Starlit Sky

On this longest night of the year, I am thrilled to announce the release of my first solo EP Starlit Sky, just the music to listen to while gazing at the stars and think about loved ones in places far and near. This three-song cycle sets poetry by pre-eminent Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka, blending Ukrainian folk elements with contemporary classical techniques and a studio recording and mixing aesthetic. Created on two continents, three countries and five cities, this project was a way to forge connections in the time of pandemic and war. I’m honoured to release this EP with I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, a label which donates the proceeds to Ukrainian humanitarian and self-defense foundations and activists. So, by supporting my music, you are also supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom!

In this small cycle of poems, Lesya Ukrainka speaks to a lonely star, projecting her own feelings of melancholy and isolation onto this distant, cool speck. Friends and lovers separated by distance have long comforted themselves by looking up at the same stars, knowing that at least their gazes can embrace in that same light.

I wrote the music and recording my voice in my bedroom in Vancouver, Canada during pandemic lockdowns. My friends, double bassists Florent Ghys and Ryan Baird, recorded in their bedrooms and living rooms in New Jersey and California. Iryna Danylejko, folk singer, ethnomusicologist and my longtime collaborator, recorded her voice on two of the songs in Chernivtsi, Ukraine in the first few months following the start of russia’s full-scale invasion. She fled there from Kyiv with her three children. In the first weeks of russia’s brutal full-scale assault, she couldn’t sing at all. She was barely holding herself together and she felt that singing would crack her open. I am so honoured that she recorded this for me when she did find her voice again. The mixing and mastering was done by Yuriy Bulychev in Dnipro, Ukraine in the summer of 2023. He did an amazing job putting all of us into one fantastical space. The evocative artwork was created in response to the music by Olson Olberburg, who fled occupied Kherson (my own hometown) and has been a refugee in Sweden for over a year and a half.

It took a long time for this little project to come together and I can’t be more proud of it! Thank you for supporting my music and Ukraine’s fight for freedom! And check out other releases on the label. They are more in the electronic experimental realm and are really cool.

Bandcamp (preferred): https://ishallsinguntilmylandisfree.bandcamp.com/…/star…

Spotify (if you have to): https://open.spotify.com/album/0H8vSmBYHr5hDIpGYcSiJc…

I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free: https://ishallsinguntilmylandisfree.bandcamp.com/

I would like to acknowledge support by the Shevchenko Foundation, which funded some of the recording costs.

Like Moths to a Flame

I finished off a duo for cello and marimba today commissioned by Stick&Bow (Krystina Marcoux and Juan Sebastian Delgado). This work is an interesting example of how long ideas can live inside an artist before finally finding their manifestation. I first thought of this image of moths throwing themselves against a lantern when experimenting with a marimba during So Percussion‘s composing for percussion seminar (informally known as Sominar) at Princeton University back in 2015. Something about the dull, but velvety warm thudding of that lowest octave on a 5-octave marimba made me think that if moths were human-sized, they would sound just like that in their manic desire to unite with the flame. These moths were throwing themselves against my mind’s lantern for 8 years before finally reaching the light.

I originally intended to write a quartet for two marimbas and two vibraphones, or two marimbas played by four people (marimba four hands? because you know, getting four 5-octave marimbas on one stage seemed unlikely). I never got around to that. But when this commission came my way, this image floated up from the depth of my creative repository. And then Kaija Saariaho passed away not long before I started the work and I knew this piece would be my homage to her. Her solo cello work Sept Papillon, Seven Butterflies, blew my mind when I first heard it back in 2011 from the hands of Vanessa Hunt Russell, who was learning it at the Banff Centre, where I was also doing my first residency. The work was important in my investigations of the cello, along with Spins and Spells, as I wrote The Child, Bringer of Light for a workshop led by Kaija and her long-time collaborator, cellist Anssi Karttunen.

Like Moths to a Flame is very different from Kaija’s style, but I have retained many timbral elements and notational approaches from her work in my string writing. Studying her scores, and then studying with her and Anssi was a transformative moment in my artist development. The Sominar was also an import moment in my development. So this is how two different formative experiences unexpectedly came together in one piece, many years later. Thank you!

