21st-Century Canadian Snare Drum - Ryan Scott
21st-Century Canadian Snare Drum
Ryan Scott
collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/21st-century-canadian-snare-drum
Listen
Andrew Staniland - ANTIGRAVITYDRUM
Christina Volpini - only ghosts
Nicole Lizée - The Far Night.fm
Read the Review
A number of decades ago my wife and I attended a fabulous concert by superlative percussionist (now Dame) Evelyn Glennie at the George Weston Recital Hall. The piece that has stuck with me for all these years was PRIM by Icelandic composer Áskell Másson, a ten-minute composition using only one snare drum. The result was transfixing (you can see a performance on YouTube). I would never have imagined that a single drum could be so compelling.
That being said I was a little daunted when I encountered Ryan Scott’s new double CD 21st Century Canadian Snare Drum (collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/21st-century-canadian-snare-drum). Any qualms I had were quickly put to rest as I began to listen. While the snare drum does indeed figure prominently in the 14 works, almost all of them include additional resources, be it spoken word, electronic processing, prerecorded soundtracks, or requiring Scott to perform in other ways. One notable exception is Michael Oesterle’s brilliant, ironically titled hush (2022) with its seven minutes of just sticks on skin. Anna Höstman’s pebbles also uses the unadorned drum in a piece inspired by the words of artist Rockwell Kent, while Scott whistles and hums fragments of melodic material.
Andrew Staniland’s ANTIGRAVITYDRUM begins with the drum alone, its snare springs disconnected. Two and a half minutes later an engaging soundtrack begins, filled with electronic effects and MIDI-instruments in counterpoint with the still snare-less drum. Bekah Simms’ Skinscape IV involves Scott’s interaction with an electronic, disembodied version of the snare drum, transforming “something intimately familiar into something processed and alien.” Christina Volpini’s only ghosts finds Scott producing a harmonica drone over a soundtrack reminiscent of waves upon a shore. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) by Kati Agócs is scored for snare drum, kick drum and two large metal plates. It is a sparse piece in which “the soloist enacts a kind of stream-of-consciousness pantomime, searching for something inchoate, elusive, and potentially unreachable.”
Perhaps the most idiosyncratic work is Brian Current’s abrasive Infantry which delves into the militaristic implications of the snare, with pre-recorded texts by soldiers from different backgrounds and periods of history and percussive interjections. The set concludes with Nicole Lizée’s The Dark Night.fm, in which “analogue synths and slowed-down voice smears… wrap themselves around Scott’s nimble percussion and vocal interjections.”
All of the above, plus works from Amy Brandon, Monica Pearce, Vincent Ho, Emilie Cecilia LeBel, Jason Doell and Hiroki Tsurumoto ensure that these discs never devolve into “too much of a muchness.” They provide a welcome showcase for the diversity of Canadian composition at this point in time and a stunning platform for the many talents of Ryan Scott (principal percussionist of Esprit Orchestra, artistic director of Continuum Contemporary Music and a member of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra).