Alex Eddington: composer, musician, writer, actor, &tc.

Composerly/theatrely things I'm up to (Fall 2012 to Summer 2013)

Life has changed a lot for us in 2012: we had an apartment fire, moved, got married, and I've got a new degree and have been transitioning into a teaching career.

Things have been settling down a bit this fall, but I still have some creative projects afoot that you
might be interested in, taking place in five different cities:

• a second performance of a favourite in Edmonton

• a new piece for young string players

• a debut in New York City

• a long-awaited, large-scale piece for three pianists in May

PLUS plans are coming together to tour my new solo show "Yarn" in summer of 2013 - starting with the London Fringe in June and then going on to... well, that depends how the lotteries go.

Details are below!

In chronological order...with as much detail as I know at this time.

1) FUZZY LOGIC
for narrator and chamber ensemble
In Edmonton.

Written, composed and narrated by Alex Eddington.

With the St. Crispin's Chamber Players.

Saturday, November 17, 2012 - 2:00 pm

Edmonton, Alberta: Muttart Hall, Alberta College (10050 Macdonald Drive)

Part ot the Edmonton Festival of New Music (November 15-17)

Festival Passes: $65 General/ $35 NME and Mile Zero Members
Individual events: $20 General/$10 Students/$5 NME Member

More info: http://newmusicedmonton.ca/

I wrote most of the text of Fuzzy Logic when I lived in Scotland in 2003. Sheep were my neighbours. I took a lot of notes about them. Here are some of the things they make me think about - a kind of sheep-based philosophy. Set to music.

I wrote myself into the piece because that's what sheep would do. Sheep wouldn't sit in the back row. They would get themselves dirty.

2) The Dusty Miller March
for brass quintet
In Toronto.

The Red Brass:
Andre Dubelsten and Jonas Feldman, trumpets
Iris Krizmanic, French horn
Brad Dickson, trombone
Wilfred Lee, bass trombone

Sunday, December 16, 2012 - 6:00 pm

Toronto, Ontario:  St. Paul's L'Amoreaux Anglican Church (3333 Finch Ave. E., at Warden)

For information about tickets, contact the church at (416) 499-1545

This is the same piece I wrote for our wedding in June, in honour of the Benmiller Inn where we were married. The piece is newly arranged for brass quintet... the plan being to create a suite of pieces that the Red Brass quintet will record on their upcoming CD project (next fall).

The Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra is contributing musicians (i.e. the Red Brass) to this concert, which also features the choirs of St. Paul's and young musicians from their community youth music program. The Red Brass will be playing fanfares and other short pieces (mine isn't really a fanfare, more of a... well, a march) by several Canadian composers, some of them world premieres.

The event will definitely sell out, so book ahead if you plan to attend!

3) Living Soul
for string orchestra (world premiere)
In Guelph.

Student violinists, violists and cellists of the Suzuki String School of Guelph (ca. 140 performers!)

Sunday, April 28, 2013 - 2:00 pm

Guelph, Ontario:  River Run Centre (35 Woolwich Street)

For information about tickets, visit the Suzuki String School of Guelph website.

Following the success of Watershed, commissioned through the Canadian Music Centre's New Music for Young Performers program, and premiered in April 2012 by students of the Suzuki String School of Guelph (with teacher Paule Barsalou), the SSSG has commissioned me to write a new piece celebrating the 40th anniversary of their school.

Inspired by the Tonalization excercises used in Suzuki string training (for the development of a beautiful tone from the first days of playing an instrument) and named for a quote from founder Dr. Suzuki ("Tone has a living soul"), Living Soul will be performed by nearly all the students in the school: around 140 string players! The River Run Centre is Guelph's premiere performance facility - a beautiful hall.

4) The Stolen Child
for tenor and piano (world premiere of revised version)
In New York City.

Nathan Letourneau, tenor

Date TBA (April or May 2013)

Manhattan, NY:  location TBA

The Stolen Child sets out to be a straightforward folk-song influenced setting of W.B. Yeats' poem... but is overtaken by otherworldly faerie music channeled by the pianist.

