Features

“A hundred years from what exactly?” we ask, searching for clues.

Our host is Robin Elliott, Professor of Musicology and Jean A. Chalmers Chair of Canadian Music at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. We (WholeNote managing editor Paul Ennis and I) are sitting in Elliott’s office on the western flank of the Edward Johnson Building (the faculty’s home base since 1962) overlooking Philosopher’s Walk, a meandering path which, at least in theory, connects the U of T Faculty of Music to the Royal Conservatory of Music, a couple of hundred metres (or yards as the Faculty’s founders would have called them) to the north. Reason for our visit is to find out more about the Faculty’s proclamation of 2018/19 as its 100th anniversary.

“Aha!” says Elliott. “Good question. A hundred years from the date of the first faculty council meeting. In June 1918, the U of T actually decided to set up a faculty of music. Prior to that there had been music degrees awarded at the university, dating back to the middle of the 19th century, but those were offered by examination only, there was no instruction in music given in the University of Toronto. So I guess it’s the 100th anniversary of music instruction in the university.”

And the specific impetus for the decision? “Post-World War One?” Elliott replies, although it sounds more like a question than an answer. “Restructuring of cultural life in Canada, I suppose, and at the university? There was a number of mostly British organists around that had an interest in setting up shop at U of T, so they met together with the university president, over at University College – June 1918.”

There were no courses offered by the new faculty, at the start and for a good while after that. “What they offered were set lectures that may or may not have been helpful in writing the exams for getting a degree. But gradually in the course of the 1930s and 40s it shifted towards a more familiar kind of course-based instruction. You could take a course rather than just attend lectures. Smaller groups. And you registered at the university rather than just paying a fee.”

Composer and teacher John Beckwith has spent a large part of his working life associated with the U of T Faculty of Music, including attending as a student in the years between the two World Wars, a subject he addressed in a series of two lectures at Walter Hall, bracketing the Faculty’s 75th anniversary in 1993, and subsequently gathered into a small book called Music at Toronto: A Personal Account.

“Taking a bachelor’s degree in music at Toronto in the 30s and 40s was as thoroughly English an experience as could be found anywhere in Canadian university life of the period,” Beckwith writes. “Thursdays you went in threes and fours to Healey Willan, who blew pipe smoke at you, told witty anecdotes about English notables of the turn of the century and called you ‘old man.’ Mondays you went in similar small convoys to Leo Smith, who stroked his white pencil-line moustache, caressed the piano keys, and called you ‘dear boy’.”

Elliott laughs, appreciatively. “There were only three people in the faculty for decades” he says. “Ernest MacMillan, who was the dean from 1926 to 1952, and those two: Healey Willan and Leo Smith. Smith was actually a cellist and composer, Willan an organist and composer, teaching these small classes and that was it; just the three of them running shop for no more than 40 or 50 students till after the [Second World] War.”

Just as the end of WWI provided some kind of spark for the founding of the Faculty; WWII changed it forever. “From 1945 all the way to 1962 there were a lot of returning soldiers, a huge influx of military getting their education, in music as in other things. Along with growth of music in schools this sparked an expansion over the course of 15 to 20 years up to 500 students,” Elliott says, along with a corresponding growth in the number of faculty staff, and, as important, in the variety of their musical backgrounds.

“Starting in 1946: Arnold Walter, who was a Czech musician after whom Walter Hall was named came on board, initially to set up opera, and eventually became director of the Faculty. Director, not Dean.”

A slight pause, as though he is wondering how far to allow the conversation to stray up Philosopher’s Walk towards the Royal Conservatory. Then: “Between the Conservatory and the Faculty,” Elliott says, “there’s a whole very complicated administrative history. For a while the Royal Conservatory was the umbrella organization at U of T and underneath that was the Faculty of Music here and the School of Music there. Boyd Neel was Dean of the Conservatory, a kind of referee between the two. Finally, in the 80s they went their own way, as a self-standing institution.”

“With no referee?” we ask. He laughs. “With no referee. Peter Simon running shop over there and Don McLean running shop over here … although we share a lot of faculty members, especially among people teaching instrumental lessons.”

Another pause.

“One of the things we were joking about on the way over,” we tell Elliott, “is that it should be possible to map the history of a venerable institution like this one, by looking at the roles played in that history by the individuals the institution chooses to name its buildings and rooms after. Edward Johnson, Ernest MacMillan, Arnold Walter, Herman Geiger-Torel, Barker Fairley …”

“Ah yes, we shouldn’t forget Barker Fairley! He was, of course, a professor of German and a keen amateur painter. In the Barker Fairley Room there are all these portraits, or ‘faces’ as he liked to call them, of musicians in Toronto, in the 50s and early 60s. I think they are really lovely. Yes, he’s the outlier … the only one who was not a musician.”

