Silent songs of Josefine
14 October 2026, 9:45pm - 10:30pm
As part of the Kafka centenary celebrations in 2024, in partnership with the Oxford Kafka Research Centre and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford Song commissioned the composer Can Bilir to create a new song cycle based on Kafka. The result is The Silent Songs of Josefine, a breathtaking and bold new work for soprano and piano, given its world premiere tonight by Anna Dennis, winner of the Singer Award at the 2023 RPS Awards, and acclaimed pianist John Reid.
Programme
- Can Bilir (1987)
- The Silent Songs of Josefine
- In the Chamber: Listen
- Multiphony of Rhizome: A Moment in the Burrow
- Josefine’s First Fragment
- A Process: Paradoxes
- Dream
- Little Mouse I
- The Bridge: Connectors
- A Moment of (Inner) Silence: for all the victims of violence
- Little Mouse: Variation
- Odyssey: The Silence of the Sirens
- Interludo
- The Silent Tower Part I: The Wall
- The Silent Tower Part II: Rootstalk
- Silent Soil - Kafka's Song: Trees
- Little Mouse II: Differentiation
- This Side of the Mirror: An Encounter with Fear
- Lungs
- The Other Side of the Mirror: Investigations (of Josefine)
- Disappearance of J. / In the Cathedral
- The Rootstalk Variation: Burrow
