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Le Perv - Carpenter Brut cover

Aiguillage (Switches & Crossings)

Geof Holbrook: electric guitar, composition, programming
Louise Campbell: bass clarinet
J.C. Lizotte: cello
Pemi Paull: viola

"Decalathon" (DEMO)

The ninth track from Ainsley McNeaney's debut album 'True Story Orchestra'

Have It Your Way

In Finding Common Ground, each “melodic” instrument is paired with a percussion instrument: the flute with the maracas, the clarinet with the crotales, the violin with the temple blocks and the cello with the suspended cymbal.  The sounds produced on each melodic instrument are inspired by its percussive “twin”.  

Performed by Laura Bates, Gabriel Paquin-Buki, Elizabeth Adams, Sonya Matoussova and Olivier Maranda.  Conducted by Alexandra Fol.

Finding Common Ground

Premiere performance by VivaVoce (Peter Schubert, conductor).
May 4, 2012. Redpath Hall, Montréal QC Canada.
Stacey Brown, composer
Setting of the poem "First Impressions" written in 1952 by Millicent G. Brown
www.staceybrown.ca
Score available here: https://cmccanada.org/shop/70566/
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FIRST IMPRESSIONS (1952)
by Millicent G. Brown (1922-1999)

Mountains Majestic listen to me
Leave me alone, let me go free
Free of your awe-inspiring sight
Remembering you I awake at night
What do you want of me, Why
Why is the feeling within me here
You're far away and yet you are near

Mountains Majestic listen to me
Leave me alone, let me go free.
***

___Programme note (EN)
It was both the text and context of the poem that inspired this piece. These words, written in 1952 by my grandmother – a young mother and war bride – represent the heartfelt and fragmented feelings of awe, restlessness, and inner turmoil of someone far from the familiar, surrounded by overwhelming newness, and struggling on many levels to find a (fleeting) sense of peace.

Lyrically, I have expressed this through the fragmentation of the text, opting to focus in and insist on significant single words and phrases in the build-up to a full statement of the poem, at the end of the piece, that places these isolated fragments back into their poetic context.

Musically, I have chosen to articulate the inherent sense of powerlessness with the frequent use of textures that appear calm at the surface while creating a sense of underlying movement through the use of intertwined parts and closely spaced harmonies. Throughout the piece there should be a sense of this potential energy, held back from being completely released, yet always providing a kind of urgency, even in the most tender moments. There is a tension that should never fully dissipate.

In writing this piece, I hope to give a voice to this prayer-like plea put silently into words in 1952, yet for me, still vibrating with quiet intensity in 2012.

___Note de programme (FR)
C'est à la fois le texte et le contexte du poème qui m'a inspiré cette pièce. Ces mots, écrits en 1952 par ma grand-mère – une nouvelle maman et épouse de guerre – représentent des sentiments profonds et morcelés d'émerveillement, d'impatience et d'agitation interne d'une personne qui se trouve à mille lieues de ce qui lui est familier, entourée d'une nouveauté accablante, et qui tente sur différents plans de trouver une certaine forme de paix, même brève.

Du point de vue lyrique, j'ai traduit cette effervescence en fragmentant le texte, en choisissant de me concentrer et d'insister sur les quelques mots et les phrases les plus significatifs, pour aller graduellement vers une énonciation complète du poème à la fin de la pièce. Les fragments isolés sont alors replacés dans leur contexte poétique.

Du point de vue musical, j'ai choisi d'exprimer le sentiment inhérent d'impuissance par l'usage fréquent de textures en apparence calmes en surface, mais qui créent une impression de mouvement sous-jacent par l'usage de lignes entrecroisées et d'harmonies très serrées. Pendant toute la pièce, on ressent cette énergie potentielle, retenue d'être tout à fait libérée, et qui confère à l'œuvre une certaine urgence, même dans les moments les plus tendres. Il y a là une tension qui ne devrait jamais se dissiper tout à fait.

En écrivant cette pièce, j'espère donner une voix à cet appel aux allures de prière, mise silencieusement sur papier en 1952, et qui pour moi vibre toujours d'une douce intensité en 2012.

1952 (SATB, a cappella)

L'heure suspendue is a musical piece of Andre Hamel (Quebec) for FlyingCan (new invented instrument by Jean-François Laporte) and real time process. 

in the whirlwind of their embrace
suddenly time seems to stop
and suspended in the abyss of each other’s gaze
they feel overcome by a pleasant and violent grasp of their existence
keenly aware that, extricated from the course of time,
the moment was eternal
and would never come back

Part of an unfinished cycle of eight works for instruments and treatment in real time and based on the
cycle of hours, L’heure suspendue is the ninth. It is the moment outside time.

Finding Common Ground

stfnymoor

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