We go back to the top of the list: “So, first, why is it the Edward Johnson Building? Obviously he was a famous tenor, director of the Met Opera during the Second World War. Came back to the Toronto area after retiring from the Met. He was on the U of T board of governors as well as on the board of directors of the Royal Conservatory. And his daughter was married to a former premier of Ontario, George Drew. So he was politically well-connected, powerful in the administration. One can draw conclusions. Certainly there are those who think that they should have named the building after Ernest MacMillan and the opera theatre after Johnson, not the other way round. Johnson obviously deserved some recognition for what he helped to set up, in terms of plans for the new building and he died in 1959 while the building didn’t open till 1962, so he didn’t live to see it. He laid the groundwork and clearly deserved some recognition, but maybe not that much.”

MacMillan’s contribution, on the other hand, was fundamental. “Beyond dispute, really. Dean from 1926 all the way to 1952; we have the MacMillan Theatre, the MacMillan Singers, so that’s something,” Elliott says. Several of MacMillan’s works are being, or have already been, featured in this centennial concert season: “In the first orchestra concert they played his Fanfare for a Centennial, and the overture to England: An Ode which was a big choral and orchestral piece written in prison camp in Berlin in 1918 and earned him a doctorate from Oxford. And we’ll have more of his music in a choral concert later in the season.”

Next on the list, Arnold Walter, whose arrival in 1946 signalled a big change. “He was neither British nor Canadian, the first central European to arrive on faculty, although along with him came Herman Geiger-Torel (the next room on your list!). Geiger-Torel was an opera director, also from Central Europe. Being Jewish he fled from Nazi German occupation, to South America first, then came north in 1948, courtesy Niki Goldschmidt.”

Between the three of them, Elliott explains, they were instrumental in setting up opera here between 1946 and 1948. “The direct result was our Opera Division which initially gave performances at the Hart House Theatre, officially opened the MacMillan Theatre in 1964 with a production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, and faithfully stages two productions a season, year in, year out.”

As the shadows lengthen across Philosopher’s Walk outside Elliott’s office window, we examine lists of eminent alumni and prominent faculty, and look at the concerts in the season brochure specially marked with a 100th anniversary symbol. The picture that emerges, paradoxically, is of a season that looks very much like last year’s or the year before that.

“Is it fair to say if you’d reached this milestone last year, we could have used last season’s listings to tell the same story?” “Exactly,” he replies. “That is exactly what the Dean had in mind. It’s a year that says here are the things we’re doing, but as a portrait of what we always do. Not a ‘drop everything to celebrate’ thing – more like ‘It’s a hundred years, that’s nice but we have students to teach.”

Business as usual: students to teach (900 of them, now, by 240 fulltime and part-time staff); two opera productions a year to stage; music created by U of T-affiliated composers to nurture and perform (“All the way from Healey Willan to our current students”); concerts to present, by faculty performers and students, ranging from 18 and 19 years old in large ensembles to Phil Nimmons, 95 years old and still teaching; a tradition of chamber ensembles in residence to maintain, going back to the Orford String Quartet, here from 1968 to 1991; a pioneering electronic music studio, launched in 1959, to relaunch, completely refurbished, in time for its own 60th anniversary this coming spring; groundbreaking work in musicology and ethnomusicology, and now music and health, to build on.

“And for you particularly?” we ask Elliott. “As Director of the Institute for Music in Canada, our work as a custodian of things Canadian,” he replies. “Our rare book room, papers of important musical figures – Kasemets, Beckwith, Nimmons … For a long time, this was the main university for musical education in Canada, our graduates from the forties, fifties and sixties spread out across the map from Memorial University to Victoria. It’s an evolving legacy.”

The hand-written sign on the door of the Barker Fairley Room, just a few steps away from the MacMillan Theatre, says that the room will be the location for the pre-concert chat for that evening’s Opera Division performance of Street Scene, Kurt Weill’s self-described “American Opera.” We wait outside for conductor Uri Mayer to finish a class with five or six of his students.

Except for the 14 paintings clustered on its north and east walls, it could be just another classroom (it even served as a faculty lunch room in the 80s). But the faces in those 14 paintings leap out from the walls, most of the people they portray rendered in the act of making music. It would have been a fine point of departure for this story; but it works just as well as a point of departure from it.

All the paintings in the collection were done between 1957 and 1964, the years when plans were firming up for the Faculty to vacate its premises at University and College, the site today of the Ontario Power Building. At the very moment Fairley was laying down pencil lines that still show through these oil-on-masonite works, some draftsman was laying down the lines in the blueprint that would become this room. Many of the people portrayed are still with us. Some of their names are well-known. Some, like flutist Robert Aitken, will even appear in concerts in this very building before the next issue of this magazine comes out.

