Olivia Vermeulen & Jan Philip Schulze - In Heaven - Songs for a Trip to Space (2025) [Official Digital Download]

The third collaboration between mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen and Jan Philip Schulze (piano/synthesizer), In Heaven follows their earlier themed albums Dirty Minds and Hello Darkness, albums which were highly rated and won for instance an Edison Award and a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. While the first two albums explored earthly themes of eroticism and mortality, this programme turns upward toward the heavens. The concept imagines a cosmic odyssey, blending art song, contemporary music, pop, and psychedelic classics into a voyage through utopian visions, distant planets, and the eternal human fascination with space. Interspersed with NASA sound recordings, the album situates the listener between heaven and earth, fantasy and reality, intoxication and transcendence.

The repertoire is strikingly eclectic: David Bowie’s Life on Mars opens with real Martian storm sounds, while George Crumb, Brahms, Schubert, and Wolf provide lyrical reflections on stars, dreams, and transcendence. The programme flows seamlessly into Augusta Holmès’s exuberant drinking song Le vin, Rebecca Clarke’s opium-tinged Lethe, and Grace Slick’s psychedelic anthem White Rabbit. French and German masters like Saint-Saëns, Mahler, and Messiaen appear alongside Stockhausen’s Tierkreis, Monty Python’s satirical Galaxy Song, and Pink Martini’s Una notte a Napoli. The album closes with Robert Schumann’s radiant Abendlied, underscoring the dialogue between the infinite cosmos and human longing.

Together, Vermeulen and Schulze create a soundscape that is at once virtuosic, witty, and deeply imaginative. Supported by percussion and bass in selected tracks, their performances draw on colour, theatricality, and stylistic versatility to transform familiar works into cosmic meditations. In Heaven ultimately reflects on humanity’s dreams of escape, intoxication, and utopia while acknowledging the grounding reality of earthbound existence. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey—playful yet profound, rooted in classical artistry yet open to pop culture—that challenges boundaries and offers listeners a musical mission into space.

Tracklist:
01 Life on mars (Intro_ First sounds from Mars-rover Perseverance 2021)
02 Apparition_ The Night in Silence Under Many a Star
03 6 Lieder, Op. 86_ No. 2, Feldeinsamkeit
04 Mörike-Lieder_ No. 13, Im Frühling
05 Ganymed, D. 544 (Outro_ Sound of Ganymede plasma waves GII G1)
06 Les sept ivresses_ II. Le vin
07 Lethe
08 White Rabbit
09 Hymnen an die Nacht
10 Um Mitternacht, GMW 42
11 Tanzer Lieder_ I. Sur une étoile
12 Mélodies persanes, Op. 26_ VI. Tournoiement (Songe d'opium)
13 The ballad of Lucy Jordan
14 Auroral Kilometric Radiation
15 Abendstern, D. 806
16 Der Wanderer an den Mond, D. 870
17 Tierkreis - 12 Melodien Der Sternzeichen_ VI. Fische - Pisces
18 Tierkreis - 12 Melodien Der Sternzeichen_ XIV. Löwe - Lion
19 Galaxy Song
20 Katchikatchi les étoiles
21 Una notte a Napoli
22 Sound of solar wind, Parker solar probe
23 6 Gesänge, Op. 107_ No. 6, Abendlied


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