Kate Soper



IPSA DIXIT was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in music.

Ipse dixit /Ip-suh dik-sit/: noun (Latin). Literally "he, himself, said it."
An uproven yet dogmatic statement which the speaker expects the listener to accept as valid without proof beyond the speaker's assumed expertise.

Ipsa dixit: "she, herself, said it . . ."


Ian Antonio (percussion), Kate Soper (voice, composer), Josh Modney (violin), Erin Lesser (flute)

Album available here
Score and performance materials available here
Watch here


"Comprehensively astounding .... a twenty-first century masterpiece .... a ninety-minute tour de force in which ideas assume sound and form. Call it philosophy-opera."

- Alex Ross, The New Yorker (full review)

"Ambitious, ingeneous .... what she's doing is enacting the polarities out of which art emerges."

- Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times (full review)

"A dazzlingly varied six-part sequence of quartets and duets spanning a stylistic range best described as broad and eclectic, but never unapproachable, employing texts concerning matters of intellect and sentiment, cognition and persuasion, perception and awareness."

- Steve Smith, The Log Journal (full review)





I: Poetics (excerpt)
Texts by Aristolte (abridged Soper) and Sophocles (from "Oedipus Rex")





II: Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say (excerpt)
Text by Lydia Davis





III: Rhetoric (excerpt)
Text by Aristotle (abrdiged Soper) and Soper





IV: The Crito (excerpt)
Text by Robert Duncan and Plato (abridged Soper)





V: Metaphysics (excerpt)
Text by Aristotle, abridged/adapted Soper




VI: Cipher (excerpt)
Texts by Jenny Holzer, Wittgenstein, Pietro Bembo, Freud, Guido d'Arezzo, and Sarah Teasdale




All videos from live performance at EMPAC, 12.9.16
Directed by Ashley Tata
Lights by Anshuman Bhatia
Projections by Bradley Peterson
Costumes by Nina Vartanian