Next to Aitken on the wall, clarinetist Ezra Schabas has walked many miles, in many roles, up and down the meandering path between the Faculty and the Royal Conservatory, since this painting was done. And fittingly it was Ezra Schabas and his wife Ann who in 1990 made the donation that ensured the existence of the Barker Fairley Room as a repository for her father’s paintings, which for close to 30 years prior to that had been scattered here and there throughout the Edward Johnson Building.

This particular 100-year history delights in the details.

David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.

January has earned a reputation as new music festival month, and members of the new music community have much to anticipate in this particular new year. Since the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) launched its annual, and still ongoing, New Music Festival in 1992, the festival format has been embraced enthusiastically around Canada as an effective way to present contemporary music of all types to a wide range of listeners.

For those eager to join me and book flights to Winnipeg for a late January new music getaway, the 2019 WSO New Music Festival (WNMF) runs from January 25 to February 1, 2019 and features Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks as the Distinguished Guest Composer. The late Larry Lake, host of the CBC Radio 2 network new music series, Two New Hours (1978–2007) called the WSO’s festival, “The greatest new music party in the Universe!” It has become the WSO’s signature event, and a fixture on the annual new music calendar. I will have more on the WSO’s 2019 festival a bit later in this article.

For Toronto audiences, a great deal has changed in the shape of the contemporary music calendar in recent years. We’re now fortunate to have two overlapping January festivals, both in the Bloor and University neighbourhood. One of them is the Royal Conservatory of Music’s (RCM) 21C Music Festival, which has been moved to January, from later in the spring, to promote greater student involvement. But the most steadfast of these annual festivals in Toronto has been the New Music Festival presented by the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, now in its 20th year. The 2019 edition runs from January 16 to 27.

Thanks to a generous endowment from Roger D. Moore, the U of T Faculty of Music invites an internationally celebrated composer to its annual festival. This coming year, the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitor in Composition is the Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa (b. 1955), the latest in a long list of internationally recognized composers to be invited as visitors to the U of T festival.

I asked Moore for a comment on the cumulative effect of his enabling the festival to bring so many famous composers from around the world, year after year. True to form, he thought it might be more meaningful to ask a composer from the Faculty of Music to share their observations., and recently retired professor of composition, Chan Ka Nin was willing to oblige: “The list of Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitors in Composition reflects a who’s who in the current field of new music” he said. “It brings prestige to the university and at the same time inspires the composition students, as well as other students and the general public. Being on the list of the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitors in Composition is also an honour for the guest composers. Roger will be forever remembered as a generous and compassionate man who helps and inspires others with his keen interests in the music of his time. He is a Canadian treasure, a saviour in the Canadian music scene.”

Toshio Hosokawa: Hosokawa has become one of Japan’s most important composers, following Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996) and Maki Ishii (1936–2003). Like the works of Takemitsu and Ishii, Hosokawa’s music blends traditional Japanese and European classical approaches. In fact, Hosokawa divides his time between these two worlds, keeping residences in both Nagano, Japan and in Mainz, Germany. During the 11 days of the U of T New Music Festival, dozens of Hosokawa’s works will be performed, including an operatic double bill on January 17. That evening, in Walter Hall at 7:30, Hosokawa’s psychodramatic setting of Poe’s The Raven will be sung by noted mezzo soprano Krisztina Szabó. This will be followed by its companion piece, The Maiden from the Sea (Futari Shizuka) a one-act opera based on a Nôh play depicting the tale of a young woman lost at sea who becomes embodied by a 12th-century courtesan, Lady Shizuka. Toronto soprano Xin Wang will be heard in the lead, together with the remarkable female Noh singer/dancer, Ryoko Aoki, from Japan. The opera is sung in both Japanese and English.

Then, on January 25 at 8pm in Walter Hall, Toronto’s New Music Concerts, directed by Robert Aitken, will present a concert of Hosokawa’s music, together with works by his teacher, the late Klaus Huber (1924–2017) and his protégé, Misato Mochizuki (b. 1969), who will also attend the festival. Aitken’s New Music Concerts Ensemble is one of a long roster of Toronto’s finest musicians engaged to perform Hosokawa’s music during this visit, including the Gryphon Trio, pianists Stephanie Chua and Stephen Clarke, flutist Camille Watts, violinist Véronique Matthieu. guitarist Rob MacDonald and a new wind quintet made up of TSO wind players. Sax soloist Wallace Halladay and Esprit Orchestra under Alex Pauk will give the North American premiere of Hosokawa’s Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra on January 20 in Koerner Hall in a display of cooperation between U of T’s festival and the RCM’s 21C Music Festival.

