One morning I was working through my emails and came across one from Play MPE informing me of an album by Sarah Prodan, someone I had not previously come across. I was just about to file it when the photo caught my attention, long enough for me to then read the information and decide this might well be worth my time after all. It is not often I come across an album from a professor in the humanities at Stanford University, so it was worth at least giving this a listen and I am glad I did. One of the finest female singers I have previously come across is Katie Little who performs as Little Sparrow, and now we have Sarah Prodan and ‘Little Bird’, and while a sparrow is indeed a small bird, that is not only where we have similarities as this album revolves around Sarah’s clear and delicate vocals and reflective piano accompaniment to which has then been added some orchestration.

Sarah’s educational research interests centre on Michelangelo’s poetry and his world, early modern social and religious culture, and the intersections of literature and art and interactions of men and women therein, and she has included on this her second album an arrangement of his love sonnet “S’un Casto Amor,” while there is also a French number in “Le Vide”, with most of the material in English. This is an album which definitely repays being played on headphones when one has the opportunity to really listen and relax, as this is all about the vocals and piano, and there should be nothing to disturb that. Words are important to Sarah, and the final song on the album is “The Poet”, written for her grandmother who passed away last year, and we almost feel as if we are intruding on something very special.

If being a professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world and recording her own music is not enough, Sarah is also working on a historical novel set in fifteenth-century Italy, ‘Imminence’. Given her background, and the lyrics in this album, I am sure that will be a well-researched and interesting read when it is finished. This is a beautiful album, one for those who want an unsullied female voice with little accompaniment. I’ll just finish with the words from her site, “I dream of a kinder, wiser, and more compassionate world.” So do I, so do I.

Rating: 8/10

Links:
https://www.sarahprodan.com/