Phoenix Rousiamanis: The Open Fund for Music Creators
Songs of Descent – Manchester Performance
Phoenix Rousiamanis is a composer of instrumental and electronic music, a songwriter and a performer. She is an RNCM composition alumna and her works have been performed by performers and ensembles such as the Juliet Fraser, Greek National Radio Orchestra, Riot Ensemble and Psappha Ensemble, and have been distributed by NMC Recordings. She is the winner of the RNCM Gold Medal competition and finalist of the RMA’s ‘Tippett Medal’. She has received multiple BBC Radio 6 plays with her art-rock band Sylvette and toured Germany, Switzerland and the UK with her freak-folk electro-acoustic duo Knowing the Oak Tree.
Songs of Descent is a 45-minute monodrama for singer and 15 instrumentalists that retells the myth of Persephone through a queer lens as an allegory of psychological descent and specifically struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s a surreal Gothic tale about compassion, shame, gender dysphoria, cancel culture, morality and finding beauty and strength in the darkest of situations.
After the world premiere of this piece at Tête-à-tête Opera Festival in London, it is being brought to Manchester as a night-long curated event brought to you by local trans artists. Songs of Descent is an experimental but highly emotionally accessible work; it explores our innate darkness and trauma and guides us towards tenderness and compassion just as Hekate would take Persephone’s hand every six months to guide her out of the underworld. After the performance, local trans DJs will be creating a night of queer joy and euphoric dancing.