Karen Kieser Prize: Another important feature of the U of T festival is the annual presentation of the only prizes available exclusively to U of T graduate composers: The Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music and the Ann H. Atkinson Prize in Electroacoustic Composition. The current winning works will be performed on January 22 at 7:30 in Walter Hall.

Karen Kieser was deputy head of CBC Radio Music from 1982 to 1986, and then head of music from 1986 to 1992. She held three degrees from the Faculty of Music of the University of Toronto: a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music, both in piano performance, and a Master of Music in Musicology. She could have had a career as a concert pianist, but she chose broadcasting as her life’s work, serving as a gifted CBC host, producer, executive producer, and eventually as a leader in CBC’s senior management. Friends and colleagues endowed the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music upon her death in 2002, too soon a loss at age 53. It is a tribute to her life, her work and her passionate devotion to the cause of Canadian music and musicians.

For the first time in its 16-year history, this year the Kieser Prize will be shared by two composers, both women: Rebekah Cummings and Bekah Simms. Simms’ microlattice is a quartet for bass clarinet, double bass, piano and percussion. In her note on the work, Simms says, “With a density as low as 0.9 kg/m3 (0.00561 lb/ft3), metallic microlattice is currently one of the lightest structures known to science. It is made from an alloy of nickel and phosphorus. This piece attempts to create a sort of musical alloy from two opposing but influential forces: rhythmic, repetitive music with pointillist, random recurrence. Inspired by the unique structure, this piece also attempts to create an alloy of the strong, metallic and loud, and the crystalline and light. Like its titular influence, the piece is also small in scope, making use of a limited amount of musical material both melodically and rhythmically. After its initial performance, it’s only been performed once more (in July 2018 in Banff, AB) so I very much look forward to presenting it to a wider audience at the Karen Kieser concert this coming January.”

Cummings’ Fearless is a trio for flute, percussion and electronics. In her note, Cummings says: “I’ve always had vivid dreams, and recently I’ve been using them as springboards for composition. Fearless was inspired by a profoundly impactful dream I had many years ago while struggling with anxiety, in which I rediscovered my true name: Fearless. Rather than following the details of the dream’s storyline, this piece broadly portrays its theme – a transformation from fearful to fearless through reconnection with an inherent, original identity. For me, fearlessness is more about childlike confidence than defiant boldness. I remember being small, believing I could do anything (even fly and walk on water!), never assuming the worst about myself, others, or life circumstances. I tried to musically depict this return to childlikeness through a melodic/rhythmic playfulness emerging, not without struggle, from a more mournful setting.”

The winner of the 2019 Ann H. Atkinson Prize in Electroacoustic Composition will be determined in early December, and the winning composition will be performed on the Karen Kieser Prize concert, along with chamber works by Hosokawa. (The 2018 Atkinson Prize winner was August Murphy-King for his work, Simul for viola, bassoon, piano and electronics, a work I found to be elegant and finely balanced.)

Meanwhile … the previous week, American composer Terry Riley will be celebrated in three concerts at the RCM’s 21C Music Festival, including a concert on January 18, “Terry Riley: Live at 85!” Riley’s visit is dealt with at more length in “In with the New” elsewhere in the current edition of The WholeNote. But I do have a personal Terry Riley story to share, from 1993, when my CBC Radio Two network series, Two New Hours co-produced the Encounters series in Glenn Gould Studio (GGS), together with Soundstreams Canada. Kieser, the director of GGS at the time, had challenged Soundstreams artistic director Lawrence Cherney and me to come up with a marketable contemporary music series that would attract audiences to GGS. We quickly responded with Encounters, initially, a series of minimalist music. Terry Riley was one of the invited minimalist composers. Riley improvised on a nine-foot Steinway modified with his so-called Rosary tuning. It was a 19-tone-to-the-octave tuning, and it took three tunings to get the Steinway to hold its pitch; and three tunings to get it back to tempered pitch afterwards. (The piano tuner’s bill was $1,200 for those services.) The Arraymusic Ensemble participated too, in Riley’s Cactus Rosary, which they had commissioned. The late Michael J Baker conducted.

