Psappha (Ψάπφω) of Mytilene

A project started in February 2012, it will happen in stages with a short pilot version for percussion and voice, followed by a full scale chamber version in 2013. The title is transliterated from her name in her Aeolic dialect, and Mytilene is main city in the island of Lesbos.

Psappha was born in the Island of Lesbos in the Aegean sea around 630-610 BCE and died around 570 BCE. She was considered one of the great poets in antiquity, and was in the canon until the early period of the Bizantine Empire (400-500 CE), when she fell out of fashion. After that time most of her works, no longer transcribed, got lost, and only about 100 fragments (including two complete poems) survive.