liens [français]
• •liste More New Hours
• •Le Centre de musique canadienne
• •La ligue canadianne des compositeurs
• •Blog du Festival soundaXis [Toronto, le 1 au 11 juin 2006]
Links [English]
• More New Hours List
• Canadian Music Centre
• Canadian League of Composers (CLC)
• SoundaXis Festival Blog [Toronto, June 1 to 11, 2006]
Sponsors
• CD label and new music information portal
Support CNMR
• Donate!

• •General
• •British Columbia
• •Ontario
• •Québec
• •Annonces National(es) Announcements
• ••International(e)
• PODCASTS

• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006

• Login
• Podcasts
• RSS
• Comments RSS

Gubaidulina Festival: Chamber Music

Welcome to my inaugural submission to the CNMR. You’ll notice my writings are less about programme note paraphrasing than exploring ideas surrounding the music; consequently, you may form only a vague impression of the concert.

Russian-Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina, in Toronto recently for performances celebrating her 75th birthday, is a prominent artist with an international reputation for evocative, stunning music. Toca Loca and New Music Concerts presented a selection of her chamber music on November 25th and 27th, respectively. The CBC recorded the latter event for future broadcast on “Two New Hours,” and I recommend tuning in.

Most, perhaps all, of Gubaidulina’s music is informed by her religious faith, now openly asserted by the composer with the nominal evaporation of Soviet totalitarianism:

“I am a religious person… and by ‘religion’ I mean re-ligio, the re-tying of a bond… restoring the legato of life. Life divides man into many pieces… There is no weightier occupation than the recomposition of spiritual integrity through the composition of music.”

Personal, philosophical, and poetic, her music is clearly devotional, glorifying and reflecting her belief at the highest level.

Rough-hewn, her music is reminiscent of Xenakis, at least in surface if not concept or form. There is a naïve quality to her instrumental writing; imbued with energy and motion, it’s convincing and powerful, and not nearly as jejune as her scores may imply. Consider “Silenzio,” on the NMC programme, in which the cellist repeats a rising chromatic pattern over an open-string drone - it’s the new-music equivalent of Lenny Kravitz screaming “Baby, yeah!” over a pentatonic guitar riff. In context, everything is viable.

Gubaidulina’s music is very satisfying, largely via its dramatic arc and strength of rhetoric. Though sections tend toward overlong, and the forms curious, her music never vexes the listener. This is particularly interesting as her processes are not especially clear, begging the question: what’s unifying this composition? Though deep structure is present (her “Offertorium” is a classic case), Gubaidulina conceals it through accretion, and the resultant surface is an intuitive unfolding of tension and release. Tracing Romanticism, she’s a painter, not a structuralist, moving against self-similarity, embracing a top-down conception. Her position that “form has an influence on material, not vice-versa…” is rare, or unstylish, in composition today, given its focus on the atomic sphere of parameter and sound.

Gubaidulina’s theatrical sensitivity is evident in “Verwandlung (Transformation);” exploring the trombonist-as-clown meme, she’s connecting in the repertoire to Berio’s “Sequenza V.” John Marcellus, performing with Toca Loca, was fantastic in the soloist role. With her experience composing film music, and her clear proclivity for drama, why hasn’t Gubaidulina written an opera?

Returning to NMC, there was a beautiful “WTF?” timbral moment during “In Croce” as Friedrich Lips and his bayan uncannily imitated a tam-tam over and over again; though a very simple gesture, it was captivating, and a testament to Gubaidulina’s confidence, imagination, and sense of timing.

Very few living composers can reach this depth of direct emotional expression, and it was a pleasure to experience her music.

—

Gregory Lee Newsome
http://homepage.mac.com/gregoryleenewsome/index.html

Basic Elements a Strong Foundation
Nu:BC Collective
October 14th, 2006, UBC Telus Theatre, Vancouver

Paolo Bortolussi flute, Gwen Thompson violin, Eric Wilson cello, Corey Hamm, piano, Vern Griffiths, percussion, Jesse Read, bassoon, Francois Houle, clarinet, David Harding viola, Rebecca Whitling violin, Parjad Sharifi, lighting.

The UBC Chan Centre’s Telus Theatre is slowly generating a reputation as a good space for contemporary music performances. With a capacity of 125 seats on the floor and 75 in the several three-tiered towers a direct connection between performers and audience is created, while the black box architecture of high ceilings, cat walks and heavy curtains is very sympathetic to electroacoustic sound. On October 14th Vancouver’s Nu:BC Collective used the Telus to present their inaugural concert with a mix of acoustic, electronic and multimedia works. Directed by flautist Paulo Bortolussi, Nu:BC Collective is the UBC School of Music’s newest ensemble-in-residence, combining performance faculty with outstanding artists from Vancouver’s music, dance, lighting, and video communities.