Back to Winnipeg: And finally, as I promised at the outset of this story, there’s the impending trip to Winnipeg for the 2019 edition of the WSO’s New Music Festival. The 27th WNMF will embrace a variety of themes, including ice, metal, the new intersecting the old, and a spirit of collaboration. The opening event, on January 25, “Glacial Time,” takes place in a custom-designed ice amphitheatre situated in The Forks on the frozen Assiniboine River. A collaboration with architect Peter Hargraves (Warming Huts), this newly created space will capture the essence of WNMF as a cultural oasis within the heart of the extreme Manitoba winter. Norwegian artist and multi-instrumentalist Terje Isungset comes to Winnipeg to present a suite of his original music, featuring himself, vocalist Maria Skranes, and WSO musicians performing on Isungset’s ice instruments, freshly carved for the occasion of this performance. WSO resident conductor Julian Pellicano and percussionist Victoria Sparks will lead the University of Manitoba Percussion Ensemble in the Canadian premiere of Inuksuit, an expansive work by Pulitzer Prize-winning Alaskan composer John Luther Adams that continues his explorations in merging music, nature, and landscape.

The January 26 concert welcomes back Bramwell Tovey, the WNMF founding music director who started it all. Tovey will conduct a program featuring San Francisco composer John Adams’ monumental work, Harmonielehre, together with music by three prominent Canadian composers: Jocelyn Morlock, Kelly-Marie Murphy and Harry Stafylakis.

On January 30, the WSO’s newest music director, Daniel Raiskin takes the podium in his first full WNMF program. A noted advocate of contemporary music, Maestro Raiskin is joined by his longtime collaborator, Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, who serves as this year’s WNMF Distinguished Guest Composer. WSO concertmaster Gwen Hoebig will perform Vasks’ meditative Lonely Angel and the Winnipeg Singers join the orchestra for his Dona Nobis Pacem, offering two pathos-laden aspects of Vasks’ musical vision. The WSO will also give the world premiere of a new work, A Child’s Dream of Toys, by Canadian composer Vivian Fung, as well as Michael Daugherty’s fierce Raise the Roof. Finally, WNMF doubles down on its collaboration with contemporary progressive metal pioneers Animals As Leaders, who join the WSO for the band’s orchestral debut, featuring a symphonic suite of some of their best known works arranged by WSO Composer-in-Residence (and relentless metalhead) Harry Stafylakis.

Consider an alternative winter destination, and join me in Winnipeg for my annual January pilgrimage of musical discovery at the WNMF!

David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster based in Toronto.

When Toronto percussionist and composer, Kristofer Maddigan, was first approached by his friends back in 2013 to write the music for the video game they were developing, his first reaction was “no way.” Actually his second and third reactions were the same. He felt far out of his comfort zone. As a classically trained percussionist and someone without a lot of composition experience, he felt he just didn’t have the writing chops. But the brothers, Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, persisted.

“I think I was the only musician that they knew!” says Maddigan.

That turned out to be a very fortunate thing as – fast forward five years – the video game Cuphead is a huge hit worldwide, selling over three million copies within the first year of its release and garnering all kinds of accolades, including best game of 2017 by Entertainment Weekly, a BAFTA for Best Game Music and an Academy of Arts and Sciences D.I.C.E. award for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music. One of the charms of the game is its artwork, which was inspired by cartoons and animation of the 1930s.

The music has been really well-received too. Maddigan was nominated for a JUNO award for best instrumental album this year (a 4-LP deluxe vinyl set) and at one point the album reached No. 3 on Billboard’s jazz charts. Maddigan was also named “2017 Musician of the Year” by the Toronto Musician’s Association.

One of the behind-the-scenes videos of the recording session for the soundtrack has gotten over 3.2 million views on YouTube, which is pretty much unheard of for modern big band music. As well, a live outdoor show of the band playing the score at the recent Kensington Market Jazz Festival was sold out to a very enthusiastic audience.

Here, Maddigan gives us some interesting insight into the process for devising a game soundtrack.

WN: So how did you get the gig?

KM: I met the brothers Moldenhauer around Grade 5 and have been friends with them ever since. We grew up about two blocks from each other in Regina and I spent countless hours in their basement playing video games growing up. (I probably should have been practising.) Six or seven years ago when they had the idea for this little video game they wanted to make, they asked me if I was interested in writing the music.

What’s your musical background?

Like many youngsters I started on piano, but also like many youngsters I found I didn’t have the patience for it. I wanted to be a rock drummer, so my mom and I compromised and I began taking classical percussion lessons when I was around ten. I continued playing percussion throughout high school and fortunately still ended up playing lots of rock drums, which was a great balance.

While taking a year of general courses at the University of Regina I came across a poster for a U of R percussion ensemble concert and I said to myself, “Hey, I used to do that.”’ So I checked it out, and it reawakened a love of music that had been dormant for a few years. That fall I started my undergrad in percussion performance, and then moved to Toronto 11 years ago to do an Artist’s Diploma at the Glenn Gould School. I’m very fortunate to have been a member of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra since 2010.

