Murray Schafer – You Are Illuminated
Coro Volante; Brett Scott; Krista Cornish Scott
Centrediscs CMCCD 31523 (cmccanada.org/shop/cmccd-31523)
This terrific new album of choral music by the late R. Murray Schafer stands simultaneously in both the past and present. I suppose this blurring of old and new is one reason why Schafer is often referred to as a postmodernist (in addition to being called an avant-gardist who coined the term schizophonia, a soundscapist or an acoustic ecologist). But with You Are Illuminated, a beautifully captured 2024 recording by the Cincinnati-based choir Coro Volante under the keen direction of conductor Brett Scott, the music not only defies classification, but requires little explanation or illumination beyond what a simple listen can provide.
Although eminently enjoyable, Schafer’s music often challenges listeners to expand beyond their comfort zones and to confront his above-mentioned musical theories and concepts. But with Scott at the helm, who, in 2019 penned an authorized biography of Schafer and who enjoyed a two-decade long friendship and musical relationship with the Canadian composer, listeners are in expert hands. As such, Scott, along with an impressive roster of soloists, ensemble choral singers and an excellent percussionist, has put together a stylistically divergent, but always musical program of Schafer’s choral works that span 45 years of compositional creativity. A self-described “labour of love,” this valuable new addition to the Canadian Music Centre’s already impressive discographic output focuses primarily on works of Schafer’s that have never before been recorded (or in some cases even performed), adding much to both the legacy of Schafer’s contributions to the choral canon, and to Canadian music more generally.
