Each ensemble plays once at each stop before moving on. Audience members can settle in with a picnic basket and a portable seat along the canal bank to enjoy all the ensembles from one spot, or follow their favorite ensemble to the next mooring. Overseeing it all are the mysterious stilt-walking harbor spirits from the Kulturladen Huchting and Signor Canale del Clarinetto Basso Klaus Fischer.

The ensemble Gli aeronauti di Monteverdi (Lisa Solomon, Lea Völzer, Julie Comparini, Matthew Glandorf, and Alexander Schuhmann) will sing madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi under the musical direction of Matthew Glandorf.

In case of rain, the concert will take place at 8:00 pm in the Martin-Luther-Kirche Findorff, Neukirchstraße 86, 28215 Bremen.

The Torfkahn Barock event is a Torfkähne Bremen / Kulturladen Huchting production made possible by the Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung, the Beirat Findorff and the Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen (Natürlich Bremen 2025 event series).
Artistic Director: Peter Schenk

Friday, 12 September 2025, 7:30 pm
Torfkahnhafen/Torfkanal, Bremen-Findorff
Admission free, donations welcome
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At a photo shoot for the new website of the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, I met the photographer Anja Segermann and was so impressed with her work that I immediately asked her if she would take some new portrait photos of me. You can see the results here on my website, where they are available for use in concert programs or press appearances.

A big thank-you to the Unser Lieben Frauen church in Bremen as well for their permission to shoot our photos there -- some of them under the beautiful multicoloured light of the Manessier windows.

Florentina Holzinger's opera performance piece SANCTA was voted one of the ten most remarkable productions of the year by the Nachtkritik-Jury of the Theatertreffen / Berliner Festspiele, allowing us (I sing in the choir) to return to the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin for three more performances in May 2025:

Thursday, May 8th at 7:00 pm
Friday, May 9th at 7:00 pm
Saturday, May 10th at 3:00 pm

If you wanted to see the show and couldn't get tickets, you may have a chance this time. Tickets will go on sale on May 17th, 2025 at 2:00 pm via the Volksbühne website. It will probably sell out very quickly.

Excerpt from the statement of the jury:
Isn’t there a little bit of sorcery in every mass? Don’t they turn bread into flesh, wine into blood? Florentina Holzinger uses Paul Hindemith’s short opera “Sancta Susanna” about a nun’s experience of sexual awakening as the launching pad for her captivating version of a Catholic service. [...] In the opera, it is the church’s insignia of sacrifice, guilt and authority, in Holzinger’s physical reading, it is uninhibited sex, transgression and shamelessness. Her queer-feminist company overwrites sacred images and interprets biblical scenes as visceral borderline experiences.[...]

Irish national public radio RTÉ included Watershed in its entirety on its LyricFM broadcast on February 21, 2025. The broadcast begins with Watershed and can be be heard at this link:

Watershed bei RTÉ lyric FM, 21.02.2025

Watershed (2021) is a song cycle by the award-winning Irish composer Ailís Ní Ríain on poems from the book And Say by Jessica Brown, written for and performed by Julie Comparini (contralto) and Yonit Kosovske (piano) and made possible by an Irish Arts Council Music Commission grant awarded to Yonit Kosovske.

The Watershed recording, which embeds the song cycle in Jessica Brown's readings of other poems from And Say as well as field recordings of the natural landscapes around Lough Derg, was released in November 2021 and is available on Bandcamp as a CD or digital download. The world premiere performance of Watershed took place on March 1st, 2022 in Limerick, Ireland and has since been performed by Julie Comparini and Yonit Kosovske throughout Ireland and as part of the multimedia project Sea-Sounds in Bremen.

Watershed can be heard on the RTÉ broadcast as a quasi-prelude to the live transmission of a concert by the Irish National Symphony Orchestra, featuring Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and the Irish premiere of The Land Grows Weary of its Own by Ailís Ní Ríain. It's definitely worth hearing the whole broadcast!

Celebrated in their time, many are almost unknown today: although European and American music history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries focuses on white composers, pioneering composers of color were also active during the Romantic era, enriching and expanding classical music with their compositions.