Was this your first major composition?

Essentially the only other compositions I have done are a tune from my recital from my brief stint in the U of T jazz program and some processed marimba background music for a Nuit Blanche project. That’s pretty much it. I do have many other musical interests though. For the past four years I have been really into Brazilian percussion, and I’m always working on my drum set playing. I’m also trying to expand my composing experience and am currently digging deeper into theory and counterpoint.

Tell us about the process for composing for a game. Were there style guidelines? Were there precise timings to adhere to? How long did it take? What was the most challenging part?

The game development and the composition process took place pretty much simultaneously. I was sent a list of levels and bosses that would require music. [Editor’s note: In video gaming, a boss is a significant computer-controlled enemy. A fight with a boss character is referred to as a boss battle and Cuphead has been praised for its numerous clever and challenging boss battles.]

My typical process was to just to write and we would match the tunes up with the appropriate bosses later in the process. Often, once it was decided which tune would go with which boss, I would then tweak the music to be more appropriate for the situation (i.e. adding train-like effects to the train boss, etc).

Considering how long it took me to write the music, if I had waited until the game was finished to start, it still wouldn’t be out!

The approach to the music of Cuphead is very different than the music of most games. There are no real precise timings to line things up with and the music is not reactive or dynamic as would be more typical for games. It was more important for us to capture a “vibe’” as opposed to following the action, so I ended up just writing standard three-to-four-minute jazz tunes. Typically a player won’t even reach the end of the tune on a given stage since the tunes are long enough that the player has either died and had to restart, or would have already completed the level.

The only style guidelines I was given were “1930s big band.” As the game expanded to include levels and world maps, I started to think outside of that one specific era and style, and we decided on ragtime for the platforming levels and numerous stylistic iterations of the main four-note theme for the world maps. In some cases (as in the shrines), they just said “Do whatever you like.”

The most challenging part for me was trying to write in a highly derivative style while still maintaining my own identity. It was very important to us to approach the music in Cuphead with respect and a sense of history. And to understand and utilize the clichés that define a style while doing something new and original with them. For example, there are many firmly established conventions that define a Joplin-esque ragtime style.

The question then became how do I write in that style without just blatantly ripping off those that came before, but while still using the devices I had no hand in creating? And maybe more importantly, how to do that in a way that honours the work of the great composers and musicians that came before? I always approached this project more from the standpoint of “What if the golden age of big bands and the golden age of video games coexisted side by side?”

While a lot of it is pretty bonkers (it’s game music, it sort of has to be), we were very conscious to never let it descend into parody. We realized early on that this game had the potential to reach a demographic that has probably never been exposed to this type of music, so we had a responsibility to do it correctly. The sheer number of messages we get from people who have said that this was their first exposure to jazz music – and that it has opened a door to another world for them – has been very gratifying.

How did the recording sessions go?

I was extremely nervous before the first rehearsal. I wasn’t sure if some of the music was going to be completely unplayable, or whether there would be technical glitches – scores and parts getting exported incorrectly, wrong transpositions, etc). By the end of that rehearsal I knew that everything was going to be all right, and it was a great relief.

I don’t think the musicians knew exactly what they were getting into, and when they showed up many of them were like “What’s up with these tempos!?” But they more than rose to the challenge and obviously played their asses off. I think you can really hear the synergy that exists between them. Many have been working together for decades, in bands like the Boss Brass. More than that, I think it sounds like they’re having fun, which was very important for this music.

“Cuphead was a great experience. You don’t get a chance to play intense big band swing on video games very often (like never),” said Dave Dunlop, trumpet player on the soundtrack. “Kris’ writing was excellent for a relatively young man and the players really rose to the occasion, considering how difficult the music was.”

How do you account for the popularity of the recording session videos?

I feel the reason the behind-the-scenes videos have had such a great response is that people like seeing the process firsthand. There’s a visceral reaction to seeing real musicians at work, maybe for the same reason we go to concerts to see bands play the same songs that we already have on albums at home.

What was John Herberman’s role in the recording?

John Herberman was my mentor throughout the project, from first being a teacher and helping me parse through the composition process, to taking on the role of contractor for the sessions, and being the conductor of the band both in studio and at our first ever live show at the Kensington Market Jazz Festival. Without John’s experience and help the music would have been a shadow of what it eventually became.

“Kris is a very smart man and we developed a really good working relationship,” said Herberman. “He did a ton of research into 1930s music. So although I have years of experience composing for big bands and was able to coach Kris on some technical things like voicings for horns, his understanding of the 30s music style really helped.