The concert opened with Christian Calon’s “Souffles Primitifs” for highly amplified bass flute with sound files, performed by Bortolussi. Calon combines live and pre-recorded performances to investigate a variety of effects and gestures, with close miking, multiple speaker locations and high sound levels creating an intimate sonic encounter. The initial gestures progress as “breaths” with breathing and panting by the performer becoming an integral part of the performance. Overall there is an arch form to the energy of the work, as the textures become more complex and the densities and activity increase before receding.

Stephen Chatman’s “From Pent-up Aching Rivers” received its Canadian premiere, performed by Gwen Thompson and Eric Wilson with choreography by UBC Theatre students. Each of the five movements explores a phrase from Whitman’s sensual poem, and each was movingly performed by the duo. This is a strong piece, showing Chatman’s skillful command of small forms and instrumentation while using a rich harmonic palette, and the result is very satisfying. Thompson and Wilson have already recorded the work, so readers will soon be able to hear the piece with these performers.

The first half closed with Qi by Chen Yi, performed by Bortolussi, Wilson, Hamm, and Griffiths. I am not familiar with Yi’s work, and was struck by the clarity and craft in this piece. Of interest to me was the manner in which she combines different levels of densities, placing sustained lines over percussive, motoric underpinnings, and later reversing the instrumental roles while referring to the original gesture. The work is not dense, and maintains interest through short, sectional presentations of contrasting natures. Readers who are interested can follow this link to a 1997 performance of the work by another ensemble: http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/piece.pl?pid=154

The second half opened with Keith Hamel’s “Obsessed Again…” performed by bassoonist Jesse Read. Originally commissioned by Read in 1992 as a piece for bassoon and interactive electronics, the work was extensively redesigned by Hamel in 2006, and interactive video was added. The premiere of this new version showed us a piece in which the electroacoustics are cleaner, timbrally more interesting, and better balanced with the bassoon. As well, musical subtleties between performer and computer are clearer and Hamel’s software setup – NoteAbilityPro and Max/MASP/Jitter with bidirectional communication over a LAN – provides a synchronization and complexity not previously possible in this work.  Read demonstrated good control and musical sensitivity throughout the piece, and his performance made the interaction between acoustic, electroacoustic and video materials satisfying and uncontrived.

Kurtag’s “Hommage à Robert Schumann” Op. 15d for clarinet, viola and piano contains five short movements followed by an Abschied adagio (slow farewell). Kurtag’s music is often short, often fragmented, and often very good, and all of this was evident in this performance. Houle, Harding, and Hamm (H3?) deftly and movingly led us through the work, from Kreisler’s strange dances to the discovery of Machaut.(!) Of particular note was the sense of ensemble throughout the performance, as the trio presented a variety of nuances in a strong and thoughtful performance.

The opening to the last work on the program, Bashaw’s conducted quintet “12m-4p-15m”, continued the quiet gestures and registral setting that ended the Kurtag. Houle, Whitling, Wilson and Hamm maintained that work’s still-present sense of ensemble, and quickly drew us into Bashaw’s sound world. The overall energy of the piece gradually grows pushing us through strongly structured movements of contrasting densities, repeated gestures, and timbral juxtapositions, finally arriving at the frenetic and chaotic Boogie Demon II whereupon the conductor (Bortolussi) abandoned the ensemble and left the stage.

Nu:BC’s next performance takes place February 17th, 2007 in Vancouver’s Roundhouse. Given the variety and quality of this concert it will be interesting to hear the results of Bortolussi’s planning for that concert. With this foundation he is staking out an approach that resonates with audiences, and I expect he will continue this successful approach in preparing and presenting works.

Bob Pritchard,
Left Coast

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBSCRIBING TO THE CNMR PODCAST FEED.

iTunes: copy URL below; open iTunes; select menu item Advanced/Subscribe to Podcast; paste URL.

PODCASTS: http://podcasting.earsay.com/xml.php?feed_id=11

===============================

INSTRUCTIONS POUR S’ABONNER AU PODCASTS RCMC

iTunes: Copier l’URL ci-dessous; ouvrir iTunes; dans le menu Avancé, sélectionner S’abonner au Podcast; coller l’adresse copiée.

