Created by vocalist and composer Charlotte Mundy, ‘Light as a Feather’
is a ghost opera inspired by the parlor room of 10a Nolan Park. In a room covered in
sighing pink tissue paper, invisible voices beckon, whisper, growl and swirl around
listeners, lights glow and change color, and floral scents waft through the space.
Light as a Feather takes inspiration from the healing, psychedelic visions of
medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen; the visionary 1949 film The Wizard of Oz; and
girlish sleepover games. Spanning 24 minutes and three scenes, the ghost opera will
not feature any live performers, but will feature Mundy’s own layered and stretched
voice channeled through an eight-speaker array, accompanied by simple machines built
and programmed by Mundy with multimedia artist Melody Loveless. Mundy’s compositions
have been presented on the Chance and Circumstance Festival, Resonant Bodies
Festival, and Periapsis Music and Dance series. As a soloist, founding member of TAK
Ensemble and core member of Ekmeles vocal ensemble, she is one of the foremost
voices shaping contemporary music in New York City today. Mundy specializes in music
that is new, daring and sublime. She has been called a “daredevil with an
unbreakable spine” (SF Classical Voice), and her performances have been described as
“an oasis of radiant beauty” (NYTimes) and “marvelously appealing” (The Log). Mundy
was awarded the Jan DeGaetani prize for contemporary song performance from the 2019
Joy in Singing Competition, and has performed with the Resonant Bodies Festival, BAM
New Wave Festival and New York Festival of Song. She has appeared as a soloist at
the 92nd Street Y, Metropolitan Museum, Park Avenue Armory and the Library of
Congress and given critically acclaimed renditions of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire,
Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maître, Feldman’s Three Voices and Messiaen’s Poémes Pour
Mí. Mundy “slays the thorniest material like it’s nothing” (WQXR) with TAK ensemble
at venues including Issue Project Room, Miller Theater and the Look and Listen
festival; she sings stratospheric microtonal lines with Ekmeles vocal ensemble at
venues including The Kitchen and Philadelphia’s Rotunda. Mundy was a host of WQXR’s
new music station, Q2music, from 2012-2015 and currently co-hosts, co-edits and
co-produces the TAK Editions Podcast. Her compositions have been featured on the
Resonant Bodies Festival, Chance and Circumstance Festival, Periapsis Music and
Dance festival, Higher Ground festival and Broad Statements. She has lectured on
writing for voice and participated in readings, workshops and performances of
student compositions at institutions including Columbia University, Princeton, Yale,
Stanford, Cornell, McGill, and Juilliard. Mundy studied at the Contemporary
Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, and the Faculty of Music at
the University of Toronto. She was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and currently
resides in Brooklyn.