Tenor Nathan Letourneau will be premiering the piece on his end-of-degree recital next spring. Date TBA! 

 

5) Grasslands, Badlands and Spirit Sands
For piano six hands (world premiere)
In Toronto.

junctQín keyboard collective (Stephanie Chua, Joseph Feretti and Elaine Lau)

Monday, May 27, 2013 - 8:00 pm

Toronto, Ontario:  Gallery 345 (345 Sorauren Ave.)

For information about tickets, visit junctQín's website or Gallery 345.

In the summer of 2010 I took an extraordinary camping trip across the south of Canada's prairie provinces, spending time in unique (very non-flat!) landscapes that most Canadians never see: Manitoba's Spirit Sands dunes, Saskatchewan's Big Muddy Valley, Grasslands National Park and the Cypress Hills, and Alberta's Writing-on-Stone and Dinosaur Provincial Parks.

Ever since, I've been trying to express my experience of these remarkable places in music. The three pianists of the junctQín keyboard collective have commissioned me to create a large-scale piece for them, starting with Big Muddy which they toured in fall 2011. I'm excited to put the whole piece together for their recital this coming May.


5) Yarn
A new solo storytelling show
In London (Ontario)... and beyond.

Summer 2013, starting early June.

Directed by Tyler Séguin.



Yarn is my new storytelling show about the strange and wonderful summer I spent living on the isolated Isle of Mull, Scotland, in 2003. I moved there to find myself, but instead I lost my mind... temporarily. Set in a gorgeous, lonely place, Yarn is a highly personal story about the stories we tell ourselves to survive. I'm not totally sure what this show will look/sound like yet, but I expect that I'll be creating my own live sound design on an array of instruments and objects...

I recently confirmed that I'll be premiering Yarn at London Fringe in June 2013. Hopefully I will also be taking the show to Ottawa, Toronto, and even to the west...  Once the lotteries all come in, I'll let you know where you can see it.

Composerly/theatrely things I'm up to: Spring 2012

2012 has been a little less hectic - in some ways - than last fall, when I updated you on a crazy number of performances that I had happening in Toronto and across the country.

But there are some neat events afoot this Spring, including a reading from my new play ("Yarn"), a musical premiere, the professional orchestra debut of one of my pieces, and a narration performance with Continuum.  Details are below!

 

In chronologicalish order...

1) YARN
I'm reading an excerpt from my new solo show.

Yarn is a new autobiographical monologue about my strange and wonderful summer living on the isolated Isle of Mull, Scotland, in 2003 - what living there did to my brain - and the stories we tell ourselves to get by.

I'm planning to premiere the full show in the summer of 2013. It will involve live music on many instruments! And possibly stop-motion animation depicting the perplexing behaviour of sheep...





The Four Winds Collective presents...
A Night of Lies

Join us on Monday, March 19th as we take over the TRANZAC’s Tiki Room, say bye-bye to the Truth for a couple hours, have a few drinks and experience some live theatre fresh from the incubator.

Come for the stories, stay for the conversation.

You will hear excerpts from:

~Peter Counter~
~Alex Eddington~
~Andrew Gaboury~
~Nicole Ratjen~
~Susan Stover~

When: Monday, March 19th
Doors - 8pm
The event will start shortly thereafter.

PWYC
(recommended $5 – all donations go towards funding the future of this series)

Where: The Tiki Room of TRANZAC

2) WATERSHED
for two student violinists (2012)
(one beginner and one advanced)

World premiere! - and a second performance!

Commissioned through the Canadian Music Centre's wonderful New Music for Young Musicians project.

