03 Take The Dog SledAlexina Louie – Take the Dog Sled
Evie Mark; Akinisie Sivuarapik; Esprit Orchestra; Alex Pauk
Centrediscs CMCCD 28320 (cmccanada.org)

Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik practice and work to preserve traditional Inuit culture in northern Quebec’s Nunavik region; they have performed as throat singers around the world. Alexina Louie is one of Canada’s most distinguished composers, and the Toronto-based Esprit Orchestra, conducted by Alex Pauk, champions contemporary music and innovative approaches. As the Centrediscs program notes state: “Take the Dog Sled is a celebration of life in the Inuit communities in Canada’s far north.” Composed for Montreal Symphony musicians in 2008, it consists of eight musical numbers, five of which feature traditional Inuit songs. In throat singing, two women interact closely, facing each other. Louie’s scoring for the seven-member instrumental ensemble is lean and transparent, minimalist at times, supporting and adding musical variety to the singing. 

Sharpening the Runners on the Dog Sled is the first song, appealing and rhythmic as the activity suggests. Cradle Song is instrumental, a mother’s love for her child expressed simply then becoming more complex with cross-rhythms and parallel lines. The Mosquito is another traditional song, with added staccato, pizzicato, and a buzzing double bass tone; the instrumental Bug Music carries forth the humourous possibilities. I especially like the throat singing in The River, combining suggestions of flow and fear. The work has succeeded with audiences in many parts of the world, and is suitable for listeners of all ages. It is an achievement for which the contributors indeed deserve congratulations!

05 English Horn AloneMusic for English Horn Alone
Jacqueline Leclair
New Focus Recordings FCR272 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue)

Jacqueline Leclair’s latest album Music for English Horn Alone features seven works for solo English horn, four of which – by Hannah Kendall, Faye-Ellen Silverman, Karola Obermüller and Cecilia Arditto – are spectacular premieres. Leclair, known in the music community as a contemporary music specialist on oboe, brilliantly showcases her flair for new music techniques on the oboe’s darker cousin with equally stunning results, making these works an invaluable addition to the repertoire. 

From the outset, Leclair’s playing is exceptional; the richness of tone and beautiful, subtle articulations are displayed over the entire range. From multiphonics, flutter-tonguing, note-bending and the exploration of the extreme soft dynamic, Leclair charms with her mastery of the English horn.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this thoughtful assortment is its ability to captivate and give rise to autonomic responsiveness to touch and visual and auditory stimulation through its exploration and depiction of the instrument’s possibilities and range, whisking the listener from one culture and destination to another without the need to traverse the physical. If one had to describe this collection in a single word, it would be “borderless.”

Listen to 'Music for English Horn Alone' Now in the Listening Room

06 Transient CanvasRight Now, In a Second
Transient Canvas
New Focus Recordings FCR267 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue)

The ephemeral nature of sound is exquisitely captured in the poetry of this new music performed by bass clarinettist Amy Advocat and Matt Sharrock, a percussion colourist heard here on marimba. Experimental music, made with incongruous instrumental pairings, often begs the question: Can sound be toyed with if only to fill the heart and mind with a sense of wonder? Advocat and Sharrock answer in the affirmative, and emphatically at that.

The bass clarinet – among the whole family of single-reed woodwinds – is probably the most diabolically difficult to master. Advocat makes light work of it all with her extraordinary virtuosity, her application of soft dynamics to create atmospheric effect, and by this I don’t mean such effects that suggest the lugubrious (something she does on Jonathan Bailey Holland’s Rebounds), but also something resembling a beautiful gravitas (which is evoked on resonance imaging by Crystal Pascucci). 

Sharrock’s radiant marimba is the perfect foil for the rumblings of the bass clarinet. His crystalline sculpting of notes informs Stefanie Lubowski’s composition Right now, in a second. Meanwhile he turns his instrument into a kind of living, breathing being, as with glancing blows of mallets on wood he conjures a close dance with the bass clarinettist. 

The masterful centrepiece is Clifton Ingram’s Cold column, calving. This music seems to bow in reverence to the earth’s ancient permafrost. As it unfolds, you get a sense of how expressively the musicians tease out the geographical metaphor of this piece with profound grandeur.

