Theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck shared this video for Return to Thetis 2086, an original composition from her new album, Thetis 2086.
Both the composition and the music video embrace the historical use of the theremin to evoke space travel, the future and the exotic.
Here’s what Eyck has to say about the piece:
“Feeling homesick for Thetis, the visitor decides that it is due time to return to their native planet. Speeding away from Earth in their rocket, they zip past the moon and close in on the swirling rainbow sphere that they call home.”
I know adjectives in english show no gender but ‘virtuoso’ is originally a italian/spanish word and in these languages terminations -o are for masculine while -a apply to feminine subjects. We would always say: Carolina is a Theremin virtuosa.
Grammartaliban
Good point! There’s a distinction between common usage, though, and usage in the world of classical music performance.
In common English usage, virtuoso is non-gendered, referring to ‘a person who excels in musical technique or execution’:
https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/virtuoso-2019-06-07/
In the world of classical music, though, it’s traditional to use Western European language terms from countries active in the common practice period, especially France, Italy & Germany.
So ‘virtuoso’ seems like the appropriate term for a general audience and ‘virtuosa’ for a classical audience.
Like your alias suggests, though, this definitely gets into ‘grammar taliban’ territory! We’d welcome other reader’s thoughts on the topic.