Night Light
Lara Deutsch; Phil Chiu
Leaf Music LM249 (leaf-music.ca)

Kudos to Leaf Music of Halifax for its confidence in these young musicians, flutist Lara Deutsch and pianist Philip Chiu. The program is built around the theme of dreams, which opens such possibilities, for example, including a work by Franz Schubert – Introduction and Variations on Trockne Blumen – in a program of music by contemporary composers. 

The disc opens with Takashi Yoshimatsu’s Digital Bird Suite, Op.15, the opening movement of which, Bird-phobia, described by Deutsch as “fiendishly challenging,” is at the nightmare end of the dream spectrum, but shows both consummate command of her instrument and her partner’s uncanny ability, despite the formidable challenges of his own part, always to be in sync with her. In the contrasting lyrical second movement, A Bird in the Twilight, their exquisite phrasing and consistent sensitivity to each other lift the notes off the page.

The dreamlike atmosphere is perhaps most eloquently expressed in the first movement of Jocelyn Morlock’s I Conversed with You in a Dream, which traverses the gamut from lyrical reverie to reality-defying pyrotechnics.

In the Schubert, Chiu reveals himself as a lieder collaborative pianist of stature, convincingly telling the story and revealing the atmosphere of the music. For example, his playing of the repeated quarter and two eighth note motif at the very beginning is full of eerie foreboding; you know at once that this is not going to end well!

Individually and as a duo Deutsch and Chiu are consummate interpreters, who move with the music, so to speak, and reveal the meaning behind the notes.

Listen to 'Night Light' Now in the Listening Room

Michael Oesterle – Quatuors
Quatuor Bozzini
Collection Quatuor Bozzini CQB2229 (actuellecd.com)

Tom Johnson – Combinations
Quatuor Bozzini
Collection Quatuor Bozzini CQB 2230 (actuellecd.com)

Quatuor Bozzini has energetically championed the newest in classical music since 1999 in their Montreal hometown, on tour and on outstanding albums. Their mission is to cultivate risk-taking music, evident in the creation of an impressive commissioning program of over 400 pieces. Frequent collaborations with other musicians and cross-disciplinary projects have been another career feature. An example of an unusual collaboration, one that I took part in, happened in 2012 with the development of new concert repertoire with Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, performed live and subsequently released on the album Higgs’ Ocean. The title track, scored for string quartet and gamelan degung, was by prolific mid-career Canadian composer Michael Oesterle.

Oesterle’s mature compositional style balances two late-20th- and early-21st-century streams: American minimalism and European postmodernism. The latter comes through in his exploitation of sonorities, formal, timbral and harmonic sophistication, allusions to historical Euro musics and an identifiable Oesterlean lyricism. This album’s four substantial string quartets offer an appealing balance between musical straightforwardness and complexity. Oesterle often generates drama from the friction between the idiomatic and the completely unexpected.

Daydream Mechanics (2001), which evokes the “awkward adventures of childhood when the backyard seemed as full of disturbing possibilities as any uncharted territory,” offers an example of Oesterle’s use of extra-musical inspiration. On the other hand the composer describes his Three Pieces for String Quartet as “three short pieces [composed with] modules drawn from a system of triangular numerical sequences….” I however hear surprisingly Renaissance- and Baroque-infused character homages to the three animals Oesterle titles each movement after: kingfisher, orangutan and orb weaver. 

American-born composer and longtime French resident, Tom Johnson (b.1939), served as The Village Voice’s influential music critic from 1971 to 1983 covering the era’s exciting new classical music scene. The first to apply the term “minimalist music,” Johnson’s personal compositional style leans toward minimalist formalism. Quatuor Bozzini has collected his complete works for string quartet covering four compositions from 1994 to 2009 on this album. 

Dwelling on mathematic sequences and permutations of a limited core musical material, in Johnson’s hands the musical whole emerges satisfyingly greater than the sum of its lean components and intellectual procedures. Each relatively brief movement vibrates like a sonic poem. For example, the opening six-note motif of Johnson’s Tilework for String Quartet (2003) is transformed through his exploration of the myriad ways in which lines are “tiled using six-note rhythms,” relying on a computerized list of rhythmic canons. The composer helpfully adds, “Of course, composers, performers, and listeners don’t have to know all of this, just as we don’t need to master counterpoint to appreciate a Bach fugue… [because] music allows us to directly perceive things that we could never grasp intellectually.”

