Join us to celebrate Lauren Elkin's newest book, Vocal Break: On Women, Music and Power.
For millennia, women’s raised voices have been heard as
unruly, uncivilized, dangerous. Women singing were cast
as sirens: mythical creatures who lured sailors to their
death.In Vocal Break, Lauren Elkin seamlessly blends
memoir, feminist manifesto and cultural history to explore
a plurality of female singing voices – and how women have
used them to defy convention, genre, capitalism, racism
and sexism.
Drawing on her own experiences training as a young
soprano in the 1990s, Elkin reflects on the way power and
identity shape our voices, focusing on the women who
most excited her when she was learning to sing. A vocal
break refers to the place where the voice shifts from lower
to higher registers, so from one thing to another, and this
is a book about what kind of meanings, and sounds, can be
made there. Immersing readers in an eclectic soundscape, from musicals and pop music to
art punk, what follows is a full-throated tour of women’s voices, including Édith Piaf, Maria
Callas, Cyndi Lauper, Kathleen Hanna, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Beyoncé, FKA Twigs and Billie
Eilish.
Reflecting on what makes women’s singing so powerful – to the point where others feel the
need to control or manipulate it – Vocal Break is a joyous call to arms,
a siren call: Girls to the front: NOW.
Mix of sitting and standing space.
Shop is at street level but has no accessible toilet.
Ticket price includes one free drink.