PODCASTS: http://podcasting.earsay.com/xml.php?feed_id=11

Morris Palter at The Music Gallery
8pm October 13, 2006

Ominously perhaps, Morris Palter chose to give his concert of mostly contemporary percussion music on a Friday 13th. If memory serves, this was his second concert at the Music Gallery since graduating from the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, the Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag and the University of California, San Diego. It was also, perhaps, the least publicized one. With his family and a few curious folk, some of whom hung in the back as if they weren’t quite sure of what they had gotten themselves into, the audience numbered perhaps fifteen counting the light and sound man and a staff member or two. (No percussionists were present except for this reviewer and Mark Mazur jet lagged straight from Malaysia.)

I enjoy attending concerts at the music Gallery. The approach under tress (often in darkness) is calming and the hall – a.k.a. St. George the Martyr – is always comfortably cool, the bar staff friendly and the ticket sellers graciously informal. The pews are just comfortable enough to permit one to endure a forty-minute first half and if the concert’s not to my liking, there is an unobtrusive escape route available for use during intermissions. Only one couple chose to leave early this night.

On the whole, I liked Morris’ concert. After an initial sense of ill ease due to the small turn out, Morris and the music took over and all was well for a while. Morris is very good with an audience. He exudes professionalism and his banter is short and to the point with no condescension.

The programme began with a new work for tape and glockenspiel by Mark Duggan titled Jubilee (2006). It is a simple construct. The tape sounds and technical quality are beautiful and the glockenspiel plays a lot of notes above that sound. I didn’t read the programme notes for any of the pieces until after the concert, but Mark achieved his stated goal of an open ended celebration combining the glockenspiel’s timbral brilliance with the electronic audio providing emotional underpinning. The “timbral brilliance” was not impressive, but could have been had the glockenspiel bars been more resonant and had they not made annoying extraneous sounds when played with force. (Perhaps Morris had to make due with an inferior rental instrument.) I wondered about Mark Duggan’s absence.

The next three works are very familiar to Toronto audiences – or should be - because Morris and Ai-yun Huang, also a graduate of the university of Toronto and now teaching at McGill University in Montreal, have played most of them at The Music Gallery. Globokar’s Toucher (1973) always breaks me up. It is a technical tour de force coordinating vocalized text, small percussion instruments played with fingers and arm gestures reminiscent of street mime artists in White Face. This is Morris’ métier. His spiked hair, week old red beard and clothes – he has the best shirts ever; this one green, tight fitting with door knob circles intersected by black stripes, reminded me a bit of Clock Work Orange. Morris plays pieces like this with sure, authoritative hands. An audience cannot help but enjoy the experience.

Silver Streetcar (1988) is a work sure not to please, but it does. It was written - the programme did not say by whom - for one amplified metal triangle. Morris had a terrific, large triangle and once past the incessant ostinato played with a metal beater, one could begin to hear an amazing variety of harmonics/overtones created by muting the triangle with the other hand at different locations with differing pressures. He really focused the audience on this performance; well, except for a moment or two with me. I dozed towards the end, but the final diminuendo gently brought me back into the hall. Tis a wonderful experience to be made to listen and hear in a totally new way. A triangle; who would’ve thought?

THE MARACA PIECE! (Temazcal, by Javier Alvarez – 1984) Audiotape, two microphones and a pair of maracas, this is one of percussion repertoire’s hits. The joy is in seeing and hearing the coordination and interplay of tape and maracas. Hardly ever silent, the maracas’ gestures are choreographed to please: right, left, up and down, it’s like a baton twirler’s dream except the maracas never leave the hands. Maybe some day . . . The tape sounds are abstractly frenetic and the tempo is fast, until the end when all the energy devolves into a cliché of sorts. But the cliché, always satisfying fun, is a pleasantly ebullient folk song who’s tag is like “Shave and a Haircut . . . Two Bits.”

I think Alan Heatherington was the first person I heard play this work and he was very serious. However, he’d just returned from Brazil and was a maraca missionary, if you will, to the Toronto percussion community; Ai-yung Huang’s performances combined feminine fluidity and sass with Taiko Drumming accents and Morris swung and swayed; old rock and roller that he is.