Stockhausen Menagerie

I’m happy to announce that Stockhausen Menagerie for flute and Bb clarinet is now available for sale from Oxingale Music. The work was commissioned and premiered by Duo Inquietum (Mark Takeshi McGregor and Liam Hockley) with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. It’s a collection of miniatures drawing on phrases from Karkheinz Stockhausen’s Tierkreis (the Aries, Taurus and Gemini movements) to create portraits of fantasy birds. The bits of phrases are “birdified” and shaped into imaginary interactions between displaying males. It’s a fun, light-hearted piece with opportunities for some choreography.

The score is available for purchase here.

“Weeping for a Dead Love” in Italy

Last summer there was a series of rather unexpected and rewarding performances of my piece for voice and percussion quartet “Weeping for a dead love” in Italy. This was the first work I wrote for myself to sing in pseudo-folk style and I honestly didn’t expect any other singers to ever perform it, let alone classically trained singers. In Ukraine, there’s virtually no mixing between the folk and classical realms because the folk timbre supposedly ruins your voice (it doesn’t if you sing in a healthy way).

So I was very surprised when mezzo-soprano Svitlana Melnyk took on the piece. She fled from Kharkiv to Italy, where the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali di Reggio Emilia has been hosting displaced faculty and students from Ukraine. The institute just posted a video of one of the performances on YouTube.

Svitlana performs with percussion students from the conservatory, including another displaced Ukrainian. Svitlana sings the folk-inspired work in her own more classical way, powerfully and with a great deal of feeling. She told me that the work speaks to her own grief of living through war and displacement. It means a lot to me that she and other Ukrainians have connected to my music in that way. This project was initiated by Simone Beneventi, a percussionist who teaches at Reggio Emilia.

Our Trudy

Today is the world premiere of Our Trudy, a full length opera commissioned from librettist Maria Reva and myself by the Ad Astra Music Festival in Russell, Kansas. This project celebrates the 150th anniversary of the town’s founding. The three performances take place as part of an enormous festival called Prairiesta, which rolls through Russell every ten years. Our Trudy honours the legacy of a beloved local artist and teacher, Trudy Furney, who inspired several generations to pursue an artistic practice and cultivated a lively appreciation for visual arts in the town and the state as a whole. Thirty years after her death, her impact is still felt in the community and in the hearts of those who remember her.

Maria and I joined the project three years ago when the Ad Astra brought us to Russell to interview people who knew Trudy. A week of interviews revealed a rather complex emotional legacy. Initially the idea of boiling all this complexity down to a single narrative seemed utterly overwhelming. On the one hand were all of Trudy’s professional achievements (numerous teaching awards and artistic recognition) and her sociable and nurturing personality, which endeared her to everyone who knew her. On the other, were the horrible personal tragedies she suffered: the loss of her husband to cancer, her son’s death in a somewhat mysterious gun incident in her own kitchen, and Trudy’s own battle with cancer. Trying to reconcile these struggles with her religious, social and personal worldview, Trudy dipped into fringe theories that blended Christian end-of-the-world prophesies with alien contact. Her connection with these theories and their followers landed her name on the pages of national tabloid papers shortly after her death, an unfortunate circumstance that caused much trauma for the people who knew her and the community as a whole.

Maria and I were faced with the challenge of how to represent this complex human being who was remembered in such contrasting light by people who had access to different parts of her life and psyche. Some remembered her as a hardy, fun-loving person who could always cheer them up, a pillar of support, someone who appeared unbroken by the tragedies in her life. Others saw her as vulnerable and struggling with intense grief, questioning everything, including her Christian faith. In this deeply religious community, such questioning was a very serious and potentially threatening matter at that time. Many were rightfully nervous about this project, worried that we would sensationalize the end of her life.

Instead of trying to define a single “correct” version of Trudy, Maria and I decided to construct her out of memories and to represent the different perspectives through several fictional characters who act as amalgams of the people we interviewed. Dora, herself a sunny but perhaps avoidant personality, focuses on Trudy’s nurturing and cheerful nature. Todd, a brooding man who also suffered loss, dwells on Trudy’s darker side. Neither is wrong, but neither is fully right either. Managing this somewhat conflict-ridden but also humorous navigation through memory space is the Narrator. He attempts to remain neutral and uninvolved but is eventually forced to grapple with his own unresolved grief and guilt. Filling out the memories is the Chorus, a quartet of singers who transform into Trudy’s students, townspeople, vicious rumours or Trudy’s friends. In the end, the opera is as much about the town and the people who remember Trudy as it is about Trudy herself.

