“Waiting” premier in Vancouver

Tonight Ensemble Paramirabo will be premiering my piece Waiting as part of their joint tour with my long time collaborators Thin Edge New Music Collective. The concert, titled Raging Against the Machine: Coming Together, is presented by Music on Main and will take place at the Fox Cabaret. It’s a very special honour for me to finally be presented by this much beloved music series, which my family has been frequenting for many years. This is also my first time working with Paramirabo and I am super excited about tonight’s performance. More info can be found here.

The piece was inspired by a Ukrainian folksong I found in a printed anthology, which so elegantly and succinctly explores the state of waiting for someone much longed for. It is a complex mixture of conflicting emotions, which gives a great sense of meaning and poignancy to the simplest elements of one’s life. It is a state characterized by obsessive creation of many scenarios, both positive and negative, but always extreme. The image of weeping willows swaying in the wind inspired the structure of the piece. Thoughts of wind and breath were very much on my mind. Fragments of the folksong melody are constantly replayed and reworked, and the first four lines of poetry are obsessively repeated in three languages. 

Here’s my rendition of the song.

“Хилітеся, густі лози,
Звіткіль вітер віє!…
Дивітеся, карі очі,
Звіткіль милий (мила) їде!…

Хилилися густі лози,
Та вже й перестали…
Дивилися, карі очі,
Та й плакати стали.”

“Bend, O, bend, you thick willows,
From where does the wind blow?
Watch, O, watch, you brown eyes,
From where will your beloved come?

Bent, and bent, the thick willows,
And then fell still…
Watched, and watched, the brown eyes,
And began to weep. “

“Obsessive circularity” in Montreal

I was very pleased to find out recently that Katelyn Clark will be performing my piece Obsessive circularity of thought on Wed, February 22 (8:00 pm) at Chapelle St-Louis (4230, rue Drolet) in Montreal, QC. She commissioned and premiered the piece back in early 2015 and made this lovely recording at the Banff Centre. More info on the concert can be found here.

Forms of Sound 2017

I am excited to be a guest at University of Calgary’s Forms of Sound 2017 festival starting today. Tonight I will be performing my very first ‘invented folksong’ Weeping for a dead love with the university’s percussion ensemble. They have been fantastic and we’ve had two amazing rehearsals. This work is my take on traditional Ukrainian weeping songs known as holosinnya, though instead of mourning a person, I will mourn a dead relationship.

Tomorrow’s concert will include a performance of my piano trio Like doves with grey wings embracing originally written for the Gryphon Trio and here performed by university faculty and students. This work is an instrumental reinterpretation of Weeping for a dead love.

The concerts also features works by Michael Horwood, David Berezan, Tawnie Olson, Analia Llugdar, and Guidonna Lee Terzi, Alyssa Aska, J. Alex Young and Abdullah Soydan.

The festival will continue on February 3 and 8th. All concerts take place at the Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall in the Rozsa Centre at 8 pm. More info here.