NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, February 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Rocky Duval is pleased to announce she will present an immersive album release concert for MELZITA on February 21, 2026, at EdgeCut Arts (457 Broome St., New York, NY; enter through FILD). The event begins at 7:00 p.m., with tickets offered as a $25 suggested donation. The program is designed as a hybrid listening-and-live performance experience, pairing focused playback moments with live performance to highlight the album’s musical detail, text, and sound design.
At its core, MELZITA is a new interpretation of music connected to St. Hildegard of Bingen, developed by New York–based mezzo-soprano Rocky Duval and engineer/producer Andrea Roberts. The seven-track album includes three works drawn from Hildegard’s repertoire alongside four original compositions by Duval written in Lingua Ignota, Hildegard’s “unknown” language. Created as a bridge between medieval composition and contemporary aesthetics, the album moves between stark, voice-forward textures and modern production approaches that expand the emotional and sonic palette of the source material.
Duval and Roberts, friends since childhood, conceived the project as a cohesive listening journey from very old to very new sounds. Some tracks build a drone bed using only voices or violin, while others introduce layered, contemporary elements. While Hildegard’s work has been approached through many interpretive lenses over the decades, MELZITA is positioned as an album-length exploration of continuity, connecting chant tradition, original poetry, and current sound design practices without treating the historical material as museum-piece repertoire.
A central aspect of the project is its use of Lingua Ignota as an active writing tool. Drawing from the historical vocabulary list, Duval formed four poems, “Aieganz (Angels),” “O Liuionz (O Savior),” “Cauiz, Harizima, Ziuienz (Crickets, Saints of the Fields),” and “Ispariz (Spirit),” and composed new works from these texts. “O Liuionz” is written as a stylistic pastiche of Hildegard’s compositional language, while the other new pieces lean toward modern folk or contemporary choral writing, again emphasizing the album’s connective aim.
The title MELZITA means “honey,” referencing Hildegard’s legacy as a naturalist and healer while also serving as an artistic reminder to prioritize softness, clarity, and care across the album’s musical choices.
“This concert is built to let audiences hear the album as a complete world and then experience it live, in the room,” says Rocky Duval. “Hildegard’s music can feel both ancient and immediate. With MELZITA, we wanted to honor that duality; bridging chant, poetry, and sound design, and giving Lingua Ignota the chance to be heard as language, not only as history.”
The album features Rocky Duval (vocals), with compositions by Hildegard of Bingen and Rocky Duval, arrangements by Rocky Duval and Andrea Roberts, engineering and production by Andrea Roberts, violin by Lily Lyons, keyboards by Andrea Roberts, and mastering by Jett Galindo.
Media and community members interested in covering the event, the album release, or Duval’s work in early music and contemporary performance may request additional materials and interview availability using the contact information below.
For more information about Rocky Duval, please visit https://rockyduval.com/.
About Rocky Duval
Rocky Duval is a New York–based mezzo-soprano, performance poet, and writer specializing in baroque and contemporary classical music. Performing professionally since age 11, Duval has appeared across opera, concert, stage, off-Broadway, and televised platforms, and has performed with organizations including The Metropolitan Opera Guild, The Glimmerglass Festival, Festival Bach Montreal, the Colorado Music Festival, the Seattle Symphony, Opera Steamboat, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, and Amherst Early Music. Her debut album of baroque arias, Treacherous Fate, and the accompanying “Dido’s Lament” music video were described as “absolutely beautiful, vocally and visually,” and she won first prize in Japan’s Ise-Shima singing competition (2022). Duval’s original play Hildegard, Reborn premiered to a sold-out house at Lincoln Center in 2024 with sponsorship from the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts, featuring her arrangements and new compositions inspired by Hildegard’s texts.
Rocky Duval
Artist
+1 917-881-2185
rockyrduval@gmail.com
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