i. 18-3937

Premiered 04/06/16. Written for the C String Collective, with dedication to Marielle Groven and Cassandra Miller. Thank you to such talented performers and to Chris Love for recording.

Minna Rose Chung (cello)
Andre Washington (cello)
Nathaniel Froese (cello)
Yaxin Sun (cello)
Leandro Saltarelli (cello)
Brianna Kaldor-Mair (cello)
Avalon Lee (double bass)

Samantha Selci (soprano)

Of absolute resistance

fabric heart

2017
Premiered 01/20/2017

Photo: Winston Chmielinski, A Round of Crossfire Prayers Goes Clip Clap Clip, 2013

Dream Sequence

Zachary Dark, Kieran Labossière, and I chat about composition, the orchestra and an upcoming premiere, Winnipeg New Music Festival, and other related topics, as we listen to recordings of mine from the past few years. 02/08/17

Interview: Kristen Wachniak on Bad Intonation

- 2016 -
Premiered 02/15/17 by The University of Manitoba Symphony Orchestra at Westminster United Church, conducted by Osvaldo Ferraz.

You Are Raw Phenomena

Arranged for chamber orchestra. Read through by performers from the Desautels Faculty of Music 12/16.

Excerpt from Mvt. III of Schoenfield's Café Music (arr. by K. Wachniak)

- 2017 -
Practicing patience and reflecting on seemingly unrelated happenings will lead to a rich understanding of how we are where we are. Self-progress does not have our (infinite) qualities compartmentalized into separate trajectories. It is instead a whirlwind of all components, ebbing and flowing wisdom from one to another. We are eventually lead to new bridges of insight and filled with more dynamism because of it... trust the disjunct evolution.

Premiered January 30, 2018 at the Winnipeg New Music Festival
Performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Julian Pellicano

Photo from exhibition " monodramatic " (2014) by Daisuke Takakura

Disjunction

- 2019 -
Premiered March 1, 2019 at Cluster Festival //  aceartinc.
Audio for video and movement. 
[psych(e]on) was created with support from the Winnipeg Arts Council.

[psych(e]on)

- 2020 -

Tibetan, ye tang che.

The ye part means “totally, completely,” and the rest of it means “exhausted.” Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out. 
We might say “totally fed up.” It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. 
Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

To think that we can finally get it all together is unrealistic. To seek for some lasting security is futile. 
To undo our very ancient and very stuck habitual patterns of mind requires that we begin to turn around some of our most basic assumptions. 
Believing in a solid, separate self, continuing to seek pleasure and avoid pain, thinking that someone “out there” is to blame for our pain—one has to get totally fed up with these ways of thinking. 
One has to give up hope that this way of thinking will bring us satisfaction. Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there’s anywhere to hide. 

© 1997, Pema Chödrön
From: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Diffiicult Times
Publisher: Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, 2005
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Music and text by Kristen Wachniak
Performed by Cam Denby (marimba) and Kristen Wachniak (vocals and electronics)
Produced by Selci

Written for and premiered live at Fresh Blood Project on October 31, 2019. The above track was recorded in late December and produced the following spring.

ye tang che

A multimedia maker, HSP, music copyist, and young Dharma yoga practitioner/student from Canada, navigating with deep absorption, curiosity, unification, and celebration.

Kris W

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