Volume 26 Issue 7 - May and June 2021
Meet some makers (of musical things) - a live filmed operatic premiere of a Handel oratorio?; 20 years of Summer Music in the Garden, short documentary film A Concerto is a Conversation; choirs Zooming in to keep connection live; a watershed moment for bridging the opera/musical theatre divide; and more than 100 recordings listened to and reviewed since the last time.
Meet some makers (of musical things) - a live filmed operatic premiere of a Handel oratorio?; 20 years of Summer Music in the Garden, short documentary film A Concerto is a Conversation; choirs Zooming in to keep connection live; a watershed moment for bridging the opera/musical theatre divide; and more than 100 recordings listened to and reviewed since the last time.
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allistic arco attack that channels the Tuatha<br />
de Danann themselves. Of special significance<br />
is My Old Man – a lush, sonorous,<br />
melodic reverie, filled with ethnic memory<br />
<strong>and</strong> longing. This gorgeous track is a tribute<br />
to the Leahy patriarch from two generations<br />
prior – singing out from the passing of time<br />
– blessing his descendants as they live their<br />
authentic musical traditions, creating fearlessly<br />
into the future.<br />
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke<br />
Speaking H<strong>and</strong>s<br />
Curtis Andrews<br />
Independent (curtis<strong>and</strong>rews.ca)<br />
! Among the first<br />
reviews I wrote for<br />
The WholeNote<br />
was The Offering<br />
of Curtis Andrews<br />
(December 2009).<br />
“I’ve been …<br />
bopping around the<br />
apartment to this<br />
joie de vivre-filled CD by Curtis Andrews,<br />
Newfoundl<strong>and</strong>’s globe-trotting percussionist<br />
<strong>and</strong> composer,” I enthused. “The music<br />
[draws] from Andrews’ studies in South<br />
Asian, West African <strong>and</strong> North American<br />
music … [merging] all those influences in an<br />
energy-rich field, couched in mainstream jazz<br />
forms <strong>and</strong> improv-rich solos...”<br />
Relocated to Canada’s West Coast, Andrews<br />
has continued his musical journeys inspired<br />
by those same global elements. And he’s<br />
joined on his sparkling new album, Speaking<br />
H<strong>and</strong>s, by 20 talented musical colleagues<br />
from across Canada, USA <strong>and</strong> Africa.<br />
Manifesting a mature musical voice, this<br />
sophomore release features nine Andrews’<br />
compositions <strong>and</strong> one by Carnatic percussion<br />
master Trichy Sankaran, their tricky<br />
metric l<strong>and</strong>scapes negotiated with aplomb by<br />
the Vancouver-based ensemble, The Offering<br />
of Curtis Andrews. Though recorded last<br />
year, Speaking H<strong>and</strong>s reflects two decades of<br />
travel, study <strong>and</strong> collaboration with master<br />
musicians on three continents.<br />
Andrews’ compositions intertwine<br />
“rhythms <strong>and</strong> polyphonies of vodu-derived<br />
traditional music of West Africa, the micro<br />
<strong>and</strong> macrocosmic play of time <strong>and</strong> pitch<br />
found in Carnatic traditions of South India,”<br />
<strong>and</strong> jazz harmony <strong>and</strong> improvisation. It’s<br />
the novel intersection of all these seemingly<br />
disparate elements into a cohesive <strong>and</strong> highspirited<br />
musical statement that marks the<br />
album as something special.<br />
The album title? Andrews explains it<br />
was inspired by the practice of the Carnatic<br />
recited rhythmic language known as solkattu.<br />
“It is the voice that gives rise to rhythm before<br />
the instrument does… the h<strong>and</strong>s ‘speak’<br />
what the voice (mind) creates.” This album<br />
certainly speaks to me.<br />
Andrew Timar<br />
Roots of Strings – The oud at the crossroad<br />
of Arabic, flamenco <strong>and</strong> Indian music<br />
Nazih Borish<br />
Analekta AN 2 9173 (analekta.com/en)<br />
! Syrian-born<br />
Nazih Borish is a<br />
respected oudist<br />
<strong>and</strong> composer.<br />
While establishing<br />
<strong>and</strong> running his<br />
Syrian oud school,<br />
this alreadyrenowned<br />
artist began to exp<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />
embrace a wide variety of musics, including<br />
Arabic, flamenco, blues <strong>and</strong> jazz. In 2016,<br />
Borish arrived in Canada, where he seamlessly<br />
continued his international work as a<br />
composer <strong>and</strong> performer. On this energized<br />
program of original compositions, Borish has<br />
collaborated with two equally accomplished<br />
<strong>and</strong> gifted artists: bassist Roberto Occhipinti<br />
<strong>and</strong> acclaimed world-music percussionist<br />
(darbuka, req, ketim <strong>and</strong> dahola)<br />
Joseph Khoury.<br />
Every well-produced track underscores<br />