After I read Brian Ferneyhough’s programme note to his Bone Alaphabet (1992), I was relieved I’d not read it prior to Morris’ performance. Here is a small excerpt: “. . . the second measure of the score superimposes the following durations: two-thirds of a beat lasting one-eighth note; one-fourth of a beat lasting three-thirty second notes; and one sixth of a beat contains seven thirty-second notes. A moment later, the required ratios are 17:16, 6:7, and 11:12 in quick succession”. The head aches, the mind revolts. I have no idea if Morris Palter played anything correctly. What he did do was play for ten minutes with only one slight hitch; his sticks met at cross-purposes for a nano second. My impression was that Morris ‘nailed’ the piece and he told me after the concert, “you can’t leave this piece alone for more then a day or two or it’s gone”. I believed him.

Having read the comment by the famous percussionist Steven Schick saying, Bone Alaphabet was “the most difficult percussion piece ever written”*, I had been prepared to be impressed, but though the Globokar and the Ferneyhough employed similar gestures and effects, I enjoyed the Globokar much more. I think with its large dollop of humor, the vocal aspect of Toucher makes it more charming and memorable. The strongest impression I have of these types of works is the way they are played; the way the performer looks as he or she plays. Every note is made a separate entity, OK, I understand that and applaud, but every note and unit of notes seems to require a categorized and authorized gesture. (Marimba soloists have fallen prey to this affectation and that is another story.)

Steve Schick who commissioned Bone Alaphabe and with whom both Morris and Ai-yun have studied, can be credited with the most recent expansion of solo percussion repertoire. And very difficult repertoire it is. Schick plays all his pieces-most were commissioned by him-from memory. (Players of traditional western instruments, particularly pianists and singers, may not be impressed with this feat, but when targets are different sizes; in different places in each piece; written in different notations and non-pitched to boot, memorization becomes an altogether more demanding issue.)

Morris ended his splendid programme with a selection of solo percussion keyboard music. Here I must don another hat because I didn’t enjoy any of the renditions of these works. In any version, I dearly love Ethelbert Nevin’s Mighty Lak’ a Rose, (when Bev Johnston was an undergraduate, she played this piece in the Heliconian Club and brought tears to my eyes) but Morris played this and the two succeeding “White Rags” by Geo. Green as if the there were no differences between them: each so fast, and I fear reckless, I could not tell where he was in the piece. All harmonic rhythm obliterated by a rush of notes; form and structure denied by strokes so hard the xylophone bars were clacking against each other and the frame. And then Morris announced his last selection, Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. I harbored hopes that the elegance of this “Black Rag” must surely slow him down, make him relax and reflect, but alas and alac, it was not to be.

Perhaps the gravitas of the recital spawned a momentary madness. Perhaps his virtuosity, all spit and vinegar, compelled him to end in a blaze of Bone Alaphabet glory. I certainly don’t know, but these pieces, each in their way, are works of wit, swagger, poignancy, gaiety or charm. They represent a carefree time that existed briefly between the two great wars (I know because my mother told me about her Flapper days) and to manhandle them with the hammers of our century is to do an injustice to a memory, even if that memory is not personally ours.

Thankfully these encore pieces were over quickly and the memories of Morris’ recital I’ll hold on to are the virtuosic swagger, wit and gaiety of Morris’ playing of the contemporary percussion works. He is a wonderful drummer.

Robin Engelman
Oct. 16, 2006

* Schick, Steven, The Percussionist’s Art, Same Bed Different Dreams, University of Rochester Press, 2006.

Ensemble contemporain de Montréal
Generation 2006 -  Concert Tour
Sept 12, 2006
Victoria, British Columbia
Philip T. Young Recital Hall

Though the fourth edition of the Generation Tour, this was only the second time that Véronique Lacroix brought the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal to the University of Victoria to present a concert of Canadian premieres by young composers. Hailing from three different provinces, composers Charles-Antoine Fréchette, Aaron Gervais, David Litke and Maxime McKinley were selected through a juried competition.  In early February of this year, each of the four composers participated in workshops that took place in Montréal.

David Litke is presently engaged in doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia. In “Elucide”, the opening piece on the program, he was interested in exploring sonic events that go unnoticed, or bringing to auditory awareness those sounds that are difficult to perceive. He illustrated this during his pre-performance talk, in which members of the ensemble played multiphonics, the merging of harmonics with regular pitches, and the transformation of sonic qualities (such as the overtone structure of a dampened piano string) onto the ensemble.  Mr. Litke finally emphasized the importance of pulling apart the sonic image in order to find the living music within. The performance of “Elucide” surely achieved this intent, from the gentle pulsating warmth of the opening, to the fluid strings of timbral variation that, like taffy, were pulled and stretched with increasing suppleness as the piece progressed.

