Emily Wittbrodt

Emily Wittbrodt's „Wearing Words“ is a cycle of ten instrumentals and songs with an unusual instrumentation: harpsichord, cello, drums, clarinet, accordion and tenor. Wittbrodt's lyrics are embedded in vulnerable melodic shapes, articulated by the astonishing voice of the opera singer Sandro Hähnel. With precision, humor and grace Wearing Words is translating an almost baroque sensibility into pop music terrain, with the sort of pathos one expects from Rufus Wainwright or Anohni.


For Wearing Words Wittbrodt decided to write the melodies using a kind of dummy text, laying in words and syllables that fit the shape of the melodic forms she had composed. Having an empty imprint of a melody, Wittbrodt carefully searched for words to fill the melodic shapes.


In Wearing Words Wittbrodt is combining her lifelong fascination for language and poetry with her deep interest for unusual instrumentations and classical forms of composition, like Lied, music theater or baroque recitatives and arias.