Watershed is a musical journey following the path of a drop of water from the Columbia Icefield in Alberta, through lakes and rivers all the way to Hudson's Bay in Manitoba. The piece is a duet for beginning and advanced violinists. It has seven movements, each of which explores different musical skills as well as depicting different locations along the Hudson's Bay watershed:

Columbia Icefield
Abraham Lake
North Saskatchewan River
The Forks
Lake Winnipeg
Nelson River
Hudson's Bay

TWO performances this April!

a) PING! Premiere:
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
3:30 pm (Student workshop with the Penderecki String Quartet)
6:30pm (Performance)

Featuring new compositions for young string players by Canadian Music Centre associate composers.

Location: North Toronto Collegiate Institute Auditorium (17 Broadway Avenue, near Yonge and Eglinton)


b) Guelph Suzuki School
Spring concert
Sunday, April 27, 2012

Featuring violin students of the Guelph Suzuki School, in group performance on my piece!

Special thanks go to my consulting educator, Paule Barsalou, for coordinating this performance and for her help composing the piece.

Details to be posted at the Guelph Suzuki School website.

3) SATURDAY NIGHT at FORT CHAMBLY
for orchestra (2009/2012)
(my professional orchestra debut!)

Sunday April 15, 2012 - 7:30 pm   BRANTFORD Ontario

Details on the BSO website.

Performed by the Brantford Symphony, conducted by Philip Sarabura.

My music was selected to be part of a concert of folk music for fiddles featuring the wonderful Pierre Schryer band!

My only Canadian ancestor was stationed at Fort Chambly, Québec. I wondered what the culture was like there when the soldiers were off duty. Did they drink beer like "Blanche de Chambly"? What music did they play and sing? My piece is a collage of French-Canadian folk songs (at least 25 of 'em), thrown together in drunken chaos. Sometimes they get along and sometimes they fight, but they'll be friends again in the morning.

 

 

4) Continuum at New Music 101

Monday, May 7, 2012 - 7:00pm (1 hour)

Toronto Reference Library
FREE!

Continuum ensemble
with Alex Eddington, narrator

One concert in a 4-part series at the Toronto Reference Library


"Telling a Story"

There is a long and lively tradition of using music to convey a story,
through many forms -- programmatic music, opera, ballet, lieder. But
possibly the most direct means involves narration underpinned by music.  As
part of New Music 101, Continuum presents contemporary expressions of the
practice, including "l’Eléphant de mer" (from Contes pour enfants pas sages)
by west-coast composer Christopher Butterfield, Why the parrot repeats human
words by east-coast composer Emily Doolittle, and a much-compressed version
of Stravinsky’s classic l’Histoire du Soldat.  

The works call for
clarinet, violin, viola and percussion, as well as narrator. 

---

As always, you can follow what I'm up to, read my blog, and see my collection of amusing and perplexing Things That Are at www.AlexEddington.com

Composerly things I'm up to (Fall/Winter 2011 and beyond)

 

This is turning out to be a busy season - especially because I'm directly involved in several of these performances as a composer-who-talks-about-their-music (junctQin Keyboard Collective - Sept 30 and other dates), conductor (Scarborough Philharmonic - Oct 29), and narrator (Continuum - Nov 6).

I'm extremely excited about the opportunities that have been coming my way, and the wide-range of these performances!  If you are in Toronto, Hamilton, Barrie, Kitchener, Brantford, Sudbury or Edmonton, you have the opportunity to catch a concert with my music on it - or even a theatrical staging of my adaptation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"! (in Sudbury)

 

1) Big Muddy for piano six hands (!) - world premiere

    Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 12:00 noon - BARRIE ON. (Colours of Music Festival) Central United Church, 54 Ross Street (at Toronto Street)    Pricing information

    Friday, September 30, 2011 - 7:00pm - TORONTO ON (Culture Days)   North York Central Library, 5120  Yonge St.   FREE!  details  I'll be talking about the piece at this lecture-recital performance.

    Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 12:00 noon - KITCHENER ON. (Wilfred Laurier University - Maureen Forrester Recital Hall)    FREE   details

    Sunday, December 11, 2011 - 3:00pm - TORONTO ON. (Great Hall, Hart House)

 

Peformed by the junctQín Keyboard Collective (Elaine Lau, Joseph Ferretti, Stephanie Chua)

 

This will be the first installment of a large-scale piece in my ongoing geographical series called "Grasslands, Badlands and Spirit Sands", inspired by soundscapes and landscapes in Canada's southern prairies.  This piece owes its genesis to Saskatchewan's Big Muddy Valley. Big Muddy Valley has big muddy buttes in it, like Castle Butte, on which there are incredible rain-carved patterns. I have mapped the shape and experience of this landform into musical sound, with the help of SIX HANDS on one piano! One of the more dense pieces you are ever likely to hear... but not always. At the top of Castle Butte there is quite the view, and perfect quiet except for the whistle of a gopher.

                      
** You can see more pictures of Big Muddy Valley and Castle Butte, and read about my summer 2010 travels across the south of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta HERE

 

2) Psycho B*tch  a one-woman show written and performed by Tamara Lynn Robert, directed by Laura Anne Harris, with extensive sound design by Alex Eddington.

 

A funny and moving story about a woman's experience living with mental illness: seeking diagnosis, trying to understand and accept herself.   

 

ONE NIGHT ONLY (x2)!

    Sunday, October 2, 2011 - 8:00pm - TORONTO ON.  Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative     Movement (6 Noble St.)

        AND!!

    Friday, October 7, 2011 - 8:00pm - HAMILTON ON.  Staircase Café Theatre (27 Dundurn St. N.)

General admission: $15

Students/Seniors/Artist/Underemployed: $10

Tickets will be sold at the door - cash only.

This event is set to occur during Mental Illness Awareness Week and will help fund future endeavors to help raise awareness about mental illness and the devastating effects of stigma.

 

        FACEBOOK EVENT

        www.PKpinup.com

 

3) Huron Antiphon for brass quintet and orchestra (world premiere - and orchestral conducting debut!)

    Saturday, October 29, 2011 - 8:00pm - TORONTO. 

 

An exploration of deconstruction and reconstruction, composed in reaction to the F3 tornado that leveled many historic buildings in the town of Goderich, Ontario on the shore of Lake Huron. Inspired by Goderich's unique eight-sided town square which the tornado hit directly, the piece asks the brass quintet play from different parts of the perimeter of the hall, creating an acoustic "surround sound" experience.

Performed by the Red Brass with the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra.  Conducted by Alex Eddington.

Part of the concert "An American in Paris", featuring music by Copland, Gershwin, and a new trumpet concerto by Music Director Ronald Royer. 

       Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute, 3663 Danforth Ave.

       Tickets: $30 adults, $25 seniors, $15 youth. (contact me for a reduced rate) 

        (416) 429-0007  spo@spo.ca  www.spo.ca

 

4) Fuzzy Logic for narrator and chamber ensemble (world premiere)

Written, composed and performed by Alex Eddington with the Continuum ensemble.

Commissioned by Continuum Contemporary Music with the support of the Toronto Arts Council.

Sunday November 6, 2011 - 8:00 pm

Toronto - The Music Gallery (in St. George the Martyr Church - 197 John Street - just north of Queen)

How do you make music that sounds like sheep? Why would you do that? How would sheep themselves make music? DO sheep already make music? What kind of music do sheep enjoy? 

Sheep were once my neighbours. I took a lot of notes about them. Here are some things they make me think about, set to music. I wrote myself into the piece because that's what sheep would do. Sheep wouldn't sit in the back row. They'd get themselves dirty.

  

5) Light Looked Down  SSATB choir unaccompanied (2007, revised 2011).  Text by Laurence Housman.

Light looked down and beheld Darkness. "Thither will I go," said Light...

Part of "Living Sound", a concert featuring choral works by Edmontonian and Canadian composers.

 

Sunday, November 13, 2011 - 3:00pm.  EDMONTON AB

First Baptist Church, 10031 109 St.

$20/$15 available at the door or through choir members

http://www.dacamera.ab.ca/season/2011-2012

 

6) A Christmas Carol  for narrator and string quartet (playing toy instruments too). Text by Charles Dickens, edited by Alex Eddington.

