Ziazan
the musical revolution starts here
"Tornate all'antico e sarà una progresso"
Let us turn to the past — that will be progress
~ Giuseppe Verdi
Ziazan has a very rare voice: soprano and contralto in one. Over ten years ago she began reconstructing the ancient bel canto technique as it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her initial attempts at a bel canto revival have been met with hostility by the classical singing and early music establishments. Consequently, since the deaths of her mentors, Rae Woodland and Edward V. Foreman, Ziazan conducts her research independently. The results of her work can be found on her YouTube channel, Phantoms of the Opera.
She is passionate about rediscovering unjustly forgotten works, but she is equally interested in developing a new style for modern music using the versatile bel canto technique. Her approach and unique sound have inspired and intrigued, among others, the composers Larry Goves, Anna Meredith, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian, Richard Bullen, and the late Barrington Pheloung.
“Her work ... demonstrates the necessary combination of musicological rigor and facility in performance which is both desirable and rare”
Edward V. Foreman
“It’s really the sound from another era ... it’s beautiful, but it’s not something you hear from any singer now”
Sean Rafferty, BBC Radio 3
"I've never heard anything quite like it"
Piers Adams
"You're fighting a losing battle"
Michael Aspinall
Inkwells
Poem by Khadambi Asalache. Music and artwork by Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian. Commissioned by London Symphony Orchestra. Performed in LSO St Luke's 11 February 2017.
Now sleeps the crimson petal
A lockdown performance of Roger Quilter's setting of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem. Recorded on a Shure MV5 condenser microphone in April 2020.
Recording with the LSO chamber ensemble
Recording Meyerbeer's first opera
On Radio 3's 'In Tune'
July, 2021
The delayed recording of Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian's compositions inspired by the art of Khadambi Asalache, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, finally takes place in All Saint's Church, Tooting, on the first day out of lockdown
July, 2019
Ziazan creates the rôle of Tirza in the world premiere recording of Meyerbeer's forgotten first opera, 'Jephta's Gelübde', for Naxos, with the Sofia Philharmonic in Bulgaria Concert Hall
14th August, 2018
Ziazan chats with Sean Rafferty about her unusual voice, reconstructing bel canto, the upcoming premiere of '1000 Songs' at Grimeborn Festival, and sings songs from the 16th, 19th and 21st centuries, with lute, piano and electronics