Femme de Glace
for two alto flutes
This 8-minute, one-movement new work is inspired by the story of Ada Blackjack, a 23-year-old Iñupiat woman and the only survivor on an expedition to a remote Siberian island with four white men in 1921. Ada Blackjack was taken to work as a seamstress for the expedition, and eventually nursed the dying explorer when abandoned by the others. The music describes the dangerous journey this young woman endured in the untamed Arctic. The coloristic combination of flute duo evokes vast haunting landscapes where fear, loneliness, hope, and courage intermingle into an ultimate place of depth with enormous reverberations.