ACWC 40th Anniversary - September

Jamilyn Manning White, soprano; Julia Klang, cello; Safron Chung, piano

Fiona Evison, music; Henry Rasof, text, adapted

December 2019, Mendelssohn Glee Club Winter Concert, New York City, New York

Here I Seek You - Fiona Evison

Pomegranate Opera: Performed June 5-9, 2019 at Buddies and Badtimes Theatre.

Pomegranate Opera is in two acts with Act I taking place in Pompeii just before the Volcanic explosion in 79 AD and Act II taking place in a lesbian bar in downtown Toronto in the 1980s.
Cast: Camille Rogers, Rebecca Gray, Stephanie Tritchew, Aaron Durant, Teiya Kashahara. This excerpt is from the scene where the protagonist must choose between her family and her lover.

http://www.kyemarshall.com

Don't Make Me Choose - Kye Marshall

Title: “It was not all a dream”
Performers: Mark Calvert, tenor; Sally Schlichting, flute; Meghan Johnson, cello.
October 1, 2016, Juneau, Alaska

Program note: These words by Lord Byron, from his much longer poem “Darkness,” seemed to me eerily predictive of the environmental catastrophe that awaits us – possibly even in this century – if we humans don’t stop producing and using fossil fuels.

It was not all a dream - Leila Lustig

Written by Waterloo-based artists Taylor Heywood (Text), and Nephenee Rose (Music), "I Break with the Quiet" explores a world of solitude and silence. How does our perception of reality change when everything, and everyone, is stripped away? For piano and coloratura soprano. Live recording by Clarisse Tonigussi (Soprano) and Narmina Efendiyeva (Piano), who premiered the piece at the ACWC’s “Art Song Concert” at the Conrad Grebel Chapel at the University of Waterloo, in May of 2019. Text by Taylor Heywood.

I Break with the Quiet - Nephenee Rose

Planet Earth
Soprano & piano
Kellie Masalas, soprano; Brahm Goldhamer, piano 
May 4, 2019, Array Space, Toronto
[Duration: 9’40”]
Program note:
The text for this piece is a poem celebrating the earth, written by the Canadian West-Coast poet P.K. Page. It was composed for a concert at a conference on her work at Trent University in 2002. The form of the poem is a "glosa", where four lines from Pablo Neruda's poem "In Praise of Ironing" are the inspiration and final line of each of the four stanzas. In 2001 this poem was chosen by the United Nations to be read simultaneously in the Antarctic, the South Pacific, and New York to celebrate the International Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations.

http://www.janaskarecky.com/

Planet Earth - Jana Skarecky

White Cat Blues - three songs for soprano and piano; poetry by Lorna Crozier.

1. The White Cat
2. The Colour Blue
3. Shadow

The three poems are about the colour blue - sometimes beautiful, sometimes cool or sad, sometimes just itself.

Premiered by soprano Robyn Driedger-Klassen and pianist Terence Dawson in 2010 at the Vancouver International Song Institute at UBC.

http://www.leslieuyeda.com

White Cat Blues - Leslie Uyeda

Kontraband Kollektif - Oizys
Voice, Tenor Saxophone, Double Bass, Drum kit
Lieke van der Voort, Emily Steinwall, Hayden Farrar, Alfie Vienneau 
Humber College Studio, 2016-2017

First 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

Oizys - Lieke van der Voort

Hard Shell Baptists - single movement work, on Songs for My Mother CD, 2018, for soprano and piano, time: 7:25. 
Mary-Catherine Pazzano, soprano, Carol Ann Weaver, piano.  Recorded Grebel Chapel, University of Waterloo, 2018.  The song is a setting of text by Miriam L. Weaver (mother of Carol Ann) about the vivid rituals and customs of Hard Shell Baptists, as practiced in rural Appalachian Kentucky, USA, in mid 20th C.

https://carolannweaver.com/

Hard Shell Baptists - Carol Ann Weaver

Saffronic (from Journey Notes of Hope opera)

ICOT orchestra and Orana Sediq (Mezzo Soprano) and Banu Zan as librettist /2018

https://www.afarinmansouri.com/afarin_mansouri_website/Home.html

Saffronic - Afarin Mansouri

Opera in progress:  "More Than a Queen"

Excerpts:
-Chorus of Prisoners
-Valse Macabre Segué to Rose-Hoche Aria Duet (the most tender moment of the opera - a love song)

soprano:  Chloé Hurst;  contralto: Martina Govednik;  tenor:  Sunny Shams; bass:  Peter Monaghan; pianist:  Yawen.CA;  Conductor:  Katya Pine

https://www.katyapinecomposer.com/

More Than A Queen (Excerpts) - Katya Pine

"A Shimmering" Poetry by Sharon Singer music composed by Patricia Morehead

Beste Kalendar - mezzo-soprano, Philip Morehead - piano
August 29, 2020 Koerner Hall, Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto 
A Shimmering 2020 World Premiere 3 min.

