Modern and Contemporary

A Quinary – Canadian Concerti
Soloists; Vancouver Island Symphony; Pierre Simard
Redshift Records TK475 (redshiftrecords.org)

This Redshift release of five new concerti represents the culmination of a five-year commissioning project that paired five Canadian composers with principal players of the Vancouver Island Symphony. 

Jocelyn Morlock’s Ornithomancy, written for flute soloist Paolo Bortolussi, opens with sombre and mysterious interwoven sonorities below searching bright gestures in the solo flute part. The piece unfolds organically toward more excited materials where Bortolussi’s virtuosity soars with wonderful clarity of tone. 

The three movements of Dorothy Chang’s Invisible Distance take the listener through moods of lyrical melancholy, excited drama and deep enchantment. Chang’s highly imaginative orchestral scenes provide a brilliant tapestry over which cellist Ariel Barnes dazzles with soloistic fireworks. 

Edward Top’s Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra is a shimmering fantasy embedded with rich bellows and sunken tones masterfully produced by soloist Scott MacInnes. Undulating repetitive spirals, delicate resonances and playful offerings comprise the three movements of Emily Doolittle’s Sapling where violin soloist Calvin Dyck handles the varied material with a welcomed expressiveness. 

Last on the disc is Stephen Chatman’s Concertino for Horn and String Orchestra. This work is joyous and full of life. The dance-like structures, and soloist Andrew Clark’s confident performance, create excitement and ever-forward momentum. With five successful new works and five brilliant soloist performances, this release is invigorating from start to finish. Five stars.

Eldritch Priest – Omphaloskepsis
Eldritch Priest
Halocline Trance (haloclinetrance.bandcamp.com)

If you’re going for your debut release, a small bit of self-contemplation is cool. Although be careful, you might see yourself and like it. These are the sediments my eyes smelled when listening to Omphaloskepsis by Eldritch Priest: Puzzling that an ever-changing guitar melody doesn’t mind existing above happily lumbering distorted harrumphs; Sometimes there aren’t screeches; A double bass, sturdy as an oak, creeps along the ground as though swallowing a whale; The frothy harmonies are so eager!; You could start a band with the amount of effects pedals used; That band name should be Cluster Gardens; I averted my emotions just in time for the fizzy notes that are like eating an orange while making love; Every time there is an interruption in the melodic material, a sonata dies. 

I’m not sure if Priest will perform this music live, but if he does, I do hope the audience is supplied with enough pogo sticks. Bravo For Now.

Lumena
Topaz Duo
Redshift Records (thetopazduo.ca) 

Based in Toronto, in-demand flutist Kaili Maimets and Juno Award-winning harpist Angela Schwarzkopf founded Topaz Duo over a dozen years ago. In addition to playing the classics, they have increasingly been curating repertoire by living composers. Their sparkling, assured new album illustrates their focus on new works for the flute and harp with an emphasis on Canadian content. 

The program begins with prominent younger-generation Estonian Canadian composer Riho Esko Maimets’ five-and-a-half-minute Lumena. Composed in Toronto, the work unusually combines the qualities of yearning (the composer says it’s for the beauty of the peaceful Baltic landscape) and meditative stillness. 

Prominent Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s four-movement Little Feng Huang is the next track, extensively inspired by one of his own works of fiction. Written expressly for the album, the “combination of flute and harp – delicate and wondrous – was an ideal vehicle for this particular story,” writes Lau. 

The virtuosic three-movement Sonata for Harp and Flute by Kingston Ontario composer Marjan Mozetich is my album favourite. Recorded for the BIS label by the eminent earlier Toronto duo, Robert Aitkin, flute and Erica Goodman, harp in 1985, it has since become among the most played Canadian works for these instruments. On full display is Mozetich’s mature post-modern Romantic compositional style blending the traditional, popular and modern, filled with lyricism, Romantic harmonies and spirited moto perpetuo-like rhythms. This tightly structured piece avoids lapsing into banal diatonic clichés: the ideal closer for Topaz Duo’s debut record.

Listen to 'Lumena' Now in the Listening Room

Song and Call
The Smudges
Crypto Gramophone CG149 (cryptogramophone.com) 

Innovative and insightful, Song and Call is an album that will grow on you each time you hear it. Featuring a chamber ensemble consisting of violin and cello, the sonic landscape on this album is somewhat symphonic and often experimental in nature. Add to that the Smudges creative use of samples and electronics on top of the classical foundation and form, and we get to hear many wonderful, intense and sometimes surprising layers of textures throughout. 

Violinist Jeff Gauthier and cellist Maggie Parkins have such a strong synergy and cohesiveness of sound that it often feels as if we are hearing one instrument. Their background in new music and improvisation is at the forefront of the Smudges’ performance. The album opens with Music of Chants, a melodiously lush composition by Guy Klucevsek and closes with the symphonic Release by Tom Flaherty. In between are pieces by Gauthier and ensemble improvisations, playfully varying in genres, expressions and length, and always maintaining a unique ensemble sound. 

The heart of this album and the title piece, Song and Call, plays like a musical treatise on birds. Four attacca movements, titled after four birds (Gray Fantail, Common Starling, American Robin and Eastern Winter Wren), are a magical kingdom of slowed-down bird song samples, electronics, loops, whistling, chimes and singing bowls, in addition to electric violin and often percussive cello. The result is simply stunning.