Arctic Dreams 1

Arctic Dreams I (2002)
Arctic Dreams I is a palimpsest; a work composed on top of a pre-existing work. The original
source was “Voices of the Land”, the third movement of Footprints In New Snow, a radio
documentary/composition about the Inuit and their culture, created by Christos Hatzis and
Keith Horner in 1995 with the support from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the
Ontario Arts Council.
The composer writes:
Voices of the Land employs the same audio material as Arctic Dreams I with the addition of
the haunting voice of Winston White, an Inuit Elder and broadcaster from Nunavut, in the
foreground speaking about the north and its inhabitants.
It was my intention all along that this audio material would become part of a completely
different composition. The opportunity did not present itself until seven years later when
my wife, percussionist Beverley Johnston, and flutist Susan Hoeppner asked me for a work
they could perform as a duo. They were engaged to perform at a “Collaborations” multiarts
series in Toronto. When Valerie Kuinka, the Artistic Director of Collaborations, visited
us with her seven-year-old daughter Lauren Margison, at our home in mid April 2002, to
listen to possible works for that program, I played the remixed tape from Voices of the Land.
Val decided that she wanted to make this the centrepiece of her concert, which was to take
place a couple of weeks later.
Arctic Dreams I came into being in three days as a result of this meeting, and included an
obligato singing part for Lauren Margison and Beverly Johnston. It was premiered on 26 April
2002 at the “Collaborations” concert at Isabel Baden Theatre in Toronto.
The work became the first in a set for different combinations of instruments with digital
audio from the original radiophonic work. Subsequent works in the same series include
(Light) Arctic Dreams II for children’s choir, flute, vibraphone & digital audio, (Light) Arctic
PE103 – v