Bespoke Songs: soprano Fotina Naumenko on commissioning four composers for works for soprano and diverse ensembles

Fotina Naumenko and the performers on Bespoke Songs

Fotina Naumenko is an American soprano of Russian heritage. Her album Bespoke Songs on New Focus Recordings was nominated for a 2025 Grammy for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. The disc features four works for soprano and diverse ensembles that Fotina commissioned from composers Jonathan Newman, Benedict Sheehan, Carrie Magin and Jennifer Jolley setting texts by female authors. The disc features Jonathan Newman’s song cycle, Bespoke Songs for soprano, clarinet, saxophone, violin, cello, guitar, percussion and piano, Jennifer Jolley’s song cycle ‘Hope’ is a Thing with Feathers for soprano, flute and guitar, Carrie Magin’s How to See an Angel for soprano, bassoon and piano, and Benedict Sheehan’s song cycle, Let Evening Come for soprano, cello and harp.

Fotina studied at the Eastman School of Music, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory, and is a Fulbright scholar, having completed a post-graduate diploma specializing in Russian vocal music at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia. The culmination of this work was the creation of www.RussianAriaResource.com, a lyric diction resource for Russian operatic arias. 

She sings and records with ensembles such as Skylark, Clarion, the Saint Tikhon Choir, and PaTRAM, and is Associate Professor of Voice at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA.

Fotina has always loved chamber music, so when the pandemic came and contracts were cancelled, she had time to think, to plant some seeds that would grow into something that she would want to do. The result was her commissioning music, though the process of commissioning the pieces, and then developing, performing and recording them took time. The intention was to make new music, but by using diverse instrumental ensembles she could involve as many friends as possible, and the disc involves around a dozen instrumentalists.

She loves new music that includes elements that she can relate to, and she chose four composers who are colleagues and friends, and whose music she was familiar with. Jonathan Newman is a colleague of Fotina’s at Shenandoah Conservatory, both Carrie Magin and Jennifer Jolley went to graduate school with Fotina, whilst composer/conductor Benedict Sheehan is a long-time friend. Commissioning music is always a gamble, and she needed to trust the composers; her selection was based on their existing works that she thought she would like.

The texts set are diverse, Jonathan Newman sets seven poets across different eras and languages, Jennifer Jolley sets Emily Dickinson, Carrie Magin sets Dorothy Walters (1928-2023) and Benedict Sheehan sets Jane Kenyon (1947-1995). She had conversations about the texts with each composer, as both she and the composer needed to be inspired by the selected text. Jennifer Jolley, Carrie Magin and Benedict Sheehan suggested poets that Fotina liked, whilst Jonathan Newman chose a theme. Then they selected poetry of different eras and languages, linked by a new set of texts by Kristina Faust. It was a challenge for Fotina to sing poetry in different languages and from different eras, but she feels that Faust’s poems bridge any gaps.

Fotina Naumenko

The different languages, English, French, Hebrew, Korean, Swedish and
Russian were an extra step to take, requiring her to be accurate and
honour the langued. But she loves digging into different languages, and
she finds it fun. However, it did present a challenge, being the first
time she had sung in Hebrew and Korean.

With each composer, she also had conversations about the ensembles that they envisioned. Jonathan Newman began with the Pierrot ensemble (flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano) and then made the changes that he wanted. With the other three, the conversations encompassed both the sort of ensembles that Fotina envisioned and the people that she wanted to work with. In Jennifer Jolley’s cycle, she highlights the way the flute works almost as a soloist with the voice. 

The most intense conversation was with Carrie Magin as Fotina was keen for the ensemble to be piano and bassoon, and whilst the poem by Dorothy Waters is How to See an Angel, Magin has created a great amber-coloured, spiritual, earthy sound.

Having performed all the pieces separately, Fotina admits that the idea of taking all four on tour would be difficult as it would veer towards a travelling circus with lots of moving parts. But she hopes to perform different songs in various places, whilst some of her students are also interested in the songs, so she is confident that they will have a life beyond their recordings.

Her working life combines life as a full-time tenured professor at Shenandoah with freelance work with a variety of ensembles. But she was bitten by the new music bug early and when it comes to further commissions, she says ‘stay tuned’, there will be more.

Bespoke Songs – Fotina Naumenko – New Focus Recordings – fcr410

• Jonathan Newman – Bespoke Songs: Fotina Naumenko, soprano; Garrick Zoeter, clarinet; Timothy Roberts, alto & soprano saxophone; Akemi Takayama, violin; Julian Schwarz, cello; Mark Edwards, guitar; Karlyn Viña, percussion; Marika Bournaki, piano; Nadège Foofat, conductor
• Jennifer Jolley – ‘Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers: Fotina Naumenko, soprano; Julietta Curenton, flute; Colin Davin, guitar
• Carrie Magin – How to See An Angel: Fotina Naumenko, soprano; Ryan Romine, bassoon; Marika Bournaki, piano
• Benedict Sheehan – Let Evening Come: Fotina Naumenko, soprano; Julian Schwarz, cello; Nadia Pessoa, harp