Suite "Memorias" (Flute and Guitar), Composed by Katrina Penman and Maria Elena Pena de Prada, Published by Brotons & Mercadal Edicions Musicals.

Duration: 12 minutes

The composition of this Suite of three pieces was motivated by feminine creativity.

I. La hija del mar (Daughter of the sea) is inspired by the first novel of Rosalía de Castro. The music was created out of a Galician melody that was given to us.

“This child, so light and airy, who brings joy to the dry riverbanks like a burning ray of sun warms the naked, freezing body of a beggar, this is Esperanza, the daughter of the sea, who was found thrown upon a bare rock. We do not know whether she was born of the white foam that is ceaselessly brought up by the waves, or if she is a fallen angel who wanders sadly through the land from which she was exiled.”

 – Rosalía de Castro (1837 – 1885)

 II. Nana del exilio (Lullaby in Exile) – inspired by the following poem by Sylvia Plath after giving birth to her son Nicholas in her adopted country.

O love, how did you get here?  O embryo, remembering, even in sleep, your crossed position. The blood blooms clean in you, ruby. The pain you wake to is not yours.

 – Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)

 III. Adio (Farewell) – inspired by different historical farewell songs, by characters such as the young sephardic girl Julie Cohen and the courtesan Violetta Valery, and in these recent lines by the poet Elvira Sastre:

I don’t want to say goodbye to you. Understand me, I’m resisting letting you go because you always were everything that was going to happen

and now that you are leaving, all the mornings spent with you fall through my hands.

 – Elvira Sastre (1992- )