“He entrusted me with a lot of responsibility for these sessions and that’s not easy to do. As well, working with the Moldenhauers was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in a long time. They were very supportive and wanted to do the sessions right and make sure everyone was having fun. And that’s not how things usually go these days.”

Spare Parts

Who are your jazz-music heroes? Any particular influences for the music composed for Cuphead?

Duke Ellington and Scott Joplin were by far my two biggest influences, but Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Fletcher Henderson also cast long shadows on the Cuphead music.

Is it unusual to have a full band playing a game soundtrack? Isn’t it usually electronic/synth music?

I think that using live musicians is certainly becoming more common, especially in AAA games, but on the indie side of things my impression is that it is typically too cost prohibitive. I certainly don’t know any other games that have used a live big band. An extra special shout-out goes to Jeremy Darby and Julian Decorte at Canterbury Music Company in Toronto. I cannot imagine having recorded this soundtrack anywhere else. And Jeremy spent months refining the mixes: getting just the right balance between clean instrument tones and a vintage sensibility.

Are you a gamer?

Growing up I was, but I pretty much stopped when I started my undergrad as there was just not enough time. I’m more of a casual gamer now, mainly just checking out games that are considered important that I should be familiar with, or games with acclaimed soundtracks so that I can keep up with what’s going on musically in the gaming world.

Cathy Riches is a Toronto-based recovering singer and ink slinger who hasn’t played a video game since Pac-Man, and who thinks it’s better to carry a tune than a grudge.

Angèle Dubeau was the seventh of eight children growing up in a musical family in Saint-Norbert, Quebec. She began playing the violin at four and entered the Conservatoire in Montreal when she was eight. At 15, she studied at Juilliard under the renowned Dorothy DeLay, later moving to Romania to work with Ştefan Gheorghiu. After a globetrotting solo career, she formed La Pietà, a string orchestra which has garnered JUNOs and a widespread public following. To celebrate 20 years of La Pietà, Analekta has released Ovation, a 15-track CD of music chosen from live performances from last year’s anniversary tour. The WholeNote celebrates this milestone with the following conversation with Dubeau.

WN: Congratulations on the 20th anniversary of La Pietà. Please tell us what inspired you to form your string chamber orchestra.

AD: After 20 years touring the world as a soloist all the time, the solitude was heavy to bear. I decided to form my own orchestra to be free to choose the repertoire and to explore colours and textures. As a conductor, I was free to find and create the Pietà’s sound that characterizes the orchestra today.

Why did you select the name La Pietà?

In 1997, I wanted to record an album of Vivaldi’s concertos. [I was] thinking of Antonio Vivaldi – Maestro del coro in Venice 300 years ago at the Ospedale della Pietà. Young orphans and illegitimate girls were playing in the orchestra.

You’ve had great success in recording with La Pietà. How did you choose the 15 tracks on Ovation? Please talk briefly about your relationship to each of them.

I chose pieces that really impacted my musical journey, all for different reasons. First of all, I think of the composers I have had the privilege of creating a lot of repertoire with throughout the years. When I play [film composer] Joe Hisaïshi, for example, I can’t help but think of all the concerts I played alongside him in Japan. The legendary concert halls in which I had the pleasure of playing those musical pieces (Southbank Centre in London, Tokyo’s Opera, Bellas Artes in Mexico City) also come to mind. Many memories of foreign trips as well with, for example, the Romanian Rhapsody No.1 by Enescu that brings me back to 1981-1984 when I worked with Ştefan Gheorghiu in Romania. Each piece also brings back memories of great characters for whom I had the chance to play; Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth II, the president of China in 1987 and so on.

You have developed a strong library of contemporary repertoire -- from Philip Glass to Arvo Pärt and John Adams; from Ludovico Einaudi to Max Richter. When did you first discover the music of Philip Glass? How did your musical relationship with him evolve over the years? Was Glass’ music the gateway to your love of those other contemporary composers? If not, what drew you to them?

In the past 12 years, I have been drawn to a variety of composers. Gravitating around the minimalist movement that has, and will continue to have, an impact on the intellectual and musical life of our time. I must say that the more I listen to those composers, the stronger my desire to interpret their music becomes.

First, I revisited the colossal work of Philip Glass that I discovered in the 80s and with whom I worked on his first violin concerto in NYC in the 90s. Then came the “essentialist” Arvo Pärt, and John Adams whose music is both strong and exuberant. After came a music portrait of Ludovico Einaudi and two years ago, the portrait of Max Richter who brilliantly follows in the steps of the previous album. With all those icons of contempory music, I have expressed my desire to go beyond and to grant myself those unique voices, unique signatures. A great way to widen my horizons !

With more than 15 million streams, your Einaudi CD was enormously popular. What attracted you to his music? What is your approach to it?