Performed senza vibrato, Quatuor Bozzini renders these scores with virtuoso precision along with warmth and a subtle lyricism, a winning combination I grew to appreciate after repeated listening.

to you through
India Gailey
Redshift Records (indiayeshe.com)

Halifax-based cellist India Gailey’s first album includes a diverse mixture of contemporary composers, including a McGill colleague and a work of her own. Though sometimes sounding improvised, each piece is fully scored for cello, some with voice and occasionally multitracked with electronics. Gailey’s album flows like poetry, and she includes in her CD booklet descriptions of each track as a collection of thoughts and photographs that reads more like a journal, giving the collection almost a gallery setting, as if you could walk room by room to experience each work. Gailey’s writing includes personal reflections on her own feelings of place, being uprooted by the pandemic, emotions of disconnection and loneliness, the difference between a material home and feeling at home, and letting go of the perpetual search for a place to land.

While the album is an excellent introduction to Gailey’s breadth of skill as a cellist, the most outstanding tracks for me were the more recent works: compositions by Fjóla Evans, Yaz Lancaster and Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti. Gailey’s own 2020 composition Ghost, for acoustic cello and voice, is a delicate lament for the destruction of the Earth inspired by the Australian bush fires. Michael Gordon’s 2004 Light is Calling, written after the destruction of 9/11, is outstanding. Making use of stereo panning and seven layers of electronics plus cello, it encapsulates the climate of moving somewhere while staying rooted in place, much like our recent years, and ends with a sublimely organic deconstruction. If I could have a soundtrack playing the next time I am surfing a standing wave in a canoe, this would be it.

Mark Ellestad – Discreet Angel
Cristián Alvear; Mark Ellestad; Apartment House
Another Timbre at185 (anothertimbre.com)

Hesitancy, or possibly abstract detachment, might describe the communicative mode of Mark Ellestad’s Discreet Angel. Instead of passages, we are presented with spaces between notes, plucked one or two at a time by guitarist Cristián Alvear. At just over 20 minutes in length, this is the second longest work presented. I’m reminded of Linda C. Smith’s music, or Martin Arnold’s. A more active middle section buoys one along on something more like a quiet brookside walk in a treed ravine, following the sleepy spring dawn.

Sigrid features Ellestad performing this short work on Hardanger fiddle and pump organ. Disagreement between pitches seems almost to be the point of the thing, the reed organ tuned one way and the fiddle strings another. Underlying the plain chorale is the ceaseless counter rhythm of the foot pedals, pumping the organ’s bellows full. Imagine Ellestad bowing and pedalling simultaneously while elbowing the organ keys (or more likely overdubbing). It’s pretty and quirky.

In the Mirror of this Night, a duet for violin and cello, weighs in at nearly 46 minutes. Opening in a misterioso unison (well, in octaves) passage, the chant-like melody spins beautifully in tune, senza vibrato, then begins to refract into parallel pitches, sounding sometimes almost like the pump organ. It’s a workout for the attention span, or a soundtrack for meditation.

Canadian Ellestad (b.1954) abandoned composing for nearly 20 years; he wrote these pieces in the 1980s and 90s but never recorded them to his satisfaction. He’s now brought them to light, encouraged by the quality of performance of his collaborators. Kudos especially to Mira Benjamin (violin) and Anton Lukoszevieze (cello, as well as the cover art).

All Worlds, All Times
Windsync
Bright Shiny Things BST-0167 (brightshiny.ninja)

It’s not every day woodwind quintet music will make you want to get up and dance. Seize this disc and the day, says me. Opening things, Theia from Apollo by Marc Mellits, almost literally bops from the get-go. The piece is moon-themed – modern and ancient references abound – but mostly it all feels like a set list of a really good and interesting dance band. If rhythm is their strong suit, pitch is not. The second movement, Sea of Tranquility, opens with intonation issues so glaring one is left wondering whether it’s intentionally spectral, but I doubt it. It’s a flaw that could have been addressed prior to releasing the recording. Chords do not settle, unisons clash. But carping aside, the music itself is just so darned chipper. The finale, Moonwalk, scoots along; if this was the pace those first moonwalkers took, I’m an Olympic sprinter. Toe-tapping fun. 