Thursday December 8 and Sunday December 11, 2011 - 7:00pm - SUDBURY Ontario

Narrated by celebrity special guests with music by the Juno-nominated Silver Birch string quartet

Presented by the Sudbury Theatre Centre.  Visit their site for ticket details.

This used to be an annual tradition in Sudbury but hasn't been done in a while. The string quartet score creates atmosphere with ghostly sounds and toy instruments, interwoven with many old Christmas carols that would have been sung in Dickens' day.

This is a STAGED performance and will be extremely wonderful.  I'm hoping to attend!

 

And beyond... 

7) Saturday Night at Fort Chambly for orchestra (2009) (professional orchestra debut)

Performed by the Brantford Symphony, conducted by Philip Sarabura.

Part of a concert of folk music for fiddles featuring the wonderful Pierre Schryer band!

My only Canadian ancestor was stationed at Fort Chambly, Québec. I wondered what the culture was like there when the soldiers were off duty. Did they drink beer like "Blanche de Chambly"? What music did they play and sing? My piece is a collage of French-Canadian folk songs (at least 25 of 'em), thrown together in drunken chaos. Sometimes they get along and sometimes they fight, but they'll be friends again in the morning.

Sunday April 15, 2012 - 7:30 pm   BRANTFORD Ontario

Details on the BSO website. 

 

 

8) Watershed for two violins (teacher/advance student and novice student)

Commissioned through the Canadian Music Centre's wonderful New Music for Young Musicians project

To be premiered at Ping! in Fall 2012

 

 

 

This Sunday! Eddington and Mueller-Heaslip performing at the Soulpepper cabaret

During the Luminato festival, Soulpepper Theatre is presenting FREE events after every performance, including a daily/nightly cabaret.

On Sunday, June 12th at 4:15pm, host Gregory Prest will interview a diverse group of artists and performers in a casual setting.

Soprano Kristin Mueller-Heaslip and composer/pianist Alex Eddington will be performing three songs from their oldest (decade-old!) collaboration: settings of Dennis Lee's children's poetry including "Goofus", "Summerhill Fair" and "Can You Canoe?"  Here are two other poems, in the original version with string quartet:

"Eight Poems of Dennis Lee" (excerpt) by Alex Eddington - Kristin Mueller-Heaslip, soprano; the Downtown String Quartet.

Time willing, Kristin and Alex might also present some silly faux-Classical music from their hit (??) 2005 Fringe show "Adieu, Friedrich Lips"

(Strangely - in the same building at 3:45 is another free performance featuring Mike Ross (who has an entire repertoire of Dennis Lee songs) and DENNIS LEE HIMSELF). Hopefully you can do both!

The cabaret is FREE!! 

HERE are all the free events happening at the Young Centre during Luminato...

UPDATED: Composerly things I'm up to (Summer/Fall 2011 and beyond)

Some of this is the same as what you already knew and doubtless already had penciled into your iPyd.

But some of it is new!  Take a look, for instance, at the changed date of my June premiere of "Light Looked Down" for choir - which I am now conducting - and some new confirmed dates in the fall of 2011. 

 

1) Sunday, May 22, 2011 - 8:00pm - TORONTO: Performance of "People are not cars" (2006, electroacoustic).

        Mechanical textures are made from human voices speaking phonemes.  Originally composed for Mile Zero Dance (Edmonton) for the "Parking Lot Project" at the 2006 The Works festival.

        The concert will feature electroacoustic works, many with live performers, including premieres by Paul Frehner, Adam Scime, Emilie Lebel, Riho Maimets, and Caleb Chan.

        Gallery 345 - 345 Sorauren, Toronto

        $20 regular, $15 seniors, $10 students

 

2) Saturday, June 4, 2011 - 8:00pm - TORONTO  (NOTE!  DATE CHANGED!):  Premiere of "Light Looked Down" for SSATB choir a cappella (text by Laurence Housman). Voices choir, conducted by Ron K.M. Cheung.

