A Canadian selection

This year's Music and Beyond festival advertised five events at which exclusively Canadian music was performed, entitled 150 Years of Music in Canada, i.e. since 1867; I went to two of these.

On the afternoon of Saturday July 8th, the concert at the First Baptist Church began with four Canadian pieces sung by Hélene Brunet, the soprano who had made such a good impression on me last year (we'd also heard her sing most beautifully in Bach's St. Matthew Passion this year, on Good Friday), accompanied here by Valerie Dueck. The first was Le Jeu des Citations, miniatures of just a few bars duration, each a setting of a single phrase in French by Denis Gougeon of Quebec. There followed Alea by the same composer, sung in Latin! Then a setting of the translation of a 9th century Chinese poem about two souls Weaving Love-Knots, by Sarah Quartel. The fourth item was in Latin again: Amore by Jocelyn Morlock, the words meaning "There is nothing more tame ... nor wild ... than love!"

Reporting this 13 days later, I confess I find it hard to remember how this new music sounded, exactly, but have found a recording to share:

However, the next item, added to the programme, made a more lasting impression, partly because the composer was sitting a couple of rows in front of me with his family: a shy looking, extraordinarily gifted 17 year old, Philip Przybylo. He had composed an atonal piece for solo saxophone called Spectres Errants. Amazing! I wonder what his music teacher had made of it. The young man seemed pleased with our applause.

Then we had a Vocalise by Carole Portelance, which had the singer going O - ah -- ee -- oo and clapping intermittantly.

The saxophonist came back on stage to be joined by the Quatuor Despax siblings of Gatineau, plus an extra cellist, a guitar player, and Hélene Brunet once more. Together they performed Fly So Far From Me. The composer Roddy Elias was on stage; he was the guitarist. Hélene Brunet was then replaced by the versatile jazz singer Kellylee Evans, and the ensemble minus the string quartet gave us I've Been Where The Water Is Deeper And Darker. Both songs are from a jazzy "chamber opera for puppets" to be performed in its entirety next year, because this is a work in progress, telling the story of a homeless man and his interaction with the social workers. Read more about it here.

During the second half of the concert, the Quatuor Despax also performed a Fantaisie composed by their own father, Emmanuel Despax, in 2005. "He wrote it for our mum!" (and for them, of course). I very much like watching this proud and musical family in action. They are good role models besides; they have helped tutor the children of the Orkidstra.

The other two items on the programme were compositions by Marjan Mozetich, currently based in Newfoundland, who was also in the church to hear our applause, and who talked about his music. The first one was El Dorado, a piece written for string orchestra and adapted here for the quartet plus harp and double bass. The composer admitted that he wrote this "minimalist" piece under the influence of Philip Glass, so it had many repetitive motifs as in Glass' music. This style doesn't appeal to me very much, I'm afraid. The last item on the programme was more appealing, Mozetich coming to the microphone to announce "It's me again!" and to introduce his Angels In Flight for flute, clarinet, harp and strings in three movements which he called a Tryptych --- "not movements, but panels", where the middle section, Song of the Eternal began with lovely arpeggios on the clarinet and viola with the cello playing in the background. And yes, Mozetich said it was inspired by Ravel's Introduction and Allegro for the same combination of instruments.