Composer and percussionist Ivan Trevino joins the ensemble for his Song Book Vol.3, and the dancing just gets better. The titles refer to singer-songwriters: St. Annie (St. Vincent) is really sweet. Byrne (David) captures that enigmatic manchild’s spirit. Jónsi (Birgisson, of Sigur Rós from Iceland) is better than the original, and Thom (Yorke) is, of course, the coolest.

Miguel del Aguila’s Wind Quintet No.2 matches the character of the rest of the disc, but it has less depth and seems more gimmicky. It’s nice to hear the voices of the instrumentalists chant alongside the flute melody in Back in Time, the first movement. (They sing in tune!)

Kārlis Lācis – Piano Concerto; Latvian Symphony
Agnese Eglina; Artūrs Noviks; Liepāja Symphony Orchestra; Atvars Lakstīgala
LMIC SKANI 133 (skani.lv)

“Extreme emotions” and “maximalism” are well-chosen words that Latvian composer Kārlis Lācis (b.1977) uses to describe his 30-minute Piano Concerto (2013). The opening Allegro alternates fierce orchestral barrages with rapid, folk-dance-flavoured melodies played by pianist Agnese Eglina; both elements then merge, building to a motorized, near-cacophonous climax. In Crossroad, the piano’s slow walking pace over grey orchestral chords suggests a pensive stroll through a misty landscape. Despair mixes brutal, wildly syncopated polyrhythms, aggressive brass, percussion and musicians’ shouts. Lullaby quotes a traditional melody, but at an energized velocity and volume antithetical to sleep. The rustic romp finally subsides; the lullaby, now gentle and sweet, ends the concerto.

Although lacking a stated program, Lācis’ 37-minute Latvian Symphony (2019) features compelling, evocative episodes reflecting the movements’ titles. Paraphrases of the “Fate” fanfares from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony open The Night is Dark; a propulsive struggle ensues, ending peacefully. The Lake shimmers Impressionistically, framing a brass-heavy, grandiosely imposing central section. Of the rumbustious folk tunes in the Latvian Scherzo, amply spiked with dissonances, Lācis says, “I took all the songs that are still in my head from childhood and I threw them all together.” Hurry, Dear Sun is clearly Nature-music: throbbing “forest murmurs” slowly crescendo to a grand, climactic sunrise; a brief, violent storm bursts, followed by folk-song-based music of relief and thanksgiving, ending with the musicians’ unaccompanied, chant-like humming.

Conductor Atvars Lakstīgala generates real excitement in these very colourful works. Enthusiastically recommended!

Thomas Larcher – Symphony No.2 “Kenotaph”; Die Nacht der Verlorenen
Andrè Schuen; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Hannu Lintu
Ondine ODE 1393-2 (naxosdirect.com/search/ode+1393-2)

The subtitle “Kenotaph” signals that the 36-minute Symphony No.2 (2016) by Austrian Thomas Larcher (b.1963) will not be easy listening. Commemorating the hordes of desperate refugees recently drowned in the Mediterranean, the music is dark, vehement and angry. 

Explosive percussion and sinister suspense dominate the opening Allegro, culminating in a catastrophic blast. The sombre Adagio growls mournfully with repeated, drooping brass notes, interrupted by fortissimo shrieks before the brass groans resume. In the Scherzo, snarling dissonances and scattershot rhythms lead to an accelerando of pounding brass and percussion, and another cataclysmic climax; gentle woodwinds, offering brief respite, end the movement. The Introduzione, Molto allegro is filled with yet even more highly violent cannonades until the symphony’s final two minutes, a slow, hymn-like dirge that fades into silence.

The 28-minute song cycle Die Nacht der Verlorenen (2008) is one of three works Larcher has set to words by Austrian author-poet Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973), a suicidal, alcoholic drug addict. Unsurprisingly, these songs are pained and depressive, beginning with Alles verloren – Everything’s lost; the title song – in translation The Night of the Lost – declares, “Now, all is dark.”