       ALSO NEW!  I will be conducting the premiere of my piece!

This is their 15th anniversary concert, featuring great music by 15 contemporary choral composers including Eric Whitacre, Imant Raminsh, Morten Lauridsen, John Taverner and Toronto's own Rob Teehan! 

St. Thomas' Church (383 Huron St., Toronto).  Adults $20, students/seniors $15

http://www.voiceschoir.com

 

3) a) Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 12:00 noon - BARRIE ON. (Colours of Music Festival) Central United Church, 54 Ross Street (at Toronto Street)    Pricing information

    b) Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 12:00 noon - KITCHENER ON. (Wilfred Laurier University)     

    c) Sunday, December 11, 2011 - 3:00pm - TORONTO ON. (Great Hall, Hart House)

 

junctQín Keyboard Collective (Elaine Lau, Joseph Ferretti, Stephanie Chua)

 

Premiere (and aftershocks) of "Big Muddy" for piano six hands (!), commissioned by the junctQin Keyboard Collective.  This will be the first installment of a large-scale piece in my ongoing geographical series called "Grasslands, Badlands and Spirit Sands", inspired by soundscapes and landscapes in Canada's southern prairies.  This piece owes its genesis to Saskatchewan's Big Muddy Valley.  There will definitely be clusters!  Big Muddy Valley has big muddy buttes in it, like Castle Butte, on which there are incredible rain-craved patterns.

                      
** You can see more pictures of Big Muddy Valley and Castle Butte, and read about my summer 2010 travels across the south of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (almost done!) HERE

 

4)  Saturday, October 29, 2011 - 8:00pm - TORONTO.  Premiere of "Dancing About Architecture" for brass quintet and orchestra.

A new kind of dance suite: the quintet moves, spatializing sound throughout the geography of the concert hall, moving among dance music as though strolling among buildings of a city.  Inspired by a quote of Jean Cocteau: "Give me music I can live in like a house!" 

       The Red Brass with the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra.  Conducted by Alex Eddington.

Part of "Music of the Americas", featuring pieces by Copland, Gershwin, Marquez, and a new trumpet concerto by Music Director Ronald Royer. 

       Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute, 3663 Danforth Ave.

       Tickets: $30 adults, $25 seniors, $15 youth.  (416) 429-0007

 

And beyond: 

 "Fuzzy Logic" (for Continuum ensemble with me narrating) premiere in October or November (date tba)

"Watershed" for two violins (teacher and student) for the CMC's wonderful New Music for Young Musicians project (will be premiered at Ping! in April 2012)

and the Brantford Symphony performing my piece "Saturday Night at Fort Chambly" some time in the Spring of 2012!

UPDATE: Composerly things I'm up to (Spring/Summer 2011 and beyond)

It's Spring!  Or is it?  I'm getting contradictory information.  There is snow, yes, there is cold, yes, but I've also heard the calls of three seasonal birds that have arrived into town and might well be peeved that the weather isn't quite what it should be...

Anyway, it's a good time for some news! 

I have several musical premieres coming up (three in April! crazy!), and an old favourite will return.  Nothing theatrical taking the stage in the known future, but don't worry, there's a new solo show brewing... 

 

1) Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 8:00pm - Toronto: Premiere of "Windmill Dance" for 9 wind instruments and percussion.

Conducted by Alex Eddington.

Presented by the Scarborough Philharmonic, the concert ("Spring Serenade") will also feature premieres by Toronto composer Philip McConnell, and major Hollywood composer Bruce Broughton!

Kingston Road United Church, 975 Kingston Rd. Tickets $30/$25/$10.

http://www.SPO.ca

 

2) Thursday, April 21, 2011 - time uncertain - Montreal: Premiere of "Talking with strangers" for string quartet.  Quatuor Bozzini.