the one-ness of mankind. From the most<br />
elemental bass notes of Mother Earth’s heart<br />
to the intensity of shared human emotional<br />
experience – this recording is a journey<br />
of profound meaning. The opening track,<br />
Nazihaw<strong>and</strong> (Nahaw<strong>and</strong> taksim), is a<br />
resonant, mystical composition… with sonic<br />
elements that are steeped in human experience<br />
– sounds from a timeless place, in a<br />
place-less time – eventually segueing into a<br />
wider, more languid sequence, punctuated in<br />
an inspired way by Occhipinti <strong>and</strong> Khoury.<br />
The title track is heady with exotic spices,<br />
exploring the deep <strong>and</strong> ancient relationship<br />
between the indigenous music of Spain,<br />
Iberia, Portugal, the sub-Continent <strong>and</strong> the<br />
Arabian peninsula, followed by Ataba (Bayat<br />
taksim) – deeply moving, with rich, lustrous<br />
tones; the facile skill of Borish is breathtaking.<br />
I can hear this universal music echoing off<br />
the walls of the Blue Mosque, the Taj Mahal<br />
or Carnegie Hall! Ali Baba Dance is a stunner<br />
– <strong>and</strong> Damasrose (Rast samai) is a sensual,<br />
Masala-flavoured trip, displaying complex<br />
string technique by Borish, all the while<br />
expressing the subtleties of several different<br />
instruments of antiquity – even hints of the<br />
Japanese koto.<br />
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke<br />
Roots<br />
Ventus Machina<br />
Leaf Music LM239 (leaf-music.ca)<br />
! Ventus<br />
Machina is a classical<br />
wind quintet<br />
based in New<br />
Brunswick which<br />
makes “excursions”<br />
into other<br />
genres. Roots is an<br />
inventive album<br />
containing arrangements of folk songs,<br />
fiddle tunes, Celtic music <strong>and</strong> a few iconic<br />
Canadian singer-songwriter staples. The<br />
majority of arrangements are by James Kalyn<br />
who plays clarinet <strong>and</strong> saxophone in the<br />
group. The album begins with Our Roots<br />
Medley which has five movements including<br />
an arrangement of some of Bach’s Goldberg<br />
Variations (The Goldberg “Variegations”), a<br />
Swedish folk song (Koppången) <strong>and</strong> Gordon<br />
Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund<br />
Fitzgerald. Kalyn’s arrangements are<br />
complex <strong>and</strong> use the full acoustic <strong>and</strong> technical<br />
resources of the quintet to present a<br />
unique perspective on these diverse selections.<br />
The Goldberg “Variegations” are quite<br />
contrapuntal, while Edmund Fitzgerald uses a<br />
majestic French horn to announce the theme<br />
amongst the other swirling instruments.<br />
Bird on the Wire has Kalyn playing bass<br />
clarinet, tenor saxophone, singing <strong>and</strong><br />
using slap tongue techniques for rhythmic<br />
purposes. On Joni Mitchell’s The Circle<br />
Game the quintet is augmented by the<br />
Atlantic String Machine <strong>and</strong> a small children’s<br />
choir. For the three fiddle tunes, Traveller’s<br />
Breakdown, Doin’ Repairs <strong>and</strong> Calm Before<br />
the Storm, they are joined by the composer<br />
Ray Legere, playing fiddle <strong>and</strong> m<strong>and</strong>olin,<br />
with Christian Goguen on guitar; the music<br />
gets lively.<br />
The underlying delight present<br />
throughout Roots is having familiar music<br />
reinvented in an unusual <strong>and</strong> intriguing<br />
context. This is Ventus Machina’s second<br />
album <strong>and</strong> I look forward to more musical<br />
adventures with them in the future.<br />
Ted Parkinson<br />
In D<br />
Brooklyn Raga Massive<br />
Independent (brooklynragamassive.org)<br />
! Terry Riley’s<br />
iconic minimalist<br />
composition In C<br />
(1964) is scored for<br />
an indeterminate<br />
number <strong>and</strong> kind<br />
of instrument or<br />
voice. A dronelike<br />
pulse on the<br />
note C synchronizing the ensemble guides its<br />
performance, while superimposed repeated<br />
phrases give the work a phasing effect. (Riley<br />
had been deeply influenced by his studies<br />
with Hindustani classical vocalist P<strong>and</strong>it<br />
Pran Nath.)<br />
Hailed as “Leaders of the Raga<br />
Renaissance” (The New Yorker), Brooklyn<br />
Raga Massive was founded in 2015 by sitar<br />
player <strong>and</strong> composer Neel Murgai. Given the<br />
diversity of instruments <strong>and</strong> musical backgrounds<br />
of the group, BRM chose Terry<br />
Riley’s adaptable In C to record in 2017. Then<br />
at Riley’s suggestion in 2020, BRM members<br />
took inspiration from In C’s form <strong>and</strong><br />
composed a new work. It is interpreted by<br />
25 musicians on the album In D, each of the<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>May</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2021</strong> | 49