Heinali & Andriana – Yaroslava Saienko (UKR)

"When a Russian missile struck near my studio in Kyiv, my body reacted to the explosion milliseconds before my mind did," recalls composer and electronic musician Oleh Shpudeiko, aka Heinali. "That traumatic explosion sent something deep inside me into a primordial state. There was nothing but fear—the kind of fear described in Scripture when angels appear and proclaim: Do not be afraid."
What does this have to do with the music of Hildegard of Bingen, which Heinali reinterprets together with singer Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko? The visions of the 12th-century abbess, composer, and mystic Hildegard were likewise preceded by bright, painful flashes of light. Modern medicine attributes them to cluster migraines, whose symptoms can include visual auras, often accompanied by blurred vision and blind spots. "Hildegard's music can place considerable demands on the bodies of its performers, emphasizing dissonant intervals and the vast range between the lowest and highest pitches. By comparison, Gregorian chant, the liturgical standard of the time, represents a more moderate attempt to grasp God intellectually; indeed, Hildegard's music has been described as a stick of dynamite thrown into a Gregorian chant."