March is Women's History Month, and with that in mind, Voices of Ascension would like to take this month to celebrate the women composers we've performed over the years. This week we celebrate vocalist and composer Elaine Lachica, who composed "It's hard to explain" for Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space. Noted for her performances of early music as well as new vocal music, Elaine has performed with New York Collegium, Early Music New York, the Montreal Baroque Festival, and Opera Omnia, and won the 2016 Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year as part of L'Harmonie des Saisons for their album, Las Ciudades de Oro. Elaine is also a critically acclaimed songwriter and founding member of the Brooklyn dream pop band Arc Waves.

For Astronautica, Elaine set text by former NASA astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan on her experience of looking down on Earth from the Space Shuttle. Sounding as wondrous as the text, the music takes its cues from early music, yet harmonically sounds a lot like the dream pop Elaine creates with Arc Waves. The soprano solo is especially gorgeous, and Trio Triumphatrix's Lindsay Kesselman performs the melismatic passages effortlessly. "It's hard to explain" is truly a marriage of early music and new music, all in the name of science and wonder.

Elaine LACHICA “It’s hard to explain” from Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space

TRIO TRIUMPHATRIX
Lindsay Kesselman, soprano
Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano
Kirsten Sollek, contralto

Video by Hai-Tin Chinn
Kevin Noe, Recording and Mixing Engineer
Matthew Schickele, live performance Videographer
Elena Mannes, Consulting Director (Visual Media)
James Tunick, Video Editor and Researcher

Credit and thanks to NASA for extensive video footage.

The singers in this performance are represented by the American Guild of Musical Artists, AFL-CIO.