Is it a song cycle? An opera? Musical theatre? Kevin Puts's new work Emily - No Prisoner Be, based on texts by Emily Dickinson, is all those things and more. There is a rock-pop aspect to the anthemic "They Shut Me Up', while 'I dwell in Possibility' is more shyly epic.

Theatricality comes naturally to Puts, which is why these so-called songs are on a continuum between aria and arioso, with lyrical vocal lines conveying words at hand with the emotional specificity of Richard Strauss at his best.

She does nothing in half-measures and over the cycle’s 26 tracks expresses herself with such powerful conviction that for a fleeting moment you know exactly what Dickinson meant when she wrote about “finite infinity” or a “plummet strain”...Direct communication is also enhanced by the modest accompanying forces of the American string trio Time for Three, alternately gutsy and tender, and always rhythmically precise.