Also pursuing doctoral studies, but with Isabelle Panneton at the Université de Montréal, composer Maxine McKinley calls his piece a ‘Wirkunst’, or ‘ a work of art born from a response to another work of art.’  McKinley’s “Concerto Pour Guitare et Ensemble de Dix Instruments (Wirkunst-Gómez)” was specifically written for guitarist Pablo Gómez whose name affects the very structure of the piece. The musical nature of each section of the composition is also influenced by the works of Gómez’s favourite artists:  Octavio Paz, Antoni Gaudí and Luis Buñuel. McKinley associates various personalities to each artist such as lyrical fantasist for Paz and crazy satirist for Buñuel. The piece was rhythmically vibrant and strikingly imaginative. In one instance we heard a trio of guitar, trombone and whistle, at another, what sounded like an incessant doorbell ringing. A myriad of musical and cultural references churned in a well-crafted and seamlessly performed collage, often punctuated by rhythmic attacks on the guitar by Pablo Gómez, one of Mexico’s outstanding guitarists.

Charles-Antoine Fréchette is a Québec composer who spent last year studying with esteemed German composer Wolfgang Rihm and Pascal Dusapin in France. Although Fréchette’s compositions are conceptually and structurally rigorous, he states that his intention is to create music of poetry, exploring unusual timbres and new textures. Fréchette demonstrated ways in which he orchestrationally ‘rewrote’ a short violin phrase in “Aspirations” for various timbral subsets of the ensemble. These strands, or microvariations, eventually shaped the whole form.    During performance, Fréchette (himself a pianist), elicited amplified scratches from the strings inside the piano that sounded like the creak of a rusty swing. Violin and viola were also amplified in order to make audible subtle timbres. The piece had a scratchy spaciousness to it, yet there were also moments of sudden focus where musical ideas fiercely converged.  I particularly was drawn to a rare opening of pure acoustic sound performed by only flute and clarinet.

The final performance of the evening was a piece by Aaron Gervais.  Currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of California, San Diego, his composition “Culture no.3” is the last in a series of pieces exploring the intersection of popular music and Western art music. Gervais placed aspects of timbre and viscerality from classical performance practise into a new aesthetic and exhibited this by asking the ensemble to perform six re-orchestrations on a similar chord, as well as a shifting cross-rhythm pattern on a similar pitch.  “Culture no. 3” was like a series of interesting photos of a very  clean and active playground.  It had rhythmical ‘groove’ but was sectional and fragmented.  A striking moment heard members of the ensemble simultaneously blowing through their instruments as though they could be respirators. The musicians displayed marvelous rhythmic precision and enthusiasm for this last piece, on a program that made this audience member wish that it wouldn’t be another four years before ECM finds their way to Victoria again.

Anna Höstman
October 15th, 2006

7:01 pm Saturday September 30th to 7:15 am Sunday October 1st, 2006

by Ryan Scott

Following in the footsteps of Montreal and Paris, Toronto launched a dazzling all-night art event.  Loosely translated, Nuit Blanche means a sleepless night or a night of discoveries, which is what T.O. experienced with 130 contemporary art exhibits and performances.  Everything was open and everything was free.  The City was divided into three zones and my experience started in Zone B.

11pm – Dream House – Designed by Sound Artist David Ogborn

Canadian Music Centre - Chalmers House, 20 St. Joseph Street

David Ogborn was in the boardroom standing behind master control, his laptop, from which he could digitally manipulate any of the 453 one minute segments of Canadian music he collected during the month of August from a surplus of over 4500 CMC archival recordings.

 

These segments were comprised mostly of pieces that may have only received one performance, which are not commercially available but are available to the public all year round at the CMC.  The segments were broadcast through 9 sound installations dispersed around all 5 levels of the Chalmers House. 

 

The building was filled with people listening to all kinds of Canadian music interwoven randomly by Ogborn’s computer.  He said his piece had not come up in the mix yet, but he looked eager with anticipation, which is a good thing because he had 8 hours left to listen.  CMC regional director Jason van Eyk sat at the reception desk welcoming people to the venue (over 400 throughout the night).  Many people looked puzzled at the sounds they heard and subsequently asked many questions, but they also looked interested and moved slowly. Thanks to Ogborn, some of these people may have been converted.

11:45 Son(ic)ambulism
Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park Circle.

I went to the EJB to hear Andrew Staniland’s “nightmusic” but when I got there, the front steps were littered with people watching Prof. Steve Mann making some polished music on his hydraulaphone. All were encouraged to join in and it only took a second to learn how to play.

