At the same time, I still had my own plans and ambitions, with the release of my debut album, a tour of the new opera I co-created, and a busier concert schedule than ever before. After the grandeur of a performance,the applause, the flowers, I would come home late at night to the tiny and vulnerable. We’d sit in the rockingchair in the dark while my son nursed and I softly sang to him. My heart bursting with an all-encompassing love,and at the same time feeling just utterly, competely and desperately exhausted.The transformation into motherhood is a whirlwind of contradictions: strength and vulnerability, joy and grief, worry and confidence, boundless energyand total exhaustion.

In art and classical music we are often presented with the picture-perfect mother, having achievedher sole purpose in life and fulfilling this role with great satisfaction and ease. With This is not a lullaby, I wantto tell the real story of motherhood, of unbreakable bonds, and of life’s big transitions.This is not a lullaby will bereleased on May 7, 2021 by audiophile label TRPTK. Together with cellist Maya Fridman and pianist Artem Belogurov, we presentMiecyslaw Weinberg’s Rocking the child (1973) on poems by Gabriela Mistral, Josef Malkin’s Russian Songs (2020) and John Tavener’sAkhmatova Songs (1993). The album was recorded in the Main Hall of Philharmonie Haarlem, with some of the best acoustics in the Netherlands.