The new concert program Romantik of Color by the Namu Ensemble presents four composers of color whose life and works made an impact on the musical world in spite of marginalization and discrimination: Clarence Cameron White (1880–1960), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847–1935), and Florence Price (1887–1953). A concert moderation by Julie Comparini will contextualise the selected works to be performed.

The Bremen-based Namu Ensemble was founded in 2020 with the aim of creating a stage for underrepresented composers who due to their race, gender or circumstances have long been denied the recognition they truly deserve.

Dannielle Seiler, oboe
Susanne Milkus, clarinet
Oscar Alemany, horn
Abigail Kirsten, bassoon
Lisa Wehrhahn, violin
Hannah Craib, viola
Elena Tomarchio, cello
with Julie Comparini, voice and moderation (in German)

Friday, January 24, 2025, 7:00 PM
Dom zu Verden (Großer Saal)
Lugenstein 10–12, 27283 Verden

Saturday, February 15, 2025, 8:00 PM
Zentrum für Kunst im Tabakquartier
Hermann-Ritter-Straße 108 E, 28197 Bremen

Sunday, February 16, 2025, 3:00 PM
St. Martini zu Bremen-Lesum
Hindenburgstr. 30, 28717 Bremen

„Romantik of Color“: Klänge aus fremden Kulturer. Antje Haubrock-Kreidel, kreiszeitung.de, 26.01.25

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The new CD by period-instrument ensemble "La Protezione della Musica" features three Christmas cantatas and instrumental works by the little-known composer Johann Philipp Käfer (1672 - 1728).

Many of Käfer's works have been lost, making it difficult to take a comprehensive look at his oeuvre. Nevertheless, this recording offer a brief overview of his surviving music. The CD was recorded in the small North German town of Grasberg, with the continuo part played on the historical church organ built by Arp Schnitger in 1694.

Malwine Nicolaus, soprano
Julie Comparini, alto
Mika Ruben Stähle, tenor
Arthur Engel, bass
Lisa Bork, organ
Ensemble La Protezione della Musica
Musical direction: Jeroen Finke

Arcantus, arc 24056
Available as a physical CD here or here or in digital form on Spotify or all the usual streaming services

Bremen's popular Brecht-Revue Denn für dieses leben ist der Mensch nicht gut genug returns as a benefit concert for the refugee support organisation refugio. Texts by Bertolt Brecht, set to music by AC/DC, Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler, Pink Floyd, Kurt Weill, Led Zeppelin and other, as well as newly composed works.

Julie Comparini, Evelyn Gramel, Manja Stephan, voice
Bremer Kaffeehaus-Orchester
Matthias Entrup, percussion
Directed by Peter Schenk

Kulturkirche St. Stephani, 28195 Bremen
Admission 23 / 14 Euro. Tikets available via Nordwest-Ticket, in the Evangelischen Informationszentrum "Kapitel 8", in the Humboldt-Buchandlung und the Georg-Büchner-Buchhandlung, and at the door.

With additional support from the Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen, the Kulturkirche St. Stephani and the Lutheran-Protestant Church of Bremen.
More Information (in German)

"Bert-Brecht-Chansons at their best." (Nordseezeitung, 8.5.2017)

"Soprano Manja Stephan, American expat Julie Comparini and jazz-savvy Evelyn Gramel were impressive in their acting talents and the strength and clarity of their singing." (Weser-Kurier, 20.2.2018)

Chants & Rechants is a new concert program that explores the influence of Renaissance music and texts on French composers of the 20th century.

Its central work is the Cinq rechants (1948) by Olivier Messiaen, a work inspired by the structure of chants (verses) and rechants (refrains) in Claude LeJeunes 1603 collection Le Printemps. LeJeune's airs mesurées eschewed common time signatures in favor of rhythmical text settings based on the length and number of syllables in each line -- a technique that Messaien employed and transformed in the modernist Cinq rechants. Together with pieces from Le Printemps and the Six rondeaux for voice and viola (1968) by Jean Berger, the program illustrates the constant dialogue between "old" and "new" that has accompanied musical history throughout the centuries.