  

11:55  nightmusic, By Andrew Staniland

Meanwhile, inside the EJB at the end of a long and odd sounding corridor, I found Andrew Staniland hiding behind a sculpture with his computer. He was an active performer in his sound installation and was working hard all night (large coffee to the left).

 

Spectators (of which there were many) were encouraged to step up to the mic and make a sound which Staniland would alter (using some spiffy looking software) over a mix of spacial accompaniment.

 

Suddenly, Scott Good got up and really tore the meat off the bone!  What a performance!

Staniland’s sounds were unpredictable and new to my ears and I enjoyed this installation greatly. He always did something unique with the material presented, which is why I suspect so many people felt at ease to take the mic.

1:10am Unearthed – a sound installation by Micheline Roi

North West Corner of Queen Street and University Avenue

An excerpt from the programme notes:

“This piece is an exploration of the hidden.  We are defined by our landscape: internal and external, psychological and physical. What happens when the present imposes its needs and desires on the past and our geography and memories are buried?  As Toronto’s rivers have been sent underground and flow hidden, so can our memories, but if we listen, really listen, we can hear the past that is hidden underfoot.”

   

The desk on the corner was packed.  With my photo ID, I received the last of 25 CD players, earbuds, and industrial grade ear protection.  My instructions were to look for the woman in the flowery dress and she would explain what to do. 

I found her - Micheline Roi instructed the participants to walk down University one block and cross the street to the median (the median running down University is more like an island complete with trees, fountains and monuments, surrounded by city traffic and packed with listeners).

 
    
After I placed the construction gear over my earbuds I could hear very little of the cityscape.  I pressed play on the CD player and started to hear cars, busses and motorcycles roar past me on my left and my right, but there were no vehicles there and when I did see a car drive by, I heard nothing. As I stood in front of the fountains, I heard water, and sounds of the forest.  I looked up at the trees and I no longer felt like I was in the city; I could have been in Algonquin park or dreaming.  A woman’s voice began to speak to me.  I was to match my steps to the footstep sounds on the recording.  The footsteps were crunchy, like a gravel lane, but I was walking on concrete.  Then I realized why everyone was walking at the same speed up ahead, all wearing yellow plastic earmuffs, all spaced out in relation to when they pressed play on their CD player.  I felt like an avatar in a virtual reality.

Composer Erik Ross stands at the North end of the median to cross Queen Street.  Here in the sound installation, Roi wisely instructed the listener to no longer follow the recorded footsteps, but to make this perilous crossing when appropriate.

It’s starting again
somewhere between here and the surrendered sea
the silver trickle flow
surfaces

I buried you
and willing you sunk to the sea
surrendered to the earth that leaves you hidden

It’s not time
time yet to unearth
unearth our secrets

So surrender silver trickle
flow still in memory
safely underground.

This text (and more) was introduced slowly and repeatedly, it was twisted and transformed to a point of great tension, just as I was instructed to sit and relax.  The release was magical, and when I returned to the desk to retrieve my photo ID I felt as if I had left Nuit Blanche for a while, like I had left the city and my mind, and went somewhere else.  It was a transformative experience.

From there I went off into the night and saw a powerful video installation by Istvan Kantor broadcast to hundreds standing in teeming rain in an empty parking lot, uniformed police officers doing the tango outside a donut shop as well as countless art galleries, car wash galleries, dancing lights, moving art, still art, sound art, all art all night.  It was experimental, courageous and expansive. There was a tremendous feeling of pleasure and community - all ages and cultures - everyone dragging someone around the corner to see something they’d just found - smiling - everyone talking about ideas.

 

by Aaron Gervais

I had the good fortune this year of being selected for the International Gaudeamus Music Week, which is a composers’ competition in Amsterdam, open to any composer under 30. Some 20-odd composers were selected from around the world–I was the only Canadian, though Bulgarian Alexandra Fol who is currently studying at McGill was also selected. I was in Amsterdam for the week of Sep 3-10 for the competition. The jury consisted of Sam Hayden (UK), Jürgen Bräuninger (South Africa), and Caliope Tsoupaki (Greece/Netherlands).

From the outset I was very pleased with my experience there. There were three concerts a day–a noon concert, the main-stage 8:30 concert, and a late-night 10:30 concert (only the 8:30 concerts had juried pieces on them). In addition, every morning there was a composers’ discussion where those who had had pieces performed the night before (or that were to be performed that night) presented on their pieces and artistic concerns.

