Jim O’Leary – Echoes of a Vanished People
Helen Pridmore; David Rogosin; Karin Aurell; Eileen Walsh; James Gardiner; Dale Sorensen
Centrediscs CMCCD 34524 (centrediscs.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-a-vanished-people)
The Centrediscs label of the Canadian Music Centre seems to exist in the realm of the classical music landscape. That’s where they seem most relevant although they bloom in art and folk song and magically original expressions often merging both disciplines. The extraordinarily flame-haired and brilliant flutist Jaye Marsh sent me a copy of her ethereal work, Flute in the Wild (CMCCD 28921, 2021) and sent me scurrying for more from the intrepid landmark imprint.
Point in case is Echoes of a Vanished People where we hear the luminous-voiced Helen Pridmore singing of people in the lonely landscapes of our vast exquisite country; six extraordinary works written by the eloquent Jim O’Leary – an expert craftsman specialising in Canadian art song.
O’Leary draws on poems and other lyrical works by the Newfoundland and Labrador author Michael Crummey and songs by Susan Pannefather Gray and others. The music and lyrics take us into the countryside of O’Leary’s childlike imagination where it mixes beauty and a long-ranging sense of love for the grizzled past. The songs are evocative of long rainy days and freezing nights. Each track takes us into a wild place with trusted and inspiring friends. Both O’Leary and Pridmore have their fingers on the pulse of a ruddy sanguinity of old in this auspicious offering.
