March 2025

Performed by the 2022 National Youth Choir of Canada/Chœur national des jeunes du Canada 

Conductor: Dr. Jean-Sébastien Vallée
Composer: Carmen Braden*

*Canadian composer

Make Me a World

Crooked by Nature by Carmen Braden (NYCC/CNJC 2022)

Flute Concerto by Geraldine Green - 1st Movement.
Performed by Gary Woolf - flute, and Alte Philharmonie Orchestra

Flute Concerto by Geraldine Green is published and available from www.astute-music.com

Geraldine Green - Flute Concerto 1st Movement

On this fourth Thursday of November, you might ask yourself: do Indians celebrate Thanksgiving? Well… Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday for Native people. In a way, each day is a day of thanksgiving to the Creator for the original people of Turtle Island. This doesn't mean that we don't enjoy turkey, pie and family as much as the next person, but at the same time the Thanksgiving myth largely shared in mainstream culture perpetuates a one sided view of a complicated history surrounding this holiday. Here’s an informed indigenous view on Thanksgiving: http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2013/11/do-indians-celebrate-thanksgiving.html

This doesn’t prevent us from “celebrating” in our own way by giving you a new song called Burn Your Village To The Ground. 

artwork by Sovereign State: sovereignstate.ca

A Tribe Called Red - Burn Your Village To The Ground

Available at CDBaby and iTunes on MARCH 2, 2015.

PERSONNEL & CREDITS:

Bill McBirnie – flute, alto flute (tracks 3 & 14) & piccolo (track 9)
Bruce Jones – guitar, vocal, percussion & synths
Produced by – Bill McBirnie & Bruce Jones
Recorded at – Da Da Music, Toronto, Ontario
Engineered by – Bruce Jones
Edited & Mixed by – Bill McBirnie & Bruce Jones 
Mastered by – Pacy Shulman at Hilo Studio, Toronto, Ontario
Cover Photo by – Gongbass
Layout, Design & Manufacturing by – Staci Patten, Accurate Audio, Toronto, Ontario

Bill plays a Wm. S. Haynes flute, a DynaLance headjoint (made by Guo Musical Instrument Co.), an Armstrong alto flute and a Gemeinhardt piccolo.

LINER NOTES:

Bruce Jones and I first collaborated about 15 years ago on my debut album, Desvio  (which was subsequently nominated for a Toronto Independent Music Award).  This initial recording project came about as a consequence of working regularly with Bruce's Brazilian rock band, Da, and as a further consequence of dressing tracks for Bruce on his various Da, Amazon Dreams and other recording projects.  After a while, I had done so much work with Bruce (whose songwriting I always admired) that I suggested to him, “Maybe we should try and do a flute-oriented project.”  To my surprise, Bruce was more than happy to oblige and that suggestion evolved into our first album, Desvio, which he dubbed “extrema flauta” (and which we anglicized as “Extreme Flute”).

Our musical paths diverged thereafter but, about a year ago, Bruce asked me to do some dressing for a couple of tracks he was working on.  This went really well and, in the course of doing so, I learned that Bruce had a lot of material in various stages of completion on his hard drive.  Once again, I suggested to him, “Maybe we should extend ourselves and do another flute-oriented project.”  Yet again, Bruce was happy to oblige and Grain of Sand is the result.  As fate would have it, this project has evolved into another incarnation of Extreme Flute!

Bruce is—and always has been—enormously talented, on multiple dimensions.  Musically, what he does is ostensibly Brazilian (in no small measure because he was raised in Brazil).  However, he combines that rich musical heritage with many other influences, ranging from rock & roll and hip-hop to new age.  For me, the big draw in working with Bruce has always been both the diversity of his material and his openness to improvisation (which is what I like to do most of all).  These features of his work have always provided us with a solid basis for collaboration—both then and now.

A project of this nature—involving just the two of us—takes considerable time to complete and so it inevitably proceeds in stages.  Each track starts with Bruce writing, playing and recording whatever idea he has in mind.  After Bruce has laid down what is often a fairly complete track, we then overlay any flute melodies he has in mind.  In addition, we conjure up shots and harmony parts and overdub these.  After that, we go back and I improvise over the entire track.  Finally, we take whatever we have (...which is typically far too much...) edit it and mix it down.  Of course, we “subtract” far more than we “add” as the process unfolds until sooner or later (...usually later...) we find what we're after.

The end result of this most recent collaboration, Grain of Sand, is both a fitting theme and title, because there always has been—and there always will be—a lot more from wherever this came.
						
Finally, Bruce and I would like to express our sincere gratitude to Canada's premier jazz station, Jazz.FM91, for including “Tudo Bem” (a track from our first collaboration, Desvio) in their spin cycle for what is now close to 15 years!

Bill McBirnie


03 Quando A Chuva Cai (As The Rain Falls)

In the Woodlands

Silla and Rise’s debut album is a sonic experiment blending Inuit throat-singing and futuristic dancefloor beats.  Silla are Cynthia Pitsiulak (Kimmirut, NU) and Charlotte Qamaniq (Iglulik, NU) their name comes from the word “Sila” in their Inuktitut dialect meaning weather.  Sila is what surrounds us; it is what connects us to our land, to the moon, sun and stars, the ocean and the air we breathe. In respecting and honoring  the need to preserve Inuit culture and paying homage to our land and the strong connection to its  spirituality, they experience and perform the sounds of traditional and contemporary throat songs.  Rise is Ottawa’s Rise Ashen, a Juno Award nominated global grooves producer, DJ and dancer who has spent his life pursuing the intersection of traditional and futuristic music.  Free DL, please share far and wide!