One of the first things I noticed through both the concerts and the composers’ discussions was the aesthetic open-mindedness of the participants. There wasn’t any dominant flavour of new music present, nor was there any aesthetic snobbery. The composers at Music Week represented the entire spectrum, from minimalist music for a melodica ensemble to multi-channel sound installations, from spectralist orchestral music to small chamber works, straight-up new complexity to Japanese thrash-metal-inspired music for heavily distorted ensemble and two drummers. (My piece was for harp, piano, and electronics, performed by the Nieuw Ensemble. The performers [Ernestine Stoop, harp; John Snijders, piano] did an absolutely fantastic job.)

The enormous variety combined with the fact that there was only one prize to be given out for all of these pieces diffused any sense of negative competitiveness that might have existed. Nobody was there to win, since, as Scottish composer Dave Fennessy put it, “It’s not like comparing apples and oranges, but rather like comparing bicycles and adverbs.” Just being there meant having won something: we were selected from over 450 submissions, the Gaudeamus Foundation paid for our room and board, Music Week is one of the most visible composers’ competitions in the world, the quality of compositions and performances was extremely high, the performances were all professionally recorded and are to be broadcast, many of the best ensembles in Europe come to the festival to perform–you get the idea…

By the end of the week, all of the composers had become friends. The focus of Music Week was–as it should be–the music, even at the reception after the winners had been announced. We all congratulated them (a tie between Gabriel Paiuk [Argentina] and Lefteris Papadimitriou [Greece]) but the kind of celebrity vortex one might have expected didn’t exist. After the formalities, things pretty much went right back to how they had been all week: pluralistic, friendly, multi-directional.

It was this atmosphere that for me was the best part of Music Week. My own artistic inclinations are towards a pluralistic non-judgmental approach to new music, and it was refreshing to see so many other of my colleagues from around the world with similar attitudes. To be sure, we all had different aesthetic concerns and musical personalities, but there also seemed to be a respect for the perspectives of others that was self-evident and natural. Difference in aesthetic stance was not seen as a threat, but rather as a compliment. The jurors noticed this attitude too, and they congratulated us on it. They remarked on how different it was from even a decade earlier when they had participated in Music Week or similar competitions.

This gave me tremendous hope for the future of new music, as well as a sort of pride for the contributions that I hope my generation will end up making. Music Week was a testament to the gradual death of the teleological absolutist approach to aesthetics that has dominated the past hundred years of the new music tradition. It showed how composers of my generation are not only willing to take on the challenges of a highly-fragmented cultural environment, but looking forward to the task and using the difficulties involved as a source of inspiration.

Aaron Gervais
San Diego, 15 Sep 2006

Récemment, j’ai eu le plaisir de parler avec Michel Gonneville, compositeur montréalais, au sujet de la jeune génération de compositeurs à Montréal. Vous trouverez le podcast de ce dialogue en suivant les directives qui suit.

I recently had the pleasure to speak with Montreal composer Michel Gonneville about the young generation of Montreal composers. You can find the podcast of this dialogue by following these instructions:

PODCASTS: http://podcasting.earsay.com/xml.php?feed_id=11

iTunes: copy URL above; open iTunes; in the “Advanced” menu, select “Subscribe to Podcast”; paste URL.

iTunes: copier le URL ci-dessus; ouvrir iTunes; dans la menu “Avancé” selectionner “S’abonner au Podcast…” ; collez le URL

John Oliver

Ironworks, Vancouver, June 23, 11 pm
Part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival got under way on Friday. I am scouring the listings, noticing a number of “new art music” mixes/crossovers, etc. The first of these I got to was a performance by Vancouver’s Existential Angst Party (EAP for short) of music that merges sounds ranging from the jazz standard, to rock, punk, lounge, cabaret, and soundscape. The combination of songs and improvisation was smoothly handled, creating a sensation of moving through the murky underbelly of the songs’ meanings, a kind of dream of song that emerges from disturbed sleep or nightmare to eventually surface to a simple song. In one song after the next, singer Viviane Houle sang of love attempted, love confused, love lost, regained, of a tender angst of self-doubt, then affirmation of existence. It’s never easy. The sometimes straight-ahead core sound always goes astray with scratchy commentary from the bows of Smulovitz’s viola and Reed’s bass, or some smashy chords from Belke’s guitar. Smulovitz’s Kenaxis processing software brings sounds of other instruments, grooves, or atmospheric transformations of sound to deliver everything from the subtle extension of the group sound, to intense climaxes. Moving effortlessly from English to French, from operatic control to rat-screams, Houle was in complete control throughout.

One of the most striking of these songs was the rendition of Au Clair de la Lune, a French children’s song in which the child asks his/her doll Pierrot to loan a pen because the candle has gone out. “Open your door for the love of God” is the last line. Beginning with a simple children’s bell keyboard (glockenspiel) played by drummer Ben Wilson, this simple child’s world gradually becomes a vortex of sound, as guitarist Brent Belke and bassist Clide Reed add a chord that changes everything, then create a slightly slower speed that creates a feeling of clocks ticking at different speeds. When violist/laptop artist Stefan Smulovitz brings in the other sounds and alterations of Houle’s voice, she eventually soars into operatic tones on the words “Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l’amour de Dieu.” All disolves just as seamlessly back into the dream-state. This is only one example of a song-form structure that was used to good effect in several other numbers.

The improvisations were the showcase for Houle to show off her incredible range of vocal “extended techniques” that mirror the kinds of scratchings we hear from the bowed strings in the group. Clearly inspired by the avant-garde vocal music of the 1960s (Maxwell-Davies, Berio, Ligeti et al), Houle delivers these sounds with the same depth and intensity that she delivers song. It was clear we were in the presence of a new talent with a clear vision, a beautiful voice, and a breadth and depth of expression.

The rest of the band is picked to travel across musical genres. Guitarist Brent Belke brings a punky/U2-going-out-of-control to Clide’s gorgeous acoustic bass underpinnings and improvisation. Drummer Ben Wilson will groove with Smulovitz’s loops, brush and scratch with the rest, and will hit or play anything to keep the conversation going. Smulovitz brings the sounds of the world into virtually every piece, and what isn’t a sample is a transformation of the players. If the group infuses their performances with more interaction among themselves and with the audience, this group is ready to explode.

Much of what we heard is featured on the group’s self-titled CD. If you like to hear the tenderness of song mixed with the chaos of the world, run, don’t walk to the next appearance of this group. You can buy a copy of the CD by reorganizing the following text into an email address: boaz18 a t yahoo d o t c-o/m.

[NOTE: PODCAST INTERVIEW with the band and SOUNDS FROM THE CONCERT will appear soon.]

As stated in the first post to this online review, the soundaXis blog was the inspiration for this national effort to bring the new music that is being made across Canada to enthusiasts and practitioners anywhere in the country. This online review, which takes the format of a blog, will have associated links to podcasts so that readers will have access to some of the sounds and concerts that are actually being reviewed, with the hope that the increased exposure will lead to better appreciation and understanding about the diverse tendencies in Canadian new art music.

Although the soundaXis festival has come and gone, the soundaXis blog will remain active. I will be adding further material (text and sounds) over the coming weeks. I hope the blog will spring to life again at the next soundaXis festival, which I very much hope to see becomes an annual festival of new music and interdisciplinary work.

So, to read reviews and hear sounds from the festival, please visit soundaxisblog.earsay.com

John Oliver

Recently during the soundaXis festival (Toronto, June 1-11, 2006) some
of the greatest Canadian composers and performers gathered to create
premium world-class performances to full houses. The CBC did not record
any of these concerts.

There was, however, one opportunity for
interested people in other parts of the country to learn about the
festival. John Oliver created a soundAxis blog where he reviewed and
documented most of the concerts ~ http://soundaxisblog.earsay.com/

Ryan
Scott suggested on the morenewhours listserv that a permanent blog
should be created for reviewing all new music happenings around the
country. John, Ryan and Paul Steenhuisen got to work on a plan and now
the CNMR is up and running.

Récemment,
pendant le festival soundaXis à Toronto (1 au 11 juin 2006), on a vu
les spectacles de grand qualité. Les interprètes et compositeurs les
plus connues au Canada se sont présentes au maisons complêts.
Radio-Canada n’a pas enregistré un seul concert!

Néanmoins, il y
avait la possibilité de s’informer partout au Canada sur les activités
du festival sur le blog qu’a éte crée par John Oliver, le blog
soundaXis, ou il critiquait la plus par des concerts -
http://soundaxisblog.earsay.com/

Ryan Scott a suggéré, sur la
liste morenewhours, qu’il serait utile d’établir, en permanence, une
site blog au but de critiquer tout les évenements de musique
contempoarine partout au Canada. John, Ryan, et Paul Steenhuisen ont
donc commencer un plan, et voici le résultat: la RCMC.

Paul Steenhuisen

[Traduction de l’anglais: John Oliver]