Concept and programming: Julie Comparini
With Julie Comparini (contralto), Yuko Hara (viola), Bernhard Reichel (lute)
Orchid Kammerchor
Conducted by: Keno Hankel

Saturday, September 21st 2024, 8:00 pm
Propsteikirche St. Johann
Klosterkirchenstraße, 28195 Bremen
Free admission

Sunday, September 22nd 2024, 7:00 pm
Klosterkirche Lilienthal
Klosterstraße 14, 28865 Lilienthal
Free admission

Founded by the Bremer Literaturkontor and the chamber music ensemble Konsonanz, LauschOrte is an immersive public project that illustrates places of historical interest in Bremen with music and literature by local writers and artists. Seventeen different locations in the city centre offer an opportunity to hear (via QR code) readings of texts underlaid with baroque, classical and rock music, jazz or electronic beats. Each text explores the historical significance of its associated building or monument, giving listeners a multi-faceted and contemporary experience of historal locations.

All seventeen texts can be heard in the original German or an English translation, professionally recorded by German- or English-speaking actors, and can be heard on the LauschOrte website as well as on location.

Julie Comparini reads the English version of Laura Müller-Hennig's text Bücherverbrennung (Book Burning) in the central Bremen public library and translated Antonia Bontscheva's text Berliner Mauerstück (A Piece of the Berlin Wall) into English.

The ten newest LauschOrt locations, including the public library, will be introduced to the public on June 25, 2024 at 2:00 pm in the Wallforum of the central public library in Bremen.

More Information

Come celebrate the official release of the CD Pone spes in planctu amaro with us!

Thursday, March 14, 2024, 7:00 pm
Haus Hirschfeld
Adelenstraße 68
28239 Bremen, Germany

This is our way of saying thank you to the many people who have helped make this project possible, and an opportunity for everyone to enjoy a glass of champagne and an hors-d'oeuvre while getting to know the artists, the projects and Leonarda's wonderful music.

The CD will be available as of the beginning of March via the Bremen label arcantus, in stores near you as well as from the usual digital download and streaming sites (links below) and of course, at the launch party.

You can also order physical CDs directly from Julie Comparini: Send an e-mail to julie (at) juliecomparini (dot) com with your billing and shipping address(es) and the desired number of CDs. You will receive an invoice that can be paid via PayPal or SEPA bank transfer and your CDs will be sent in the mail. The CDs cost 18 Euro per CD plus postage, or postage-free for orders shipped within Germany.

Interview with Julie Comparini about Leonarda (in German)
CD Information
arcantus-label

Listen to the CD at Tidal, Apple Music or Spotify
Buy a digital CD in the iTunes-Store

The CD Pone spes in planctu amaro is finally here! Recorded in 2022 by the renowned Radio Bremen producer Renate Wolter-Seevers, the CD presents six solo motets and two violin sonatas by Isabella Leonarda, sung by Julie Comparini and played by an ensemble of early music experts from Bremen, Germany.

In spite of their musical quality, most of Leonarda’s works have not be re-performed in modern times, and only a handful have been recorded or published in modern editions, making several pieces on this CD modern premieres.

The official release with international distribution and digital download on the Arcantus label will be announced soon. Until then, you can order a special pre-issue copy of the physical CD directly from Julie Comparini. Send an e-mail to julie (at) juliecomparini (dot) com with your billing and shipping address(es) and the desired number of CDs. You will receive an invoice that can be paid via PayPal or SEPA bank transfer and your CDs will be sent in the mail. The CDs cost 18 Euro per CD plus postage (or postage-free for orders shipped within Germany).

CD Information
Interview with Julie Comparini about Leonarda (in German)

Three days before the debut concert of the Isabella-Leonarda-Project Pone spes in planctu amaro, Germany's leading independent-progressive newspaper taz has published an interview with Julie Comparini by Benno Schirrmeister:

Julie Comparini über Barockkomponistin Isabella Leonarda

It seems to be in German only, but if you can read it, please do! Note that the current headline describes a common theme in Leonarda's texts and not my personal worldview. (The original headline, also describing Leonarda's texts, was "The amount of masochistic indulgence is truly remarkable", which was apparently too long.)

