NEFERTARI
A sonic manifestation of Queen Nefertari's Tomb (QV66)
A 62-Minute Monodrama for Soprano, Prepared Piano & Sistrum, Sung in Ancient Egyptian
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2nd Prize Winner, 2025 American Prize Charles Ives Award in Vocal Chamber Music
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Supported by a $25,000 Faculty Research Grant from Texas State University
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Complete primary hieroglyphic translation & IPA vocalizations created in collaboration with Egyptologist Dr. Edmund Meltzer and Gonzalo M. Sánchez, M.D.
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250-Page Illustrated Score: Incorporates full-color artwork, iconography, and hieroglyphic panels from Queen Nefertari’s tomb directly into the musical score, visually aligning the performance notation with the physical tomb architecture.
Highlights
“I’ve been a fan of Paul Sánchez’s music for years, but NEFERTARI stands as his masterpiece. The nuance, care, structure,
storytelling, and sheer beauty of the writing are extraordinary. It’s a deeply moving and remarkably crafted piece of art!”
— Shawn E. Okpebholo, composer
“[Paul Sánchez] created an entire world with NEFERTARI…. The experience of listening to it is… vertigo-inducing - I feel
like I fell into it, into a space. It reminds me of the eerie sense of deep time I sometimes get…. The overall effect of
NEFERTARI is quite overwhelming in the best way.”
— Michael Ippolito, composer
“A bold and visionary work, epic in scope, that takes the listener on a vast inner journey. This is a liminal piece that is on the
threshold to another world…. The effect of the music is both contemporary and ancient… [it] follows its own predestined
pathway into eternity.”
— Graham Lynch, composer
Critical Reception
NEFERTARI was a project spanning almost half a decade, with its genesis in the news of a family member's illness, and its working out a process of descent, new understanding, and transcendence. NEFERTARI is a musical transmutation of Queen Nefertari’s tomb (QV66)—a space designed as a liminal zone between worlds, a bridge between the physical and the spiritual. The three-movement, 62-minute work for soprano, prepared piano, and sistrum is sung in ancient Egyptian,translated, transliterated, and vocalized in a monumental collaboration with Egyptologists Gonzalo M. Sánchez, M.D. and Edmund S. Meltzer, Ph.D.
Sánchez composed NEFERTARI over a four-and-a-half-year period (2018–2022). He spent the first year immersed in research, studying ancient Egyptian religious practices, funerary texts, artistic conventions, hieroglyphic dictionaries, and architectural analyses of the Valley of the Queens.
For any given passage, Drs. Meltzer and Sánchez created transliterations of the hieroglyphs in alphabetic symbols,followed by English translations. Upon receiving text passages, Paul developed vocalizations based on New Kingdom pronunciation research, refining them through direct consultation with Dr. Meltzer. Kayleen Sánchez then transcribed these vocalizations into International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. Supported by a $25,000 Faculty Research Grant from Texas State University, the resulting 250-page score represents a landmark synthesis of creative research, vocal performance, and ancient Egyptian theology.
The 250-page score of NEFERTARI functions as a fine-art object in its own right. High-resolution color reproductions of the paintings from Nefertari’s House of Eternity are embedded throughout the notation, offering performers and readers a visual map of the tomb’s symbolic landscape as the music unfolds.
Genesis, Scholarship & Transcendence
Genesis & Research
The Musical & Spiritual Journey
haʔi ɛm muti nut, pɛsɛʃ tɛn χɛri
diɛt ui ɛm jiχɛmu sɛk jimjuɛt
nɛn mɛti
Descend, mother Nut [goddess of the sky], spread yourself over me,
so that you can place me among the eternal stars which are in you,
and that I will not die…
With these words, carved on the top of Nefertari’s sarcophagus and sung in ancient Egyptian, the voyage begins. The hieroglyphs covering every surface of Nefertari’s tomb—or House of Eternity, as the ancient Egyptians conceived of it—form the text of the entire work. The musical structure itself is generated by the physical architecture of the tomb, its artwork, and its symbolism.
The stars painted on the ceiling of every room serve as a window to the true scale of the space: the tomb is cosmic in magnitude, encompassing all of existence and non-existence. NEFERTARI is a musical manifestation of that space, tracing Nefertari’s journey through the underworld and her transcendent transfiguration, culminating in her voyage through the stars on the celestial barque to become an Osiris, herself.
At the heart of the work is a complex network of symbolically laden leitmotifs representing Nefertari, Osiris, Ra, the many deities she encounters, and the ancient Egyptian concepts of dT ("Eternity" in a linear sense) and nHH ("Infinity" in a cyclical sense).
Nefertari’s transfiguration is traced through her motive and her growing ability to sing it herself. At the start of her journey, she can only speak her name. As she overcomes the trials of the underworld through her own strength and courage, the deities she encounters sing her name back to her. As she gains knowledge, she sings more of her leitmotif until she fully claims her power through the logos:
wi jaikui ʔaχɛk bʔakui
sɛχɛmɛk ʁʊpɛrɛkui
natiru mɛk wi janɛk sɛp sɛʃ
Behold, I have come so that I am transfigured, so that I am potently manifest,
so that I am powerful…
O gods, behold, I am, I am the scribe!
Near the end of the work, Nefertari is guided through the stars by the sacred oars, and layer upon layer of the star music from the beginning of the first movement floods the musical universe as we tumble through galaxies witnessing Nefertari soaring in the celestial barque with Osiris and Ra.
After the climax, all becomes quiet, and we are left only with the stillness of the stars as they first appeared to us when Nefertari prayed to Nut, so long ago. Her prayer—“place me among the eternal stars which are in you, and that I will not die…” is fulfilled.
The illustrated score
The score of NEFERTARI is illustrated with images from Nefertari's House of Eternity.
At the piano
Sánchez using a plectrum inside the piano while performing NEFERTARI. Vinyl screws are visible between some of the strings.
Re attended by Isis and Nephthys
The painting central to Sánchez' conception of Nefertari's House of Eternity, which would come to generate the musical motivic DNA from which the entire musical work would develop.