Live recording from St. James' Cathedral, Toronto 2006

The Negro Speaks of Rivers - H. Swanson/L. Hughes, Ali Garrison, mezzo, Tom Lillington, piano

Piano/Voice Duet Improvisation/Co-Composition
Field Recording: Nancy's Wharf, Cutler, Maine USA
August 14th, 2013 copyright
Nancy Bennet, Pianist/Improviser and Ali Garrison, Voice/Improviser
Random Text:
"She walks among the loveliness she made, 
Between the apple-blossom and the water
 She walks among the patterned pied brocade, 
Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter."
-Vita Sackville-West from "The Island", in Bulletin of the Garden Club of America (1929), p. 1, also in Collected Poems (1934), p. 54


She Walks Among the Loveliness She Made

Piano/Voice Duet Improvisation/Co-Composition
Field Recording: Nancy's Wharf, Cutler, Maine USA
August 14th, 2013 copyright
Nancy Bennet, Pianist/Improviser and Ali Garrison, Voice/Improviser
Random Text:
"What we long for and cannot be attained is dearer than what we have already attained." - Kahlil Gibran

Longing and Belonging

Piano/Voice Duet Improvisation/Co-Composition
Field Recording: Nancy's Wharf, Cutler, Maine USA
August 14th, 2013 copyright
Nancy Bennet, Pianist/Improviser and Ali Garrison, Voice/Improviser
Random Text:
"Through morning rain come cries of flower vendors in the lane;
Dew on the petals; 
mushrooms by the trees;
Along the doorstep, moss.
A tiny snail is creeping up the wall,
Through summer rain.
-Lin Ken, 20th Century

Through Summer Rain

I wrote this duet for an interdisciplinary project I created with three other women artists. This song is sung by the twin giantesses, Menja and Fenja who are enslaved to turn the magic millwheel, Grotti. They sing this duet in the Epilogue, as they are swimming, away from the millwheel that is churning out salt at the bottom of the sea, up through the water, then into the air and then up, up into the night sky.

We are swimming birds (seals)
Soaring into oceans of salt
Merging into oceans of night
Twin beings, winding back through these spirals of 
Sound, Time, Dust, Love, Light

Voices braiding, echoing through oblivion...
Deep, Ancient, Dark
We surrender our beings, flesh, dreams, hearts 
(Ahhhhhhhhh)

We flow, our nakedness drenched in adoration
On the shores of the cosmos

We lose ourselves to find ourselves,
Becoming our infinite selves once more
The stars our Brothers and Sisters
Our Mother, the night

Back to the spume in our Great Mother's Womb

(poetry and music by Ali Garrison 2008)
(recording and extra background vocals by Christopher Jääskeläinen)

Oblivion II - Duet From Why The Sea Is Salty - N. Bickersteth, A. Garrison (with C. Jääskeläinen)

From Ali Garrison and Mark Rainey Sing Songs from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at The Green Door Cabaret in Toronto, June 2012 with Joy Brown, piano

We lost one of the great and most unique American voices in 2012...this is a tribute to Phoebe Snow 

There's A Boat That's Leaving Soon For New York-Live at The Green Door Cabaret, Toronto

Recorded Live at St. Mark's in Niagara-On-The-Lake
Michael Tansley, organist.

Excerpt from Laudate_Dominum - W. A. Mozart

Field Recording (Recorded by George Murray on a Zoom recorder) of the first inspired, totally improvised series of duets by Nancy Bennet and Ali Garrison at Nancy's Wharf in Cutler, Maine on her beautiful Steinway. August 2013. Sorry bout the digital hiccups on the cd.

Downeast Vocalese

In August 2014 when I was again staying with dear friend and fellow improviser, pianist Nancy Bennet we used this poem to improvise on. I was encouraging her to continue to play even as she has been dealing with a debilitating and tragic genetic condition that is affecting her fingers. This is the beauty of free improvisation you come to it as you are. This poem is by an anonymous Chinese poet from the 1st century BC. We loved it so much we did three free improvisations on it. The last recording was the best. Were able to finally capture its beautiful and sad poignancy. It comes from a small book that I picked off Nancy's bookshelf randomly, called The Moment of Wonder: A Collection of Chinese and Japanese Poetry - edited by Richard Lewis (The Dial Press) 
The Eastern Gate: 
I went out at the Eastern Gate:
I never thought to return.
But I came back to the gate with my heart full of sorrow.
There was not a peck of rice in the bin:
There was not a coat hanging on the pegs.
So I took my sword and went towards the gate.
My wife and child clutched at my coat and wept:
"Some people want to be rich and grand:
I only want to share my porridge with you.
Above, we have the blue waves of the sky:
Below, the yellow face of this little child."
              "Dear wife, I cannot stay.
              Soon it will be too late.
              When one is growing old
              One cannot put things off." -Anon. (1st. c B.C.)

P.S. We made our friend George Murray, the recording engineer, cry.

Songs from Nancy's Wharf

The Eastern Gate - Take #3

For Ian, wherever you are. For Sophia. For all those friends who mourn our beloved leader. Sounds from my heart on the night before Ian Bailey's funeral.

Balm For Ian

Afrikan-American Art Song by Florence Price. T
Recorded May 2011
Songs to the Dark Virgin
Poem by Langston Hughes:

I.

Would
That I were a jewel,
A shattered jewel,
That all my shining brilliants
Might fall at thy feet,
Thou dark one.

II.

Would 
That I were a garment,
A shimmering, silken garment,
That all my folds
Might wrap about thy body,
Absorb thy body,
Hold and hide thy body,
Thou dark one.

III.

Would
That I were a flame,
But one sharp, leaping flame
To annihilate thy body,
Thou dark one.
~from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, pp. 61-62

Song to the Dark Virgin, by Florence Price-Ali Garrison, mezzo and Joy Brown, pianist

Alexandra (Ali) Garrison (BMA, University of Michigan) is an American-born, Toronto-raised mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, a Gemini Nominee, an ACTRA member and a proud founding alumnus and soloist with the renowned Nathaniel Dett Chorale.  Ms. Garrison is a frequent concert soloist and clinician in Canada and the U.S., and especially enjoys working in tandem with a great diversity of artists, improvisers and composers to foster new works and promote music for a more harmonious and inclusive world and has had numerous works composed specifically for her voice. For her fiftieth year, Ali produced her first solo EP, entitled, Ali Garrison Sings Michel Legrand: The Summer Knows. Current projects include co-creating a theatre work called In Search of Giants about her ancestors who ran a safe house on the Underground Railroad with playwright, director Dr. Von Washington; travelling to Guatemala in 2016 Spring to sing the music of Guatemalan women composers past, present and future; and producing a short film to accompany a wonderful song that she co-improvised with Nan Bennett last year, called The Eastern Gate.

Ali Garrison, mezzo

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