Annelies Monseré is a composer who is difficult to catalog but easy to appreciate. Her music occupies an innovative space that brings together experimentalism, folk and early music. Hailing from Ghent, she gracefully defies the expectation that the avant-garde is accompanied by an infinite gaze into the future, recognizing in ancient music its innovative profile and transforming it in a unique way. Monseré, with an enlightened look at the plasticity of history and memory, isolates us in a sinister and secret space where the breath haunts us. Since 2001, she has released eight solo albums, the latest of which, I Sigh, I Resign (Horn of Plenty, 2024), pays tribute to painters from the period known as the golden age of Dutch art, such as Judith Leyster, Maria Van Oosterwijck, Margaretha Haverman, Clara Peeters and Margareta de Heer, artists whose work is treated as a footnote to those who study Rembrandt and Vermeer. The lost and forgotten stories of women have been the subject of many of their lyrics. Annelies Monseré makes her Understage debut to tell us and sing her stories. — Matéria Prima