Sasha Cooke searches for a sense of life’s purpose via ‘How Do I Find You’ cycle

American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has won two Grammy Awards and was up for her third this year. The song cycle “How Do I Find You,” an artistic reaction to life during the COVID-19 pandemic and nominated for best classical vocal solo album, was her most personal project yet. 

Commissioning works by contemporary composers Jimmy López Bellido, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw and others, Cooke asked the writers to reflect on what spoke to them during this time. The disc’s liner notes observed: “This approach is an experiment in liberation, inspired by a time in which so many of us have looked into the mirror, or at our loved ones on a computer screen and wondered: Is this real life? Who are you now? How do I find you?”

For Cooke, who appears with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Giovanni Antonini in an all-Vivaldi program May 4-9, the disc (released on Pentatone) served as a lifeline during the pandemic. “When cancellation after cancellation kept coming in, I felt an utter loss of identity,” she said. “This project provided me with a sense of purpose and hope — a way to orient myself through the haze of so much change and uncertainty.

“From the moment I called the first composer, it felt as if a light suddenly shone and a piece of myself was returned to me. Each time that a song came in, it felt like my birthday: unwrapping a package that revealed a new and surprising sound world.”

Along with the Grammy nomination, the disc has received plaudits from many publications, including the New Yorker magazine: “Cooke sounds fabulous, and the songs acknowledge the pandemic in wry, raw, or gently insightful ways without sounding tragic.”

“Listen,” by librettist Mark Campbell and composer Kamala Sankaram, set the pace for the project. Cooke first performed “Listen” in a virtual recital for the Los Angeles Opera, and then the cycle followed.

“There’s a difference between a great composer and a great song composer,” Cooke said. “For a song, what’s important is not a cool melodic idea or a cool orchestration. It’s what they do with words, and with emotion.

“I like to trust that the composer has spent time finding all the meaning that’s in the text, and then I can live in the harmonies and the vocal line of the setting.”