The young American soprano Elyse Anne Kakacek joins us to discuss her new album Formless: The Biblical Songs of Antonin Dvořák. Inspirational in both interpretation and content, Formless offers a peaceful meditation on spirituality – and a salve for the soul in troubled times such as these.
Dvořák's Biblical Songs are simple yet powerful settings of ten famous Psalms (in the composer's own English translation), written while he was living in New York (not far from where Elyse herself lives now). As Elyse tells us in this conversation, Dvořák's music not only resonates with her own Czech heritage, but has deeply personal connections as well.