Powerfully dramatic, whether crooning or shouting, Andrè Schuen’s burnished-bronze baritone superbly expresses all the texts’ tortured angst, while the orchestra, including accordion and prepared piano, glitters, drones and surges.

Both works, emphatically performed by conductor Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, grabbed and held me with their incandescent sonorities and unremitting, ferocious intensity.

Elle
Angèle Dubeau; La Pietà
Analekta AN 2 8754 (analekta.com/en)

With the debonair virtuosity and unmatched passion of her playing, Angèle Dubeau is at the peak of her powers today. She is the consummate master of mood and atmosphere, with the ability to coordinate colour and structure to a rare degree. On her 2022 recording, Elle, Dubeau leads her celebrated ensemble – La Pietà – in interpreting repertoire by 13 women-composers spanning the 12th century of Hildegard von Bingen to the 21st century of Rachel Portman, Dalal and Isobel Waller-Bridge.    

Every past performance by Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà was immersed not simply in the harmonious combination of musical sounds but in the divine harmony of the cosmos. The performance on this disc is no exception. By the time you traverse its music and get to Mémoire by Katia Makdissi-Warren you will realize that it is indeed something special, as the piece features Inuit throat singers Lydia Etok and Nina Segalowitz. There’s fire in virtually every phrase as the instruments of La Pietà and the Inuit voices meld and breathe almost audibly as if immersed in the very mysteries and wonders of music.

Deeply meditative performances on O Virtus Sapientiae by von Bingen and the solemn Libera Me of Rebecca Dale bring expressive insight into those works. La Pietà also mesmerise with the minimalism of Waller-Bridge’s Arise. The beguiling performances conclude with Ana Sokolović’s Danse No.3. A champagne disc – its fizz and finesse grabs you by the ears.

Andrew Paul MacDonald – Music of the City and the Stars
Andrew Paul MacDonald; Quatuor Saguenay
Centrediscs CMCCD 29622 (cmccanada.org/shop/cd-cmccd-29622)

Andrew Paul MacDonald is a composer and guitarist who taught music at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, QC from 1987 to 2021. His compositions have been performed around the world and he has released dozens of works for chorus, brass quintet, opera and orchestra. Music of the City and Stars is his 20th album and has MacDonald on archtop guitar paired with the Quatuor Saguenay string quartet (formerly the Alcan Quartet). There are two multi-movement works on the album, Lyra and Restless City. Lyra is played in seven short movements with no breaks and tells the story of the god Hermes’ invention of the lyre. The titles (including Orpheus and the Argonauts, Orpheus and Hades, The Death of Eurydice) are suggestive of the moods the movements work through. MacDonald’s electric guitar is distanced sonically from the quartet by his use of chorus and delay throughout this piece. String quartet and jazz guitar is an unusual and intriguing combination which MacDonald has the composition skills and guitar chops to bring off very well. 

Restless City is jazz inspired and his archtop guitar often blends in with the quartet. The three movements – Bird Talk, Dameronics and Monkin’ Around – refer to the jazz legends Charlie Parker, Tadd Dameron and Thelonious Monk. Bird Talk’s guitar lines are a bit boppy while the quartet plays angular lines with a staccato edge. Dameronics is slower with some beautiful harmonies reminiscent of the jazz composer›s style. Monkin’ Around contains much lively interplay between the guitar and quartet parts which are sometimes lighthearted and at other times intense. Music of the City and Stars is a thoughtful and entrancing collaboration.

