Benjamin de Murashkin

Benjamin de Murashkin was born in Denmark in 1981, but already at the age of one moved to Australia with his family, where he lived for 21 years before returning to his country of birth. In Australia, Benjamin took his Bachelor with honours, majoring in composition, at The University of Melbourne.

Benjamin's works include the short solo opera Lady Macbeth, written for the soprano Marie Grove Jørgensen, and LOGOS, an orchestral piece first performed by The Copenhagen Philharmonic in 2010.

Benjamin regularly improvises at recitals, and aims at creating a fusion between the intuitive and the systematically approached methods of composition in a language that bears influence not only of the classical tradition but also contemporary popular styles. At the moment Benjamin is studying at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lady Macbeth

This minute opera, featuring some of Lady Macbeth's passages from Shakespeare's play Macbeth, sets off with a jolt. A blazing and violent rush in the ensemble steers the scene in the opening passage as Lady Macbeth sings of the coming of the king, Duncan, and invokes spirits to remove her femininity and conscience and fill her with cruelty. She is calling upon the courage to perform a most sinister of tasks, the murder of the king to ensure her own husband the throne. The next scenes continue to outline the plans for murder and finally to deal with Lady Macbeth’s guilt at her deed.

Throughout the opera, the ensemble serves as a sort of channel, or medium, between Lady Macbeth's inner world and the audience. It plays a direct role in portraying this complex character, which on the one side is a loving wife, wanting the best for her husband, and on the other a regicidal maniac, completely controlled by her lust for power. However, it is in her guilt that her character shines through, and in the lament of her passing, at the end of the opera, the futility of her ambition is brought to bear.