The inspiration for A Shimmering
It was a perfect night, crisp and still, in late summer, on a northern Ontario lake when the moon painted a silver path across the shimmering water. As the world held its breath, the muse began to whisper. 

Sharon Singer poet and librettist wrote the book and libretto for the opera Isis and Osiris, Gods of Egypt, composed by Peter-Anthony Togni , which had its world premiere at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in 2016. Highlights of the opera are currently streaming on YouTube. Sharon has four published poetry books to her credit as well as three CDs and a long history of spoken word performances in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Dallas, and New York. www.sharonsinger.com

Tonight there is a shimmering
thin gold trail
under a brilliant harvest moon
Last night, the moon
part obscured by dark clouds in a black sky
sat silver high
while a thick mist rose from the lake

Long ago
stars filled the vault
like tossed diamonds
but now the sky is never really black
enough to see the fortune in gemstones scattered there.
Crickets do not listen to the moon.

Patricia Morehead, composer/oboist, PhD Composition University of Chicago, BM in Oboe New England Conservatory, diplomas from Royal Toronto Conservatory, Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris, and Accademia Chigiana. She is Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Center. She has taught composition and Twentieth Century Music at Roosevelt University, composition, theory and music history at Dominican University and Columbia College Chicago. Patricia was chosen 2002 “Chicagoan of the Year” by John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune as founder of CUBE Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
Patricia is 1990 first-prize winner in the “Search for New Music” competition by the International League of Women Composers, and recipient of more than 40 commissions by performers in Chicago and festivals abroad. Her CD's “Good News Falls Gently” and "Brass Rail Blues" are available on the Navona Label distributed by Naxos. Patricia’s compositions are published by Jeanné.
www.patriciamorehead.com

A Shimmering - Patricia Morehead and Sharon Singer

"in a corner of the stable" for soprano duet and piano. Premiered at Milton, Ontario, December 2005. Soprano Monette Gould, Moncton, NB and soprano Cindy Townsend, Toronto, Ontario. Pianist Stella ter Hart, Bobcaygeon, Ontario.

http://www.stellaterhart.com

Chestnuts and Sugarplums

In A Corner Of The Stable - Stella Ter Hart

Soundstreams
text by Duncan McFarlane
Zorana Sadiq, soprano
Wesley Shen, piano
Daniel Morphy, percussion

The mathematician and philosopher Hypatia (4th-5th century AD) was one of Alexandria's most respected citizens and teachers. She was murdered during a city-wide political feud. The sensational myth that she was flayed by oystershells comes from a misreading of Socrates Scholasticus; nonetheless, her grisly end – kidnapped, flayed, mutilated, and then burned – stands symbolically alongside the burning of the great library at Alexandria.

Flay (for soprano, piano, and percussion)

This is the winter ("Zima") movement from Durvo Sum ("I am a Tree") for 8 female voices, a cappella.  Text translation (from Bulgarian) is short and sweet: "Seasons change, but I don't resist them.  I am a tree.  You can't see my leaves, but my roots go down deep.  Life is hidden within me."

Artwork by Rebekah Cummings

Durvo Sum

ZIMA (Durvo Sum II) - a cappella female vocal ensemble

Text: Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (1773)
Music: Anna Pidgorna

Soprano: Anna Devin
Piano: John Hess

This work was commissioned by the Irish Art Song Project. Scores, recordings and Irish language resources are available free of charge at: www.cmc.ie/AmhrainEalaineGhaeilge

This song is a setting of excerpts from the most famous of Irish laments, composed by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s (Eileen the Dark O’Connell) upon the death of her young husband Art Ó Laoghaire (Art O’Leary) in 1773. Eileen was honest in her assessment of their marital life. She thought him very handsome and a good lover, and found him generous and loving towards her and their children. He had a temper, however, which she had to navigate and deflect as women have generally been expected to do in patriarchal societies.

The text comes from:

Tórramh-Chaoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire / Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (Sliocht) The Funeral Lament for Art Ó Laoghaire / Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (Excerpt)
As/From: Ferriter ms No. 1, University College Dublin, The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, vol. IV (2002)

Tionscadal na nAmhrán Ealaíne Gaeilge 2019 / Irish Art Song Project 2019

Free

Amhráin Chaointe / Keening Songs: I. Caoineadh Eibhlín / Eileen's Lament

Association of Canadian Women Composers

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

ACWC 40th Anniversary - September

ACWC / ACC