Maria and I are deeply grateful to the people who welcomed us to Russell and made themselves vulnerable to total strangers by sharing deeply personal memories and reflections on Trudy’s life, memories that were often painful and raw even thirty years after her death. Thank you.

The premiere is directed by Cara Consilvio, with music direction by Austin McWilliams. The set design is by Terrance Volden. The cast includes Katelyn Mattson-Levy (Trudy), Dominic Aragon (Narrator), Alyssa Toepfer (Dora), Gregório Taniguchi (Todd), Janie Brokenicky (Chorus Soprano), Lily Belle Czartorski (Chorus Alto), Michael Davidson (Chorus Tenor), and Alan Williams (Chorus Bass). The musicians of the ensemble are Man Wang, Negar Afazel, Julius Adams, Benjamin Cline, Even Hillis and Megan Bailey. Tina Gorter is the rehearsal pianist. A huge thank you to this wonderful cast and crew for their dedication, enthusiasm and energy. You really made this project happen!

Because of ongoing pandemic travel restrictions in Canada, Maria and I are not able to attend this premiere and have been observing the rehearsal and staging process from afar. This has been a complex emotional experience in itself. We hope that it is the last major premiere we have to attend virtually.

To learn more about the development of this project, check out this documentary created by Ad Astra following a workshop in the summer of 2020.

Maria Reva and Anna Pidgorna catching a glimpse of the dress rehearsal of Our Trudy over Zoom

The Mint Picker’s Man

Last November, I performed for the very first time with composer-vocalist Annika Socolofsky, who is a fellow student at Princeton University. My piece, The Mint Picker’s Man, for two voices, percussion and string quartet, was our very first duet. We love how our voices sound together and plan on creating more duo repertoire. Stay tuned!

Coming in from the garden,
your hands perfumed
by vines and marigolds,
you slide your palm
up my flowing weightless dress
and you mark me with your scent.

(I once met the Cinnamon Peeler’s Wife,
her body streaked with yellow brown dust.)

Your grassy whisper upon my lips,
you name me the Tomato Grower’s Wife.
Thus titled, I run my mint-stained fingers
through your golden curls,
and I crown you the Mint Picker’s Man.

                                  – Anna Pidgorna

Annika Socolofsky and Anna Pidgorna, voices
Mark Eichenberger, bass drum
Min-Young Kim and Anna Lim, violins
Jessica Thompson, viola
Alberto Parrini, cello

“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.

Drowning in Princeton

Later today I will be performing a revised version of my invented folksong Drown in the depth, which was commissioned by the 21C Festival in Toronto and premiered there last May.This time I will be joined by composers Matt McBane on violin and Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade on cello, and Mark Eichenberger on percussion. Drawing on and subverting Ukrainian folk imagery, this work explores female erotic fantasy. In this performance, I’m continuing to experiment with theatrical lighting design as well as some interesting props. The concert also features new music by Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Noah Kaplan, Matt McBane, Juri Seo and Kendall Williams. You can hear the show live at Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall (Princeton University) or through this live stream link at 8 pm EST.

Unruly Sounds in Princeton

I am excited to be performing my piece What else can I give him? at the Unruly Sounds Festival taking place tomorrow (Sunday, Oct 2) outside of the Princeton Public Library in Princeton, NJ. I will be joined by Nick Tolle (cimbalom), Mark Eichenberger (percussion) and Florent Ghys (bass), who premiered the piece with me in December 2015. We are welcoming a new violinist, Andie Springer, for this performance.

The festival is free and will run from 12:30 to 7:00 pm. I will be performing around 2:00 pm. The rain location is inside the public library’s community room. For more info on the festival, visit this Facebook page.

What else can I give him? is part of a growing cycle of pieces I call ‘invented folksongs’ – pieces which draw heavily from the Ukrainian folksong tradition and marry it with a more contemporary compositional approach. Here’s a recording of the premiere performance with super duper violinist Courtney Orlando:

Leading up to the festival, composer-vocalist Annika Socolofsky and I got to visit Community Park Elementary school to chat and play with some kids in grades 4 and 5. Annika showed them some really cool ways to use their voices, and I told them about my upcoming opera Wild Dogs. We did some great howling, yipping, barking, chirping and croaking together. The kids made particularly great frogs hoping up with every “Enid” croak. I’ve never done something like this before and was surprised at how much fun I had with the kids.