ACWC 40th Anniversary - February

Tookah Sapper, soprano
Kelly Horsted, piano
text by Duncan McFarlane

Re-imagining coloratura and scat singing, this piece is also an homage to Harold Arlen’s 'Stormy Weather' (lyrics by Ted Koehler), which begins: 

Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather
Since my man and I ain't together,
Keeps rainin' all the time

It’s a poignant love-song, one that Kalypso – the nymph/demi-god of Homer’s Odyssey – could well have sung. After the storm which shipwrecked him on his way home from Troy to Ithaca (and to his waiting wife, Penelope) Odysseus was swept on to Kalypso’s island, and she held him there (against his will, but not really) for seven years.

Both torch song and art song, Kalypso’s plea is set in a warm, tender, jazz-rich, Chopin-esque language, and there are many musical connections here with Penelope, particularly in both pieces’ middle sections, which reach for something more bare and visionary. Each woman calls out to Odysseus, tries to summon him back to her, and in this moment their music speaks in the same tongue.

Kalypso (for soprano and piano)

Atropos
Kontraband Kollektif
4 part voice
Laura Swankey, Mingjia Chen, Maria-Carmela Raso, Lieke van der Voort
Humber College Studio, 2016-2017

Third and title song of the EP Atropos, this song is part of an aural account of illness, suicide, loss and and my personal conflicting feelings surrounding these events. For more in depth information, please refer to an interview done in 2018: https://acourseindying.com/interview-when-your-father-commits-suicide/

Kontraband Kollektif was created in 2016 by Lieke van der Voort. Refusing to tie herself down to a single musical project and longing for extended collaborations, Lieke decided that an open concept collective would be the ideal situation. Kontraband Kollektif is an always shifting, moving and inclusive collaborative: anybody can be a part of it.

http://www.kontrabandkollektif.com/index.html

Lieke van der Voort - Atropos

Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars - Vocal Version
Performers: Carmen Braden (voice), Mark Adam (vibraphone)
Location: On Carmen Braden's 2019 album Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars (Centrediscs)

Program Note:
In extreme northern and southern latitudes, summer nights are bright as the sun stays above the horizon or dips just below before rising in a glow of unending twilight. Darkness is gone for months, and so are the stars and aurora. Under the glow of these soft star-less nights, I wrote 5 short songs imagining where the stars go when we can’t see them anymore. Below are the lyrics for each of the songs. 

1. Where do the stars play when they disappear in the summer?
Where do the stars play when they disappear in the summer? 
They play among the shadows fallen, far away.

2. Comet River
When there is no gravity
Downstream means nothing,
nor upstream.

3. A clandestine meeting with an aurora
When she sends her light around me
When she sends her arms of light around my outward star
We shine green fire
Like sky dew shining on new sky leaves.

4. Sway me around, Orion!
Sway, oh sway Orion!
Come, sway me around!

5. When the Moon hangs lonely in the blue Sky,
When the Moon hangs lonely in the blue Sky,
Then the Moon calls out
“Far away Star, 
come home and bring the snow.”

https://www.carmenbraden.com/

Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars

Carmen Braden - Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars

Words by Christine Moncrief
Vocals by Emily Grignon
Composed, recorded, and mixed by Amanda Lowry

Shiva Roses was written as part of a theatre project called Us/We/Ours, which explored themes of disability and distress, and was co-created by Terre Chartrand, Amanda Lowry, and Christine Moncrief, with artistic guidance from Tanya Williams and Heather Majaury. An early version premiered at the UnHinged Festival of Disturbing Theatre; more recently, it was performed at the IMPACT 19 International Theatre Festival, with support from the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund.

Amanda Lowry - Shiva Roses

Thy Light, O Liberty!
Text by Hannah More (1745-1833)
SSA
Meghan Jamieson, Victoria Marshall, Will Reid
Recorded June 2020

https://www.emilyhiemstra.com/

Emily Hiemstra - Thy Light, O Liberty!

Excerpts from Saskatchewan Songs for voice and piano by Martha Hill Duncan, Poetry by Dr. Bonnie Cutsforth-Huber 

Recording at premiere in May, 2012 at Penn State University, Altoona Pennsylvania with Contralto, Bonnie Cutsforth-Huber and collaborative pianist, Arlene Shrut. 

Bonnie and I first met at a National Opera Association Convention in San Antonio, Texas in January, 2011. I felt an instant connection with her and was thrilled with the possibility of composing for a singer who also happened to be the poet. This collaboration has been extremely rewarding for me and I hope that my music has fully showcased her evocative, imaginative and nostalgic poetry about Saskatchewan. As a transplanted Texan living in Canada, I certainly feel a bit of nostalgia myself when I’ve experienced the big sky, vast landscape and friendly people of this beautiful prairie province
Martha Hill Duncan January, 2014

3. I Am a Farmer's Daughter
4. Prairie Lily
5. Saskatchewan Lessons

http://marthahillduncan.com

Martha Hill Duncan - Saskatchewan Songs (excerpt)

Association of Canadian Women Composers

The ACWC is a professional organization for Canadian women composers, their supporters, and the performers of their music.

Martha Hill Duncan - Saskatchewan Songs (excerpt)

ACWC / ACC