Part of a unique commissioning/fundraising project that will see the premiere of 32 new miniatures on the same concert!  *I'll be going to Montreal for this premiere*

Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur, Montreal.  100 Sherbrooke E.

http://www.quatuorbozzini.ca

 

3) Saturday, April 23, 2011 - 5:15pm - Toronto: Premiere of "The Stolen Child" (text by W.B. Yeats) for tenor and piano.

      ** note: THIS PREMIERE HAS BEEN DEFERRED TO A LATER DATE (summer?)

4) Tuesday and Wednesday, May 3 and 4 - 8:00pm - Toronto:  Performance of "Eight Poems of Dennis Lee" (2001) for soprano and string quartet.  Talisker Players with Xin Wang, soprano. 

Concert includes a premiere by my former composition teacher and extraordinary composer Alexander Rapoport. 

Trinity St. Paul's Centre, 427 Bloor Street West, Toronto.

http://www.jentekcompany.com/talisker/home.html

 

5) Sunday, May 22 - 8:00pm - Toronto: Performance of "People are not cars" (2006, electroacoustic).

        Mechanical textures are made from human voices speaking phonemes.  Originally composed for Mile Zero Dance (Edmonton) for the "Parking Lot Project" at the 2006 The Works festival.

        The concert will feature electroacoustic works, with or without live performers, by emerging and established composers.

        Gallery 345 - 345 Sorauren, Toronto

        $15 adults, $10 students

 

6) Saturday, June 11 - 8:00pm - Toronto:  Premiere of "Light Looked Down" for SATB choir a cappella (text by Laurence Housman). Voices choir, conducted by Ron K.M. Cheung.

This is their 15th anniversary concert, featuring works by 15 contemporary composers! 

St. Thomas' Church (383 Huron St., Toronto)

http://www.voiceschoir.com

 

And beyond: 

 "Fuzzy Logic" (for Continuum ensemble with me narrating) premiere in October

Scarborough Philharmonic premiere of "Dancing About Architecture" for brass quintet and orchestra, also in October

"Grasslands, Badlands and Spirit Sands" for piano six hands (!) for the Junctqin Keyboard Collective in the fall sometime (also October??)

"Watershed" for two violins (teacher and student) for the CMC's wonderful New Music for Young Musicians project (will be premiered at Ping! in April 2012)

and the Brantford Symphony performing my piece "Saturday Night at Fort Chambly" some time in the Spring of 2012!

Impressions on acquiring an iPhone: Day Three.

This is what happens when you put an iPhone in my hand and tiredness in my most of me. Speaking of which, i've been on a kind of quest to load my me-fone up with the most intriguing apps I can find. So far the winner is a game where the object appears to be wrapping up wooden effigies of people and animals in a length of natural hemp rope, trying to cover as much of their bodies as possible with the least amount of rope. Who knew this would exist, let alone be engrossing enough to claim at least 90 minutes of my today? Even better, it's an award-winning iPhone app. And it's actually beautiful. I'll probably dream about it tonight. Will I be the rope or the animal?

Typing this post on a keyboard that I can nearly entirely cover up with my thumb is going reasonably well, considering that all the work is being done by one finger, and that finger is already experiencing some formerly unknown strains that suggest we are on the cusp of discovering entirely new genres of carpal tunnel. Auto-correct is nice, but if I reject its advances it sulks for a little while.

And, if past experience still holds, in a few minutes I'll look up and wonder why I've been staring at a rectangle that is smaller than the combined area of two triscuits, when there is a much larger world with REAL ropes and effigies. My neck is craned in too, real close. I feel a bit like I'm crouching in the dark over a single post-it note, trying to write my ninth symphony in white-out.

And I love it.

All this animal tying had really dividers

Seriously, auto-correct? "dividers"?

Now I can't even remember what it's supposed to be.

Anyway, it's zenned me out enough to take photos contrasting the various fabrics of my pants and bed, and use this as an impetus for a blog post.

I know, I owe you the rest of my summer travels. Hey, you're lucky I'm breathing three square breaths.

Oh and, a trumpet guy is playing my piece on a recital in Toronto on December 4. Maybe you can go. I'll tell you more soon.

