Allison Cameron – A Gossamer Bit
Contact Contemporary Music
Redshift Records TK445 (redshiftmusic.org)
This distinctive 2015 CD with four new pieces by the ever-wonderful contemporary composer Allison Cameron is sure to garner her much positive attention among the cognoscenti. A Gossamer Bit, produced as what is rightfully described as a palimpsest, is a stimulating though very different programme. Here Cameron presents pieces that represent myriad aspects not only of music – as in 3rds, 4ths & 5ths – but also great flights of the imagination – as in the song, Gossamer Bit, which is a dazzling overlay on Charles Ives and which, in turn is an eloquent sojourn across manipulated pitches and dramatic quarter-tones. In Memoriam Robert Ashley shapes the relentless octaves of Ashley’s music (overlapping the directions to that composer’s In Memoriam Esteban Gomez with great melodic cogency. D.I.Y. Fly combines written and improvised sections and finds a wider dynamic and colouristic scope using just this composerly device.
Allison Cameron is, of course, the Alberta-born, Toronto-based musician and composer who has built a sizeable reputation in contemporary composition but remains relatively little-known even in her native Canada. It is hoped that this attractive and well-recorded program, which hints at impressionistic antecedents, will greatly enhance her reputation. Look out, of course for the balletic leaps across her work especially in this repertoire. Cameron also has an acute sense of humour and this is delightfully hinted at in this music which is also rendered with a telling sensuous reserve.