Bekah Simms – Ghost Songs
Thomas Morris; Amanda Lowry; Kalun Leung; Joseph Petric
people | places | records PPR 031 (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-songs)

Bekah Simms’ most recent release, Ghost Songs, continues to explore her expert electronic music compositional ideas in four works for solo instrumentalists. The first three tracks are part of her mind-boggling Skinscape series, featuring the interaction of a soloist playing traditional/extended techniques live, with an electronically disembodied version of themselves. Skinscape II (2019), with soloist Thomas Morris (oboe), combines contrasting oboe and electronic sounds which at times melt together, or contrast like the high-pitched oboe notes above a softer electronic background. In Skinscape I (2017), flutist Amanda Lowry’s superb extended techniques, fast trills and melodic lines are coupled by such gratifying electronic effects as spooky growling, pitch-bending tones and airy background sounds. Skinscape III (2021) features loud attention-grabbing electronic wailing effects, trombonist Kalun Leung’s held notes and the almost painful gritty sounding electronics, which subside with the calm closing trombone. In an acousmatic version of Jubilant Phantoms (2021), Simms combines fragments from accordionist Joseph Petric’s recordings with electronic echoing chordal drones. The combination of higher pitched accordion sounds and lower electronic pitches creates an especially beautiful effect.

Recording and production are fantastic! Simms’ compositions range from disconcerting and perhaps troubling sounds to calming breathy sound environments. Her electro and acoustic instrumental sound combinations open the door to a new world of music all her own.

The Canadian Music Centre has just announced Simms as the winner of the 2022 Harry Freedman Recording Award for Metamold, a work for large ensemble and electronics. Metamold was a triple commission from Crash Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and NYNME as a result of Simms winning the prestigious 2019 Barlow Prize.

Jewlia Eisenberg – The Ginzburg Geography
Charming Hostess
Tzadik (tzadik.com)

Acknowledging that labels and classifications of music are inelegant and confusing at the best of times, I cannot, for the life of me, begin to properly describe or compartmentalize this curious, extremely musical and compelling album: The Ginzburg Geography by Charming Hostess, a trio comprised of Jewlia Eisenberg, Cynthia Taylor and Marika Hughes. Not only is this programmatic recording interesting in its theme – exploring the lives and work of Natalia and Leone Ginzburg, Jewish anti-fascist political activists who played central roles in the Italian resistance movement – but the narrative of how this recording came to be, following the untimely death of singer and principal performer Eisenberg in 2021 at age 49, is equal parts tragic and captivating. 

Both storylines coalesce here on this fine 2022 Tzadik release that is both historical in its mining of a fascinating story of activism (combining research, creative reportage and original content creation) and historic in that it represents the final creative project of Eisenberg, a longtime respected contributor to the creative music scenes of New York and San Francisco’s Bay area. Further, as Eisenberg’s passing occurred prior to the album’s completion, it took the efforts of longtime collaborator Hughes to complete this recording consistent with Eisenberg’s original vision. 

This would be, I imagine, a difficult process not only personally, but providing a sort of musicological challenge where information on composer and creative intentions were gleaned from notes and past performances before being willed to fruition on the recording here. Classifications be damned, there is much to learn from and to like with this provocative and thoughtful new release. 

Ryan Oliver With Strings
Ryan Oliver; Bernie Senensky; Neil Swainson; Terry Clarke
Cellar Music CM102021 (cellarlive.com)

Juno-nominated, Victoria-based saxophonist, Ryan Oliver, has collaborated with a fantastic group of musicians on his latest release, making for a captivating musical voyage that any listener will want to join. The album features a group of famed musicians, with Bernie Senensky on piano, Terry Clarke on drums and rounded out by Neil Swainson on bass. What makes this album a truly unique endeavour is the string accompaniment that is present throughout each track, adding a wonderfully melodious and classy flavour to the record. Most songs were written by Oliver himself and arranged by Mark Crawford.
A soaring and sonorous string melody along with Oliver’s mellow saxophone solo lead into the first piece, The Ballad of Buffalo Bill. A slightly mysterious yet positively groovy song, this will get any listener’s toe tapping and body moving. Tango for Astor, one of the pieces not penned by Oliver, features a rhythmic, fittingly tango-esque groove from Clarke and a beautiful, pizzicato bass line played by Swainson. Eddie is an up-tempo tune with a scintillating riff in the strings underpinning a masterful saxophone line and piano solo showcasing Senensky’s talent perfectly. To close out the album, Walk Up on the Road has a bluesy and gospel flavour to it, perhaps a fitting melancholic yet positive end to this record. For anyone looking to add touch of “James Bond-esque” class and style to their night in, this is the album for you.

