Volume 27 Issue 4 - February 2022
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
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Gates. Unlike most of the works here which enlarge the original<br />
forces, Chris Mayo and Bekah Simms take orchestral textures and<br />
adapt them for the sextet. Mayo’s Oh Come Now! There is a Beautiful<br />
Place! is an arrangement “on a relatively miniature scale” of Reinhold<br />
Glière’s mammoth Symphony No.3. Although the liner notes tell us<br />
that the title is taken from a poem by Kenneth Patchen, there is no<br />
explanation of how this relates to the symphony and I’m left<br />
scratching my head. Simms’ Tenebrose explores the “night music”<br />
from the third movement of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion<br />
and Celesta with “approaches that I feel the composer would have<br />
been likely drawn to had he lived into the 21st century,” including<br />
microtonal glissandi and the use of non-tempered pitches while<br />
incorporating familiar motifs from the original. Lizée is represented<br />
with two tracks, her own inimitable treatments of songs by pop icons<br />
Dead or Alive (You Spin Me Round) and Justin Timberlake (Cry Me a<br />
River). While certainly a different sensibility from the other offerings<br />
here, they somehow manage to fit in seamlessly. I particularly enjoyed<br />
the bass clarinet and vibraphone lines in Epiphora, her take on<br />
Timberlake’s classic, which bring this very satisfying disc to a close.<br />
The next release features two relative<br />
newcomers on the contemporary music<br />
scene, composer Xander Simmons and<br />
Montreal’s Collectif Novart. Simmons’<br />
second release Inner Landscapes<br />
(xandersimmons.com) features five works<br />
for varying ensembles, opening with the<br />
contemplative Three Points for piano trio<br />
which gradually builds to a dramatic peak<br />
before receding. Pink Mountain is a fourmovement<br />
work – Dawn, Daylight, Drift and Dusk – which is one of<br />
two works here that take direct inspiration from the painted landscapes<br />
of Peter Doig, the other being Grande Riviere, a work that adds<br />
ambient electronic textures to acoustic instrumentation. Solstice is in<br />
two parts, and utilizes the largest ensemble here, a nonet. Winter<br />
opens with a dark duet between contrabass and bassoon, slowly<br />
brightening as if the pale sun were shining through. Summer opens<br />
with busy flute over a bassoon ostinato and continues in a minimalist<br />
melisma of insect sounds with birds soaring above in the cloudless<br />
sky (my imagery). The composer describes the closing Vortices as a<br />
“collage of string performances mixed with synthesizers and field<br />
recordings.” As with the other pieces here, the language is consonant<br />
and tonal, but here the extra-musical materials add an edge to the<br />
layers of sound. Overall this is a strong release from a young<br />
composer, showing a breadth of interest and understanding that<br />
bodes well for future endeavours. The collectif is in fine form, with<br />
convincing performances and solid ensemble work.<br />
I first heard the music of Petar Klanac (then<br />
known as Pierre-Kresimir Klanac) at Glenn<br />
Gould Studio back in November 1997 as part<br />
of New Music Concerts’ contribution to the<br />
Made In Canada Festival, and then in 2000<br />
on the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal<br />
CD Nouvelles Territoires 1. In the intervening<br />
years he had fallen off my radar until<br />
a few weeks ago when he reached out to me<br />
about his new CD.<br />
Klanac has a surprisingly small presence on the Internet. The little<br />
biographical information I’ve been able to glean tells me that his principal<br />
instruments are violin and electric guitar and that he studied<br />
composition with Gilles Tremblay at the Montreal Conservatoire from<br />
1992 to 1995 and later with Gérard Grisey and Marco Stroppa at the<br />
Paris Conservatoire and Denys Bouliane at the Rencontres de musique<br />
nouvelle du Domaine Forget in Charlevoix (Québec). He was a child<br />
chorister in the Maîtrise des Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal (Saint-<br />
Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal) for nine years and this seems to have<br />
strongly informed his compositional aesthetic. That first piece I heard<br />
was titled Le ressuscité de Béthanie (on the subject of the resurrection<br />
