Outside The Lines: Artemisia

The Department of Music presents Outside the Lines, a concert series made possible with financial support from UMBC’s Linehan Fund for Excellence in the Arts. These concerts feature three unique ensembles dedicated to blurring traditional music formats in presentation and composition.

Chicago-based vocal trio Artemisia (Diana Lawrence, Alexandra Olsavsky, Kaitlin Foley) harnesses the power of the female voice to tell stories through the vocal traditions of the world. Praised for “sincerity, wit, and mind-blowing technique” (Vocal Arts Chicago), Artemisia brings diversity and accessibility to their programming. Not your typical stand-and-sing ensemble, Artemisia draws from a vast repertoire of vocal styes — from Appalachian folk, Tushetian highlander cries, Cuban dance music, and everything in-between — to take audiences on a journey of sound and spirit with every performance.

Their program, She Was, is grounded in Artemisia’s trademark genre-diverse programming and features seven newly commissioned works by female composers. A multimedia narrative concert including animated projections, captioned sound design, and songs that travel from Appalachian to Korea, from World War II jazz to contemporary classical to modern hip-hop, She Was is a unique showcase of the power of the female voice. Centering a thrilling cross-section of unsung heroines as well as the storytellers who keep their legacies alive, She Was is at once political and personal, devastating and inspiring, a visceral musical inquiry into our past, present and future.