Tuniit Rock

Live off the floor in response to the fires in my home Province Alberta and close to home.

Fires

When The Grandmothers Meet
© Maria Dunn, 2015
Horns arranged by Jeremiah McDade

Inspired by: The Stephen Lewis Foundation’s “Grandmothers to Grandmothers” campaign in solidarity with African grandmothers caring for millions of children orphaned by AIDS; 19th century bard Mairi Mhor Nan Oran (“Big Mary of the Songs”) who fought for crofters’ land rights on Skye; Six Nations women who initiated the protests in 2006 in Caledonia, Ontario to protect unceded Six Nations land from private development; women singing to comfort their families and community after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti.


Old woman don't you know your thoughts should ramble
Old woman don't you know your voice should tremble
Just wait until they see you--dancing in the street
Just wait until they hear you--singing to your heartbeat
When the grandmothers meet (x2)
O be in that number
When the grandmothers meet

In 1882 on Skye the Laird's men came
To shift the crofters once again, their bloody aim
But armed with only songs, their birthright and their sticks
The women of the Braes barred the police from their midst
When the grandmothers sing (x2)
Will you add your voice?
When the grandmothers sing

Hi ri o ho ro bho
Hi ri o ho ro bho
Hi ri o ho ro hu o

In another Caledonia, grandmothers stand
Once more they are defending their native land
A peaceful occupation to remind those who forgot
Six Nations never sold it, it should never have been bought
When the grandmothers speak (x2)
Will your heart be open?
When the grandmothers speak

They see their children die of AIDS, their grandchildren mourn
Family in tatters, village fabric torn
They’ve already laboured years to till and to sow
Now they're holding up the sky over death's relentless toll
When the grandmothers dance (x2)
Will you move in time?
When the grandmothers dance 

The earth heaved a sigh under Haiti’s feet
Too many hearts crushed in dust and concrete
While the news chews its violence too rabidly to hear
The sound of women singing to drive away the fear
When the grandmothers sing (x2)
Will you add your voice?
When the grandmothers sing

Maria Dunn vocal, guitar, accordion
Shannon Johnson violin
Ojas Joshi tabla
Eric Breton cajon, broom, rattle
Jeremiah McDade soprano sax
Solon McDade upright bass
Chorus: Shannon Johnson, Debbie Houle, Sarah Pocklington



08 When The Grandmothers Meet

R P M // 0 0 6 
Trained as an operatic tenor, and fluent in his Wolastoqey language, Jeremy Dutcher's music artfully blends Western classical, Electronic and Indigenous sounds by combining the operatic power of his voice with melodies from his Wolastoq (Maliseet) Nation.

Jeremy Dutcher’s incredible voice and artistic vision place him definitively at the forefront of the Indigenous Next Wave. “Honor Song” boldly declares the arrival of a singularly powerful new voice in Indigenous music.

Read more: http://rpm.fm/music/premiere-jeremy-dutcher-honor-song-debut-single-water-protectors/
Release info: www.rpm-records.com/rpm-releases/je…cher/honor-song

BUY/LISTEN: smarturl.it/honorsong

Links:
Website: jeremydutcher.com
SoundCloud: @jds35
Twitter: @jdutchermusic

==
Revolutions Per Minute
Website: RPM.fm
RPM Records: rpm-records.com
SoundCloud: @rpmfm
Facebook: @rpmfm
Twitter: @rpmfm
Instagram: @rpm.fm

Release Date: 09.27.17 
Catalog No: RPM006

jeremydutcher.com
rpm-records.com
RPM.fm

#HonorSong // #RPMRecords

Honor Song

Buy/Stream

Jeremy Dutcher - Honor Song

Rise up, my love (2017)
SSAATBB a cappella
Publisher: Manuscript
Duration: 3:35

Written for Spiritus Chamber Choir, Calgary AB, and their director Tim Shanz. This is a setting of the famous text from “Song of Solomon” alongside text from “Ubi Caritas” and “Set me as a seal.”

Visit www.laurahawley.ca to view the full text.

Rise Up My Love

Music for the dance / animation / projection show Depths of Sorrows

Depths Of Sorrows

Morse Fugue

"Insects and Machines" 
Commissioned by the Red Bank Chamber Music Society 
World Premiere:  American String Quartet, May 5, 2019 in Red Bank, NJ

String Quartet No. 4 (2019)

Recorded Live at the Rolston Recital Hall, October 18th, 2019 as part of the Musicians in Residence Program at the Banff Centre concert series.

Inni means Bison in Blackfoot. This song was composed about the presence and disappearance of the Bison on the plains. The composition was supported by the Coastal Jazz Society Indigenous Artist in Residence in 2017.

Flute, Alto Flute - Jessica McMann
Viola - Karen Shepherd
Piano - Beverley McKiver
Composer: Jessica McMann

Recording: The Banff Centre for the Arts

Inni

stay in bed

Association of Canadian Women Composers

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

Inni

V. Jessica Sparvier-Wells

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