01 rethinkreTHiNK
junctQin keyboard collective
Redshift Records TK479 (redshiftrecords.org)

Pianist Thomas Larcher once lamented that he was unable to “get away from the piano’s natural sound... with all the intensity that marks a musician’s relationship to his instrument.” He went on to equate “this sound” to “something worn out, obsolete…” 

Meanwhile, Elaine Lau, Joseph Ferretti and Stephanie Chua, collectively junctQín, have been toying with the instrument, with radical and experimental joy, since 2009. Their magical adventure takes place both on all the 88 keys as well as inside their respective pianos as they continue to bend and shape the 311-year-old (and counting) instrument to their will. reTHiNK is not only an appropriate title for their new selection of works, it might easily be seen as an ongoing one. The performances of junctQín, after all, are always evolving. This recording is sure to be remembered as being unique in their repertoire. 

On reTHiNK the trio dazzle the senses with an arresting performance. The captivating music fuses contemplative harmonies with innovative performance techniques. As a result, music as radically eloquent as Alfred Schnittke’s 1979 Hommage à Stravinsky, Prokofiev, & Shostakovich is not only re-imagined, but redefined in 21st-century terms. This is also true – perhaps more remarkably so – of Maurice Ravel’s 1918 work, Frontispice. The wonders never cease as junctQín teases out the mysteries of works by Finnish composer Tomi Räisänen and Canadians Monica Pearce, Emily Doolittle, Chris Thornborrow, Alex Eddington and Elisha Denburg in an embarrassment of riches.

02 venom of loveAlice Ping Yee Ho – Venom of Love
Alice Ping Yee Ho; Vania Chan; Patty Chan; Lulu
Leaf Music Digital (leaf-music.ca)

One of Canada’s most acclaimed composers, two-time JUNO nominee and Dora Mavor Moore Award winner for Outstanding Original Opera, Alice Ping Yee Ho, has gifted us with a gorgeous work that almost defies characterization. This 60-minute composition deals with elements of fantasy and eroticism from a primeval, magical world; a musical composition for ballet based on the Legend of the White Snake, one of China’s Four Great Folktales. 

The work is compiled as 20 tracks inside four acts, which serve to guide the listener along the extraordinary journey as we turn the pages of an epic-sized book of fantasy and desire, love and rivalry between mortals and spirits, and finally the ultimate sacrifice for eternal love. 

Fusing synthesized and acoustic instrumental sounds with soprano voice and percussion, this work is a dramatic dance/opera/musical theatre composition telling an ancient myth in contemporary form. The music sweeps us up so deftly we are captive travellers inside dripping caves; clusters of tonalities are richly layered with electronics and we imagine shimmering dragons, writhing snakes, and hear spectacular sounds of animals, bats and water, evoking the hues of brilliant blues, greens and greys. Of special mention is lyric coloratura soprano Vania Lizbeth Chan’s voice that somehow manages to hold warmth and charm while soaring at stratospheric heights.  

Commissioned by Toronto’s Little Pear Garden Dance Company in 2014, the music is so evocative I almost feel like I’ve already seen the ballet, but I’ll be sure to be in line for that production when it comes back to a live stage in the future.

Listen to 'Alice Ping Yee Ho: Venom of Love' Now in the Listening Room

03 Jaap Nico HamburgerJaap Nico Hamburger – Piano Concerto
Assaff Weisman; Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal; Vincent de Kort
Leaf Music LM238 (leaf-music.ca)

Composer Jaap Nico Hamburger’s first CD release is a Leaf Music recording of his Piano Concerto performed by Orchestra Métropolitain de Montréal under the direction of Vincent de Kort, with soloist Assaff Weisman. Set in the traditional three-movement concerto form, the piece opens with a mysterious orchestral introduction where the piano is welcomed into the texture through a Mahlerian sensibility. The second movement unmistakably recalls Prokofiev in its playfulness and tricky rhythmic attitudes. This almost schizophrenic hyperactivity is interrupted by a serene landscape evoking tragedy or loss. The boisterous activity quickly returns to provide somewhat of a rollercoaster for the listener. Throughout the third movement, sparse bells and undulating strings paint a menacing atmosphere for the final moments of the piece. 

Weisman handles the virtuosic writing with extreme touch and sensitivity. With the concerto being only 22 minutes, one is perhaps left wanting more of a featured moment for the pianist, such as a cadenza – especially considering the fact that the piece is in the traditional three-movement form. The orchestra and soloist deliver a top-notch performance of a work that will please those who enjoy new sounds created in a Late-Romantic style.

Listen to 'Jaap Nico Hamburger: Piano Concerto' Now in the Listening Room

Back to top