Volume 7 Issue 9 - June 2002

HEAR
&'NOW
(New Music)
by Paul Steenhuisen
That scrawny cry-it was a chorister
whose C preceded the choir.
"It was part of the colossal sun,
surrounded by its choral rings,
still far away.
Wallace Stevens, Not Ideas about
.the 'J.hing but the Thing Itself
This month's sonic potpourri is
replete with concerts from the Third
Toronto International Choral Festival
(www.joyofsinging.ca/), and
vastly differing aesthetics from local
and visiting composers/performers.
Recent music is represented on
many of the events, beginning with
Voices in Celebration, featuring premieres
by Derek Holman (Four Liturgical
Motets for Unaccompanied
Choirs) and Raymond Luedeke
(P_rayers, Poems and Incantations
for the Earth), (June 3, St. James'
Cathedral, 65 Church St.).
Newmarket Ontario native John
Estacio will hear his piece Eulogies
sung on June 9 by the Timothy
Eaton Chamber Choir, on a concert
also featuring the premiere of
Andrew Ager's Windows. Currently
Resident Composer with the Calgary
Philharmonic Orchestra and Calgary
Opera, Estacio is well known in the
prairie region for his symphonic and
choral music and is also hard at
work on a new opera, in collaboration
with playwn"'ght John Murrell.
Other of the many premieres include
the late Srul Irving Glick's 5.
Tableaux from the Song of Songs,
and Tomas Dusatko's Distant Voices
(June 16, Victoria Schoiars). Tl)e
same concert includes Harry
Somers' A Thousand Ages alongside
music by guest composer
Krzysztof Penderecki.
June 19, Tokyo's Philharmonic
Chorus sings music by Japanese
composers, with Incense and Vox
Naturae by Canadian choral master
R. Murray Schafer.
The new works at the Festival
work well within their slogan "The
joy of singing within the noise of the
worl.d. " But I, for one, would be
grateful if the noise of the world were
a greater part of these choral pieces.
Why I wonder is it that so many
composers write more conservatively
when composing for voice?
June 1 - July 7 2002
Here today, hear tomorrow.
Arraymusic arid more
In among the choral concerts, several
other concerts will appeal to
audiences seeking the new and
unfiltered. On June 2 (Music Gallery),
Arraymusic plays the results
of its most recent FUTURE LAB,
in the final concert presentation of
their annual month-long Young
Composers' Workshop. With the
guidance of workshop leader Henry
K\lcharzyk and Artistic Director,
Allison Cameron, emergent composers
Dave Chokroun, Emily
Hall, Josh Penman and Carl Winter
will hear their newest works,
alongside those of recent participants
Marci Rabe and·eldritch priest.
Shortly thereafter (June 12),
Massey Hall will ring with the sound
of Kelly-Marie Murphy's TSO-com~
missioned concerto for harp and orchestra,
performed by Judy Loman
under the baton of Gunther Herbig.
Murphy has been variously described
as "an alien of extraordinary
ability" (US Immigration and Naturalization
Department) and "the composer
of attractive and intriguing
SOUI\ds, an endless array of colours,
... a sense of progress and resolution"
(The Ottawa Citizen). See the
composer's homepage for more serious
and light-hearted information
OI).. her work (members.aol.com/
NEwMus1c
...-----------------------~
VanUrphy/kmm.html).
And Michael Colgrass' 12-minute
Hammer and Bow will be heard June
27m at the RCM, on a free concert
by the Rudolph Fam,ily Players .
Though not a narrative work, in it
Colgrass strives to represent two
people "relating closely on an emotional
level-at times harmonious,
at . others discordant, occasionally
playful, but always communicating
on some other-than-conscious level
... a simple descending chromatic
theme, which reflects the mysterious
and unpredictable mood
changes of two people in close
relatiornhip" .(www.~.can)
The Glass Orchestra
(www.vex.net/ - rixax/GlassO/) is
the only ensemble in the world
whose musicians create and perform
contemporary compositions entirely
with glass instruments. 14th century
Persia is when 'Music Glasses' first
appear to have become generally
known, but the popular modem his­
_tory of musical glass begins with
Benjamin Franklin's invention of the
'Glass Harmonica' in 1761 -- a set
of tuned glass bowls arranged horizontally
with each bowl nestled inside
the larger one next to it on a
revolving spindle. Virtuoso glass
performer-dude Rick Sacks notes that
Glass Mu~ic's reputed penetrating
Glass Orchestra '.s Tuned Bowls
ability to bring on dementia and force
early retirement in performers is
now ascribed to slow poisoning
from lead in the paint that circled
the rims of the glasses to mark the
sharp and flat notes.
The use of glass instrumentation
outside the traditional framework
begins with the visionary American
composer Harry Partch, who developed
sets of cloud-chamber bowls
(1950), tuned liquor bottles, and light
bulbs struck with light mallets. The
Glass Orchestra carries on this exploratory
tradition. Their contribution
rests· in an intuitive understanding
of the fragile and complex material
out of which they sculpt sound
pure and clear. Want to hear it?
June 22, 8 pm, at the Music Gallery.
NGtionol Guilor
.Workshop
19
.J