The debut concert of "Pone spes in planctu amaro" will take place on Saturday, September 23 in the Sendesaal Bremen statt. You can find more information and reserve tickets here.

During her 68 years at the Collegio di Sant'Orsola, Isabella Leonarda composed more than two hundred published works in twenty published collections. Born into minor nobility in Novara in 1620, she entered the Ursuline convent at the age of sixteen, rising to the office of Madre superior in 1686 and Madre vicaria in 1693 before her death in 1704. She is considered one of the most productive female composers of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Her approximately 100 solo motets combine technical virtuosity with a highly personal expression of religious fervor. The texts are frequently non-liturgical, rich in imagery and assumed to be written by Leonarda herself. They offer a fascinating insight into both Leonarda’s own deep and personified beliefs and the larger theological context of a 17th-century nunnery.

In spite of their musical quality, most of Leonarda’s works have not be re-performed in modern times, and only a handful have been recorded or published in modern editions -- making several pieces in this concert modern premieres.

Saturday, September 23, 2023, 8:00 pm
Sendesaal, Bürgermeister-Spitta-Allee 45, 28329 Bremen
More Information and Tickets

The Watershed project is coming to Germany with two multimedia concerts scheduled in Bremen this summer. Sea-Sounds combines Watershed with the song cycle Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar, as well as readings of texts from Watershed and Sea Pictures in translations by Schirin Nowrousian and Bertram Kottmann and illumination art by Bremen artist Sara Förster.

Elgar's Sea Pictures, published in 1899, reflect on human life on and around the sea: desire for freedom and adventure, wonder at the miracle of heavenly creation, and the ever-changing tides and weathers as a mirror of human emotional states. Together with Watershed, the program both connects and brings a present-day perspective to the poetic-musical tradition of natural and environmental metaphors of human experience.

Wednesday, June 22 2023, 11:00 pm, Kulturkirche Bremen
Sunday, June 25 2023, 7:00 pm, Stadtkirche Bremen-Vegesack

Historically informed performances of baroque operas have long found their way into the mainstream opera world, with stagings of works by Handel, Rameau, Cavalli or Purcell being produced at leading European opera houses and festivals. As a result, an understanding that the affect-driven dramaturgy of baroque operas was accompanied by a precise system of gestures has also grown.

In a month-long residency at the Fleetstreet Theater in Hamburg, the music-performance trio Marta Kowalczuk (composition), Lutz Rademacher (musical direction) and Hans-Jörg Kapp (scenic direction) has explored the possibilities of baroque gesture in a modern, affect- and performance-driven context. The results can be seen and heard in a workshop presentation on Tuesday, February 28th at 5:00 pm with performers Julie Comparini (contralto), Kerstin Dietl (soprano), Jürgen Groß (violin) and Lutz Rademacher (continuo), followed by a meet-the-artists reception.

A full-scale scenic production in Hamburg in 2024 is currently in planning.

Thursday, February 28, 2023, 5:00 pm
Fleetstreet Theater, Admiralitätsstrasse 71, 20459 Hamburg
Admission: € 5,-
Contakt: office@operasilens.de, Tel: 0172 4993344
More information

Isabella Leonarda was born into minor nobility in 1620 in Novara, Italy. At the age of 16, she entered the Ursuline convent Collegio di Sant'Orsola, rising to the position of Madre superior in 1686 and Madre vicaria in 1693 before her death in 1704. During her 68 years at the convent, she composed more than two hundred published works, making her one of the most productive female composers of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Her approximately 100 solo motets combine technical virtuosity with a highly personal expression of religious fervor. The texts are frequently non-liturgical, rich in imagery and assumed to be written by Leonarda herself. They offer a fascinating insight into both Leonarda’s own deep and personified beliefs and the larger theological context of a 17th-century nunnery.

