Matricalis, A New Resource For Musician Mothers, Launched By Olivia De Prato, Zosha Di Castri, Allison Loggins-Hull & Alice Teyssier

Olivia De Prato, Zosha Di Castri, Allison Loggins-Hull, and Alice Teyssier have announced the launch of Matricalis, a project and community hub that reflects on the impact of motherhood on individual musicians. Through podcast episodes, collaborative pieces, and open discussions, Matricalis seeks to tackle one of the final "taboos" in the professional music world. Matricalis intends to openly explore the transformative nature of becoming a mother as an artist, considering both the logistical challenges, as well as the profound ways creativity can change, encouraging us towards new ways of thinking and doing.

On Friday, September 17, 2021 at 7:00pm, Allison Loggins-Hull's project Diametrically Composed premieres as part of Bryant Park's free Picnic Performances. Diametrically Composed is a collection of newly commissioned works featuring flute, voice, and piano exploring the duality of being a mother and an artist. Conceived and produced by Loggins-Hull, the collaborative artists are composers Paola Prestini, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Jessica Meyer, mezzo-soprano and composer Alicia Hall Moran, and pianist Gabriela Martinez. Their contributions reflect personal experiences, exploring diverse themes related to being a mother and an artist. Diametrically Composed reaches beyond the typical recital format, providing an immersive performance experience incorporating recited text, narratives and points-of-view of mothers from varied artistic professions.

Matricalis will hold its first interactive video forum on Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 11:00am ET with the founding members. This event will introduce the team and aspirations of Matricalis, allow participants to ask questions, and tackle the subject of touring with kids (particularly young children). The feedback generated from the participants will instigate further topical focuses for video forums in the future, to which guest-speakers will also be invited to speak.

The founders express, "We hope this website will serve as a network, a community, a platform, a place for creative connection and artistic exchange, a place where we can talk openly and honestly, and make meaningful changes for the future. Maybe because we have been forced to stop and become more comfortable with the unknown, the pandemic will encourage women musicians who want to be mothers to take the leap. We are excited about the creation of this wider community; we deserve to share our experiences, support one another, advocate for policy change on local and systemic levels, and to genuinely live our full selves."

The four musicians met and connected because they were all working on similar projects at the same time in 2020 and felt inspired by each other's work. Currently living in Vienna (Olivia De Prato), New York (Zosha Di Castri and Alice Teyssier) and New Jersey (Allison Loggins-Hull) and still unable to meet in person, they connected over Zoom and brainstormed ideas on how to create a larger platform on the topic of motherhood and artistry that could help their community and future generations.

Violinist, improviser and educator Olivia De Prato's project I. A.M, Artist Mother was motivated by the lack of public discourse surrounding being an artist mother. The project will be released by the end of 2021and features seven new collaborative works by Jen Baker, Zosha Di Castri, Natasha Diels, Ha-Yang Kim, Pamelia Stickney, and Katie Young. The pieces are influenced by the questions, "How did this life-changing experience influence our artistic vision and creativity? How do we fit into a society that still believes women must choose between family and art?"

In July 2021, composer, pianist, teacher, and interdisciplinary artist Zosha Di Castri launched a new podcast series The Dream Feed: Musicians on Motherhood featuring conversations between musicians on their experiences navigating the seemingly incompatible worlds of professional music and motherhood, sharing in both the personal challenges and profoundly inspiring moments that come with being simultaneously mothers and musicians. In "B-Side" episodes, the performers share a jointly created duo with electronics and discuss what it was like to collaborate at a distance. The first five episodes feature violinist Olivia De Prato, composer/performer Pauchi Sasaki, flutist/singer Alice Teyssier, cellist Chloé Dominguez, and percussionist Aiyun Huang.

Flutist, composer, and producer Allison Loggins-Hull began working on Diametrically Composed in 2017 when she realized she wasn't the only woman in her field who felt interrogated about their pregnancy. She also learned that many artist mothers guarded their family life from the public out of fear of being judged or their work not taken seriously. In this project, Loggins-Hull debunks the notion that a woman cannot succeed at both, and honors how these dimensions of a person can inform and feed one another.

Of her project Thresholds, vocalist, flutist, sound artist, and educator Alice Teyssier says, "This project commemorates two thresholds of human experience: the entry of a new being, the transformation of another. I want to live in that transformation, artistically and creatively, observing it from the other side and bringing its mysticism to this world." For Thresholds, Teyssier is working closely with artist-parents Elana Bell, Zosha Di Castri, Vivian Fung, Clara Latham, Elizabeth Hoffman, Irene Quero, and Wang Lu on generating new works. Additionally, emboldened by the inherent creativity required for parenting, she is also composing and devising a variety of works for the project to be performed or recorded by herself and, increasingly, others.

The name Matricalis comes from the Latin matricalis (/maː.triˈkaː.lis/), meaning "of or pertaining to the womb or matrix" (matre meaning mother). Matricalis is also the root of the musical term madrigal. Learn more at www.matricalis.com.

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