Red Ensign is a whisper on a frayed thread that hangs from a canopy in much the same manner a brick doesn't - or can't. These sounds aren't echoes and they certainly do not wave in the wind, not in one manner nor another. Instead the hums, crackles, pitches, and buzzes slowly wobble into/through/beside, and around one another as they cover, as they smother, as they conceal, as they lay draped across the fractures and fissures of long-ruined forms.

Commissioned/performed by Continuum Contemporary Music on March 8th 2015 at the Music Gallery in Toronto. Recorded by Paul Hodge, 

Anne Thompson (flute), Anthony Thompson (clarinet), Carol Lynn Fujino (violin), Bryan Holt (cello), Laurent Philippe (piano), Gregory Oh (conductor), Ryan Scott (percussion) 

video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A-Leq1JsqA

RedEnsign (for mixed chamber ensemble)

for piano six-hands (and slight live analogue electronic processing)

commissioned and performed by the junctQin keyboard collective http://junctqin.com/

recorded/mixed/mastered by Paul Talbott
recorded at the Canadian Music Centre's Chalmers House 
www.jasondoell.com

Our Lovèd Dominion Bless (for piano six-hands)

Performed by Wesley Shen at the Chalmers House Canadian Music Centre on August 17, 2017. 

program note:

Now we're rous'd we've buckled on our swords, 
We've done with diplomatic lingo, 
We'll do deeds to follow on our words, 
We'll show we're something more than "jingo."
And though Old England's laws do not her sons compel To military duties do,
We'll play them at their game, and show them all the same, 
An Englishman can be a soldier too, 
An Englishman can be a soldier too. 
So when we say that England's master,
Remember who has made her so. 

- Soldiers of the King written and composed by Leslie Stuart.

"...we'll do deeds to follow on our words..."

Performed by Quatuor Bozzini: Isabelle Bozzini, Stéphanie Bozzini, Alissa Cheung, Clemens Merkel
Live recording by Lawrence Dunn 
King's College Chapel, Aberdeen
Sound festival, October 2017

Program Note:
We've heard about your trouble, Tom,
In rousting out the Boer;
You shall not fight out there alone
Amid the cannon's roar,
The blood that stirred our noble sires
To build up England's Fame,
Re-kindles in Colonial sons
Their prestige to maintain. For-

We are the boys of the Southern Cross
Our stars shine on our flags-
Emblazoned with the Union Jack,
To show we're Empire lads.

From storm-torn hills where tussocks wave,
And dells where tree-ferns grow;
From snow-capp'd peaks, and rock-bound coast,
We come,-to strike the blow.
Rest, British sons, till South-cross boys
Canadian brothers meet-
Then on we'll press, an Empire's strength,
And make the foe retreat. For-
...

excerpted from Boys of the Southern Cross

Thanks to Sound and Music, and Quatuor Bozzini for helping create this piece, as part of Composers' Kitchen 2017

"...amid the cannon's roar,"

IV  (for music box)

Beneath a Landscape is an interstitial sound-work, occupying a space somewhere between a piece written for performance and an installation/acoustic environment. More specifically it a site-specific work written for the TTC Vaughan Station as part of the 2019 INTERSECTION music festival
http://www.contactcontemporarymusic.org/intersection/. 

In a similar inbetween-ish-ness, this recording sits somewhere between performance document and field recording (replete with wonderful operator interventions!). 

Tuned to the station and referencing John Cage's In a Landscape, Beneath a Landscape folds its namesake's lyrical/ contemplative character into its originator's later conceptual frameworks concerning chance, and environmental sounds. 

recorded by Joe Strutt

Performed by:
Contact Contemporary Music with

Aysel Taghi-Zada
Cory Harper-Latkovich
D.Alex Meeks
Germaine Liu
Olivia Shortt
Sebastian Shinwell
Wesley Shen
Xuan Ye

Beneath A Landscape

Jason Doell is an acclaimed Canadian composer whose works often skirt the edges of chamber music and sound art. 
www.jasondoell.com

Jason Doell

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