Saturday, November 26th, 2022, 4:00 pm
Galleri Athene, Grønland 57, 3045 Drammen, Norwegen
Part of the concert series Kvinneligespor
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On June 18th, 2022, the historical harbor in Bremen-Vegesack will be set in scene with a multimedia concert celebrating its 400th anniversary. Baroque and Renaissance music from the historical wind band Hanse Pfeyfferey, a vocal ensemble led by Julie Comparini and atmospheric compositions by jazz pianist Jens Schöwing transform the harbor into a dramatic musical-visual art performance and an eerie playground for the spirits of the night.
Produced by Peter Schenk for the Bremen Museum Night.
Saturday, June 18th, 11:00 pm, Vegesacker Hafen
More Information

Ireland's NearFM podcast, recorded at the Sundays At Noon concert of Watershed and the Hermit Songs in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, will be live streamed on Tuesday, May 31st 2022 at 2:00 pm GMT:

NearFM Podcast Livestream

The podcast will be available to hear after the livestream at the following link:

NearFM Podcast Archive

Accompanied by recordings of the concert and poetry readings by Jessica Brown from her book And Say, the pianist and initiator of the Watershed project, Yonit Kosovske, writer Jessica Brown, whose poems Watershed was composed on, and singer Julie Comparini discuss the collaborative process of commissioning and performing a new musical work as well as the experiences and inspirations that have accompanied them on their musical journey.

The Watershed CD, featuring the song cycle with readings by Jessica Brown and field recordings from Lough Derg, is available as a CD or digital download from Now And Then Media.

The concert Lough Derg 1 & 2 in Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery, featuring the Hermit Songs by Samuel Barber, the new song cycle Watershed by Ailís Ní Ríain and readings by poet Jessica Brown from her book And Say was recorded on video and is now available to watch on YouTube:

Sundays At Noon Concert Catch-Up

The world premiere performance of Watershed took place on March 1st, 2022 at St Mary's Cathedral in Limerick and was followed by a wonderful ten-day tour throughout Ireland, with some concerts also being recorded, such as this one at Maynooth University:

Maynooth Music Lunchtime Concert, 10. March 2022

In addition, all four artists involved in the project -- composer Ailís Ní Ríain, poet Jessica Brown, contralto Julie Comparini and the pianist and initiator of the project, Yonit Kosovske, appeared separately or together on podcasts produced by Near FM, RTÉ Lyric FM and the Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin, allowing listeners a fascinating insight into the creative and collaborative processes from which this project grew.

The Watershed CD, featuring the song cycle with readings by Jessica Brown and field recordings from Lough Derg, is available as a CD or digital download from Now And Then Media.

After the successful launch of the CD in November 2021, the song cycle Watershed, composed in 2020 by Ailís Ní Ríain for Julie Comparini and the pianist Yonit Kosovske, will enjoy its premiere and a concert tour in Ireland.

The premiere performance of Watershed will take place on March 1st, 2022 at St Mary's Cathedral in Limerick, followed by concerts in Galway, Mountshannon, Dublin, Clonmel, Maynooth and Kilkenny.

In most of the concerts, Watershed, whose texts (by contemporary poet Jessica Brown) reflect on the natural landscapes near Lough Derg near Limerick, will be performed together with the Hermit Songs von Samuel Barber, whose texts derive from writings by medieval monks and pilgrims to Lough Derg in Donegal. Just as a geological watershed changes the direction of water's flow, both song cycles explore the places and moments that lead us in new directions.

The Watershed CD, featuring the song cycle with readings by Jessica Brown and field recordings from Lough Derg, is available as a CD or digital download from Now And Then Media.

More information is available at the links above or in the Calendar.

After being delayed twice due to pandemic conditions, the song cycle Watershed, composed in 2020 by Ailís Ní Ríain for myself and pianist Yonit Kosovske, could finally be recorded in August 2021 at Pine Valley Studio in Killaloe, Ireland and is now available for purchase or digital download.

The recording includes the 25-minute song cycle as well as readings by poet Jessica Brown from her book And Say, from which the Watershed texts were chosen. The poems reflect upon the Irish lake Lough Derg near Limerick, and other natural landscapes in Ireland. The locations themselves can also be heard on the CD in the form of field recordings by Ròisín Berg, Leo Wolstenholme, Wolodymyr Smishkewych and Ilani Smishkewych Kosovske.

The premiere performance of Watershed will take place in Limerick, Ireland on March 1st, 2022.