It’s crazy to think that in the last five years, my music has been, to this day, streamed 60 million times all over the world. This number I could’ve never imagined when I started 40 years ago. I always thought that music is for everyone and that it really is meant to be shared. To think that my own accompanies people in their everyday life fills me with joy. As for Einaudi himself, he is a master of melody. His music is pure and refined without any artifice. I find his music to be soothing and truly luminous.

How has your choice of repertoire changed over the last 20 years?

I like to pick out my repertoire from different eras, from different styles. I like envisioning it without any limit of choice; a gift I gave myself quite a long time ago. I strongly feel that if a certain music speaks to me, that I can express something personal with it, I should share it.

What are your plans for La Pietà going forward?

After 40 years of constantly touring and always being on the road, I decided to change my lifestyle and reduce the number of concerts I perform. I remain a violinist. I will keep making albums and I still have a head full of potential projects. I am currently working on my next album which will be recorded in March 2019. As for live perfomances, I will, of course, continue to meet my audience for various concerts.

Finally, who were your musical heroes growing up?

I always had the curiosity to go and discover music and musicians. I had the privilege to play and work alongside Henryk Szeryng, Ştefan Gheorghiu. I played with Dave Brubeck, Alain Marion, Alexandre Lagoya, Joe Hisaïshi. All great musicians that truly made me grow.

Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.

I’ve been writing The Wholenote’s World View column for around a decade. Well over a generation before that I was invited to be a founding member of Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG), the first Canadian ensemble of its kind. Clearly wearing two hats, I’ve always been explicit about outing myself as an ECCG member when writing about the group in my column.

On the occasion of ECCG’s 35th anniversary season however, rather than a somewhat self-deprecating aside in the column (which follows elsewhere in the issue) I’ve received special dispensation from my esteemed publisher to give a somewhat fuller account of the group’s career and an unapologetic shout-out for the group’s upcoming November 25 Aga Khan Museum concert. After all, who better than an insider to make sense of this band’s arcane music, and to share a story or two?

I agree that ECCG’s music and 35-year career is admittedly difficult to pigeonhole. Pioneering a made-in-Canada approach to the exploration of links between post-classical and world music even before those terms became mainstream, ECCG’s repertoire is a confluence of its founding core members’ musical training and multiple professional practices. Over the years most have been percussionists, among the country’s top drummers and mallet freelancers. On the other hand there has also been a violist, a flutist, guitarists – including founder Jon Siddall and longtime member Bill Parsons – and an ex-bassoonist. The latter? Me! Before I picked up the ECCG’s suling (bamboo end-blown ring flute) in 1984. A lifetime convert from bass to treble winds, I’ve never looked back.

Despite being difficult to slot in a genre, ECCG’s eclectic musical approach has captured the imagination of leading Canadian, American, European and Indonesian concert composers. Musicians, singers, choirs and instrumental ensembles from several genres have also chosen to perform with ECCG. Our music has attracted the interest of international audiences, such as those that attended ECCG’s June 2018 concerts in Munich, Germany. This interest has resulted in a number of tours over the years starting in 1989, and taking us to Indonesia, the gamelan heartland, in 2002.

November 25, the Aga Khan Museum will celebrate the 35th anniversary of Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan with a concert that touches on many bases. It will feature the premiere of a new work by Canadian composer Peter Hatch, whose composition thematically explores the environment of his new BC island home. The presence of returning guests, Indonesian musician/composer Ade Suparman and dancer Nurrika, will signal ECCG deep collaborative ties with the rich performance culture of West Java. Their residency will culminate in joint performances of several works. Finally, the group will also honour the centennial of American maverick composer Lou Harrison – one of its founding musical mentors – with a suite of his works arranged by yours truly.

Right from its first season, ECCG’s primary goal has been to create a Canadian-based repertoire which it would commission, perform, tour and record. Has ECCG been successful in meeting these aims? Well, it has generated some 300 works, the sum total of which is a brand new repertoire not replicated anywhere. The group has recorded 15 albums and presented 35 concert seasons in Toronto.

Throughout all this activity, ECCG’s primary aim has always remained – paradoxically to some – to perform music on its degung instruments which ultimately explores and expresses a core Canadian ethos and identity.

During our 2002 Indonesian tour, the ECCG was invited to headline the Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival, along with Toronto’s Maxine Heppner Dance Company. When we arrived I was asked by a young Indonesian organizer what our music was like, having never heard it. Considering an appropriate response, I replied, “We play Canadian music on degung instruments.” After the festival wrapped, we made our way to the tour bus and said our goodbyes. He turned to me and said with a wry smile, “Now I know what Canadian music sounds like.”

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com