In This Moment
Sam Kirmayer
Cellar Music CM030422 (cellarlive.com)

Sam Kirmayer, a Montreal-based jazz guitarist who has gained a lot of notoriety playing with famed musicians nationally, has been and remains one of the most in-demand sidemen within the genre. Already quite a feat on its own for someone under 35, Kirmayer can add his third and latest release to that quickly growing list of accomplishments. The prolific musician’s newest record features a track list of all new, original pieces that showcase not only his talent as a guitarist but also as a great composer. With renowned musicians such as Sean Fyfe on piano, Alec Walkington on bass and Andre White on drums, Kirmayer’s already stellar compositions reach new heights aided by this fantastic backing band. 

If there’s a common theme or element that could be pinpointed throughout the record, it would be the guitarist’s clean and precise style of playing that is just a pleasure to the ears. The Turnout features a driving bass line that keeps the song moving along at a pleasing pace, grounded by a constantly moving drum groove. Sleight of Hand takes us to a more down-tempo setting in which we hear a mellow piano riff underpinning melodious trombone and tenor saxophone solos, bringing to light Muhammad Abdul Al-Khabyyr and Al McLean’s talents on their respective instruments. Soliloquy completes the terrific album with a meandering pizzicato bass line and soaring saxophone melody, leaving the listener awaiting what this young talent will release next.

Song Within the Story
James Brown; Clark Johnston; Anthony Michelli; Mike Murley
NGP Records (jamesbrown.ca)

Based out of Oakville, renowned jazz guitarist James Brown has returned from a 13-year hiatus to release a much-awaited new album. And what an album it is; chock full of original tracks penned by Brown himself, and two covers of well-known Canadian folk-rock songs that he’s put a unique spin on. Helping breathe life into the pieces is an all-star lineup of musicians, featuring Clark Johnston on bass, Anthony Michelli on drums and Mike Murley on tenor saxophone. A pleasurable and relaxing musical journey, this album will appeal to jazz lovers, both old and new, looking for a modern jazz staple to add to their collection.
Igor starts off the record with a nod to classical composer Stravinsky, one of Brown’s influences in his classical guitar pursuits. Within the guitar melody are hints of phrases akin to what you’d hear in a Stravinsky piece; Brown once again masterfully mixes the musical realms of classical and jazz into one pleasant whole as he is known to do. Mbira Kids has its own unique flavour, with sections of the bass line and the rhythmic setup of the piece evoking elements of African music, “specifically those of Zimbabwe’s Shona people.” But perhaps most captivating is a beautiful and melodious cover of Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You, closing out the album on a hopeful yet slightly melancholy note, leaving the listener to peacefully contemplate a truly satisfying and fantastic album.

Listen to 'Song Within the Story' Now in the Listening Room

g(o) sol(o)
Bernard Falaise
Ambiances Magnétiques AM 267 CD (actuellecd.com)

Using no overdubs but minimal looping and timbral effects, the seven selections on Montrealer Bernard Falaise’s solo guitar tour de force are completely improvised, while pivoting to other instrument-reflecting sounds for greater variety. The attraction of G(o) sol(o) is how Falaise – part of local bands such as Quartetski – uses all parts of his instrument to suggest wider textures while creating miniature sonic tales.

Prime instance of this is the extended 320003, where string shakes and slurred fingering means the staccato introduction on flattened strings is succeeded by bell-pealing shakes, double bass-like low-pitched resonations and organ-like tremolo pulses. These sway the exposition forward into a single line to a buzzing conclusion. Slogan, the slightly longer first track, sets the scene, as bobbing fuzztones and high-voltage shakes rumble along before splitting into pressurized sound loops on the bottom and single-string stings on the top. Both tones are audible as they intersect and slide into one another for a percussive climax.

With pointed stops and starts, Falaise uses varied motifs to define the tunes, including string rubs that drone across the sound field for warmer expositions, or pointillist below-the-bridge scratches for tougher interface. Galop does just that as well, with knob-twisting and effects-pedal-pressure launching tones every which way until all subside into a connective drone.

Sol – G in English – is the fifth note of the C Major scale. Yet G(o) sol(o) cannily treats all of the scale’s notes in a unique fashion.