of Lazarus), a theme to which he returned two decades later in a work<br />
for Ensemble Nahandove. Many of the works in his oeuvre focus on<br />
religious themes, such as Agnus Dei for men’s choir, Pater Noster for<br />
tenor and string quartet and Sancta Parens for two saxophones and<br />
cello. When commissioned by the Société de musique contemporain<br />
du Québec to compose a new work for its 55th anniversary concert<br />
last December he presented the 18-minute chamber ensemble work<br />
Yerushalayim.<br />
Klanac has made his home in France for some time and his latest<br />
project, Pozgarria da (petarklanac.bandcamp.com), was commissioned<br />
by Ensemble 0, a group whose members are based in different<br />
cities in France, Catalonia and Belgium, as part of 30th anniversary<br />
celebrations for the Institut Culturel Basque. Pozgarria da (How<br />
wonderful it is) is a setting of four poems by the Basque Franciscan<br />
Father Bitoriano Gandiaga for voice (Fanny Chatelain singing in the<br />
original language) and an unusual ensemble consisting of flutes, rebec<br />
and nyckelharpa, four organs, gamelan selunding and percussion.<br />
There is a sparse instrumental prelude and two interludes, all titled<br />
Maite dut bizitza (I love life), separating the first three poems, whose<br />
sparse and subdued settings are vaguely reminiscent of medieval<br />
music. The final movement, also Maite dut bizitza, is the most expansive<br />
by far at almost 17 minutes, and is also the most exuberant; a<br />
flamboyant minimalist – think cinematic Philip Glass – paean to “The<br />
joy of life / To my surroundings / that are alive. / I wish the joy of<br />
being alive / To everyone who lives / the grace of life.” Amen! A very<br />
welcome anthem and reminder in these unjoyful times.<br />
And now for something completely<br />
different, although I find joy here too. “What<br />
if Dark Orchard (Jim Casson’s experimental<br />
music project) and ‘The Blues’ got together<br />
in New Orleans and watched Twin Peaks<br />
with Daniel Lanois?” That’s the premise<br />
behind Davis Hall & The Green Lanterns<br />
(greenlanterns.ca). Originally conceived<br />
in the early days of COVID-19 as a remote<br />
collaboration with bass player Russ Boswell, Casson laid down drum<br />
tracks in his home studio that he shared with Boswell who added<br />
funky bass licks and a song outline. They invited Bernie LaBarge to<br />
add some guitar lines and Brent Barkman on organ; and Marshville<br />
Station, the second track on the current album, was born. Although<br />
the project was shelved for a while, the ongoing pandemic has<br />
provided the perfect opportunity to revisit the idea.<br />
I’ve been a sucker for blues tuba since I saw Taj Mahal at the<br />
Mariposa Festival 40-some years ago backed by a quartet of tubas<br />
headed by the late, great Howard Johnson (1941-2021). Well, that’s<br />
how this adventure begins, with the funky, N’awlins-flavoured<br />
Temperanceville co-written by Casson, tuba player N. Jay Burr and<br />
guitarist Wayne DeAdder, with Mike Branton sitting in on slide guitar.<br />
The personnel of the Green Lanterns changes from track to track, with<br />
Casson on drums, keyboards, autoharp and even theremin the only<br />
constant, but the result is always bluesy and frequently scorching.<br />
Burr, DeAdder, Boswell and Brandon make numerous contributions<br />
and guests include Steve Marriner and Al Lerman on harmonica,<br />
Stephen Miller on dobro, and an archival appearance by 60s DJ Bob<br />
Bowland from CHOW radio in Welland, Ontario. Casson explains<br />
the name of the group, and of the songs, as a tribute to the Niagara<br />
Peninsula, the stomping grounds of his formative years. “Davis Hall”<br />
was the name of the community centre in his hometown where he<br />
attended nursery school, “The Green Lantern” was the soda shop<br />
in town when he was a kid and the names of all the songs correspond<br />
to place names on the peninsula. Who knew that the fruit belt<br />
could be so darn funky? This one is guaranteed to lift your spirits (and<br />
your heels)!<br />
We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent<br />
to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social<br />
Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.<br />
David Olds, DISCoveries Editor<br />
discoveries@thewholenote.com<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>February</strong> <strong>2022</strong> | 35