Véronique Lacroix - Direction

Natasha Henry - Voix

Charles Gezi Yu - Flûte
Kira Cochrane-Pagé - Clarinette
Laurianne Paradis - Cor
Yori Lang - Trombone
Aurélien Brecht - Percussion
Catherine Bertrand - Piano
Marie-Émilie Gagnon - Violon
Anaïs Saucier Lafond - Violon
Elsa Barozzi - Violon
Mathis Péloquin-Tilly - Alto
Aidan Fleet - Violoncelle
Léo Lanièce - Contrebasse

Jules Bastin-Fontaine - Mastering

Poème :

« Passe. 
La bêche sidérale 
autrefois là s’est engouffrée. 
Ce soir un village d’oiseaux 
très haut exulte et passe.

Écoute aux tempes rocheuses 
des présences dispersées 
le mot qui fera ton sommeil 
chaud comme un arbre de septembre.

Vois bouger l’entrelacement 
des certitudes arrivées 
près de nous à leur quintessence, 
ma Fourche, ma Soif anxieuse !

La rigueur de vivre se rode 
sans cesse à convoiter l’exil.
Par une fine pluie d’amande, 
mêlée de liberté docile, 
ta gardienne alchimie s’est produite, 
ô Bien aimée ! »

- René Char, Fureur et Mystère : Conduite.

2022

Alchimie (2022)

Calloused Bodies (2010)
for solo cello

My first composition, written days after beginning the intro to music composition course at the University of Victoria. The class was prompted to write a short piece using only one note, an invitation to explore and embrace all the other dimensions of music beyond pitch. For me, this initial foray into composition focused on the open C string of the cello, my secondary instrument at the time (I studied saxophone). 

The musical ideas in this work are set apart by how that one string is set into vibration, how the player’s two hands articulate the single low C. The string is plucked with the fingertip and fingernail, bowed at different positions and in different manners, and both struck and bowed with the wooden stick of the cello bow, with gestures occasionally trading between the left and right hands. The performer’s score is also notated to indicate the relative location on the string where it is to be articulated, when necessary. At times, these alternations of bow position can emphasize various audible frequencies present in the vibration of the string (musical pitches) other than its fundamental low C, conjuring ethereal melodies without changing the “note” itself. What is a “note” to you?

Initially titled “Conscious Dialogue,” the piece's name was changed in current revision to the seemingly unrelated title one finds now. However, “Calloused Bodies” draws directly from its predecessor, taking its psychological undertones and adopting a direct translation of “corpus callosum” instead – the thick tract of neural fibres that serves as a main bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain – informed by my later academic pursuits in psychology and neuroscience. This new title further emphasizes the role of lateralization in this piece: how the cellist’s left and right hands (like their respective hemispheres in the brain) join in dialogue via the vibrating medium between them.

Version Notes:
This demo was created using MuseScore 4 and the Muse Sounds library. Several modifications were made in the demo score to make playback more accurate to reality, as many notated articulations sound very different to what a human performer would interpret. Some samples are also mapped incorrectly, leading to anomalous gaps in the cello’s col legno, different dynamic levels, etc. Message me for more information about how I worked around these limitations.

Calloused Bodies (2010)

Flûtes/Piccolos - Mathilde Vaillancourt - Félicia Lévesque
Clarinette en Sib - Mélie X. Bouchard
Cor en Fa - Mathilde Lepage
Trombone basse - Malena Lorenson
Harpe - Kyra Charlton
Percussion - Simon Veilleux
Piano - Le-Tao Li
Violon - Annabelle Chouinard
Contrebasse - Pablo Jimenez

Image : « Sans titre » - Riopelle

Triptyque : I - Matinale

THIS AUDIO RECORDING IS ARCHIVAL AND UNPUBLISHED. 

World premiere performed live on August 18, 2022 by Timothy McAllister (alto saxophone) and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra.

Scores - Recordings

For Wadada Leo Smith (Adagio)

These two miniatures have undergone several processes of “translations" - some (but not all) of their musical material began in a piece I composed several years ago, which I desired to re-cultivate under different circumstances. Sparse but with a tense energy, they are inspired by Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities," which are desolate but contain a distinct sense of hope and remain open-ended. I see this piece as both a source of rejuvenation and an ongoing process to continue into the future.
— HAB

Bailey Wantuch, violin
14 November, 2024
Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montréal, Québec
Lorenzo Paniconi, recording and mixing 
Image: Invisible Cities (cover), Italo Calvino; Vintage Classic edition (Penguin)

Book of Hidden Cities (i, ii) (2024)

Notebook for Piano Vol. 1 (2024)
Composed by Liam Ross Gibson

Performed by Gabriel Stossel
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Gabriel Stossel and Liam Ross Gibson

0:00 I - Reverie: Sunlight on Waves
1:43 II - Basalt 
3:33 III - Alluvial
5:32 IV - Monotropeae
7:20 V - Říjnový les

This set of miniatures draws inspiration from the natural world, as well as music and musicians which have had an impact on me. There is no overarching scheme uniting them, and though they are numbered below, they can be played in any order and independently from one another.

I - Reverie: Sunlight on Waves 
Summer afternoons by the Salish Sea can take on a dreamlike atmosphere, with the heat and ever-shifting webs of reflected sunlight on the waves inducing a trance in which time seems to stand still.

II - Basalt 
Much of Vancouver Island is formed of volcanic basalt that erupted under the ocean during the late Triassic some 200 million years ago. Subsequent forces of glaciation, wind, rain, and waves have carved this igneous rock into a dizzying variety of forms.

III - Alluvial
I am fascinated by hydrology, and the water cycle is a recurring theme in my work. This piece is in part an hommage to the Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan.

IV - Monotropeae 
Monotropeae is a tribe of flowering plants which are distinguished by a reliance on parasitism of mycorrhizal networks rather than photosynthesis. This lack of chlorophyll means that, instead of green, Monotropes are often a ghostly white, or varying shades of yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple. Musically, this piece is an hommage to the great jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

V - Říjnový les
Czech for October forest, Říjnový les is dedicated to my former piano teacher, Eva Solar-Kinderman. Her teaching had a profound impact on me not just as a pianist, but on my overall thinking about music. Musically, the piece is an hommage to Czech composer Leoš Janáček.

Notebook for Piano Vol. 1

by k.d. lang and Ben Mink

Adam Maness - piano
Bob DeBoo - bass
Montez Coleman - drums

Constant Craving

Commissioned by the Total Cello Ensemble and the KesäVirratSoi Music Festival (Finland). This performance is from the Paulo International Cello Competition in Espoo, Finland, conducted by Ruut Kiiski.

VIDEO OF THE PERFORMANCE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDC7lB7_UeM

Virta (Hommage à Dutilleux)

Aiyun Huang, glockenspiel
McGill Percussion Ensemble
https://www.aiyunhuang.com/

cepheid variables (2009)

Liam Ross Gibson is a composer, pianist, and electronic musician currently based in Nanaimo BC

Notebook for Piano Vol. 1

Liam Ross Gibson

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