Early night. 'night ...

Things I'm up to or involved with in some way now (Fall 2010)

The main things I'm directly involved with right now are working hard at a new job, and eating.

But while I'm occupied in these ways, various things I've written are being performed by other people!

 

One of these just happened last weekend:

1) Sept. 24-26, 2010: TORONTO (Bread and Circus): "Time Will Erase" - an opera for soprano and alto saxophone (world premiere)

Composed to words written and sung by the marvelous Kristin Mueller-Heaslip (this might actually have been my eighth time working with her?), with the partnership of saxophonist and backdrop-painter Jennifer Wardle, the first three performances of my first opera were a joy for me.  This is the first time I've seen one of my musical pieces stages - and brilliantly so, by director Virginia Reh.  Crowds were good, the piece got recorded twice (once by someone better than me).  And the piece is already getting another performance (see below)!

Rumour is the complete archival recording is soon to be up on my Canadian Music Centre page.  I'll post an excerpt here soon too. 

 

        The others events are yet to come:

 

2) Oct. 5-16, 2010 - various cities across Canada - "Trails" a structured improvisation for chamber ensemble and within a fixed soundscape

The essence is this: I was commissioned by Edmonton's Ensemble Mujirushi to write a new work, and was supported in doing so by an Ontario Arts Council grant.  I recorded the sights and sounds of 4 of Toronto's oldest roads (Poplar Plains, Davenport, Weston and Kingston) and created a 10-minute soundscape composition.  The recording is the same every performance, but the live music always changes; the chamber ensemble improvises according to certain rules, based on listening and reacting to the recording and to each other.  Here are the performers:
 

Helen Pridmore (voice), Chenoa Anderson (flutes), Allison Balcetis (saxophones), Ian Crutchley (computer), Piotr Grella-Mozejko (computer), and Jerry Ozipko (electric violin).

Other works on the program: by Dan Albertson (USA), W. L. Altman (CDN), Darlene Chepil Reid (CDN), Marek Choloniewski (POL), Ian Crutchley (CDN), Piotr Grella-Mozejko (CDN), Michael Kuehn (USA), John Oliver (CDN) and  Jerry Ozipko (CDN).

Here's the tour schedule.  I'll be attending in Toronto:
 

5 October: in Lethbridge, AB (University of Lethbridge)

8 October: in Saskatoon, SK (Saskatoon Composers’ Performance Society)

10 October: in Montréal, PQ (BradyWorks Concerts)

12 October: in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON (Wilfrid Laurier University and First United Church Concerts)

13 October: in Thunder Bay, ON (Lakehead University)

16 October: in Toronto, ON (Gallery 345).
 

For further details:     http://mujirushi.tonusvivus.com/
 

 

3) Oct. 23, 2010: NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE (Shaw Festival Studio Theatre): "Time Will Erase" - an opera for soprano and alto saxophone 

Yes!  Already, a repeat performance of my short opera that premiered in Toronto in September.  This time it is part of a showcase presentation at the Lyric Canada 2010 conference.  It sounds like a wonderful conference to be a part of!  Unfortunately I can't attend as I'll be wrangling an orchestra in Scarborough.  

 

4) Oct. 30, 2010: TORONTO (St. John's Norway Anglican Church): "Humoresque" for viola and piano

I wrote this piece 10 years ago, and it hasn't been performed in nearly that long. This time it will be performed by two visiting musicians from the Czech Republic: Jan Reznicek (violist of the renowned Janacek string quartet) and Eduard Spacil (an electroacoustic composer as well as a pianist!). 

The concert is called "The Bohemian Viola" and is the inaugural concert in the Scarborough Philharmonic's new chamber music series.  Other music: Mozart's "Kegellstatt" Trio (viola, clarinet and piano); and music by Canadian composers Philip McConnell, Alexander Rapoport and Ronald Royer.

 

That's all for now - there will be more in the new year too (premieres in April and June and a new performance of a classic piece in May!) and some cool stuff in the works for the 2011/12 season.