In a year of unknowns, students and faculty have had to be as flexible as possible when it comes to presenting concerts and this year’s New Music Ensemble concert “FLIPBOOK: Music and Images” is no different. But few groups are as well-equipped as the New Music Ensemble, led by composer/conductor Brian Current – after all, the term “avant-garde”, which has its roots in the French military, literally translates to “vanguard” or those who are on the front lines of a battle. And what a battle this concert has been!
The concert, originally slated for production in spring 2020, was cancelled in the midst of rehearsals when the pandemic started. But Current and the performers knew that to simply abandon the concert would be too disappointing, especially after so much hard work had already been put into the rehearsal process. So, this past fall (with new and returning players), the New Music Ensemble started rehearsing for this concert once again – this time physically distanced, masked or behind plexiglass shields, with scheduled disinfectant fogging between rehearsed pieces.
Then, two days before the ensemble was scheduled to record the concert for broadcast as part of the 21C Festival, the province mandated yet another stay-at-home order, putting a stop to all in-person recording sessions.
Without hesitation, Current reoriented the direction of the concert and asked all performers to record their parts from home. In true GGS style, the performers have handled these changes with understanding and professionalism – even seeing the benefit to the challenge of recording their part isolated from their colleagues.
“When performing with an ensemble my primary focus is directed towards spontaneously molding my interpretive decisions around those of the other musicians”, says Sarah Pollard (flute, ADP ‘22). “However, without having those external factors, the recording process allowed me to concentrate my focus solely on my own musicianship while still hearing the rest of the ensemble in my mind, which was a beneficial process on its own.”
As is evidenced by the title, the concert is focused on marrying music and images. Originally programmed to highlight works that have a visual/multi-media component as a part of the piece, the concert is now being edited by videographer, Taylor Long, and audio engineer, Pouya Hamidi. They will be incorporating the video elements of each piece along with performance videos of the players from their homes.
Because many of the large ensemble pieces were written to be timed with video, they were composed to be performed with a “click-track”, simplifying the process of having all players recording their parts in isolation.
The four pieces on the program include Canadian composer Nicole Lizée’s 8-Bit Urbex (2017) for 15 players, soundtrack and film; Martin Matalon’s Las siete vidas de un gato (A Cat’s Seven Lives) (1996, rev 2009), scored to accompany Un Chien Andalou a 1939 surrealist silent film by artist Salvador Dalí and Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel; and Pierre Jodlowski’s Respire (2008) which is created to incorporate a multimedia presentation featuring dancers from Compagnie Myriam Naisy. The last piece on the program is a new commission from Canadian composer Corie Rose Soumah, Chrysanthèmes asséchés s’abreuvant d’air et d’ennuis nocturnes.
Currently pursuing a Doctor of Music Arts degree in composition at Columbia University, Soumah composed this piece after moving to New York in September. The ideas of isolation and repetition, which have been so prevalent since the start of the pandemic, largely influenced her composition.
"One aspect that strongly revealed itself from my perspective in this pandemic was the small changes that happened in these repetitive days of isolation. While it seems in our eyes that the structures around ourselves are definite and not moving as fast as we wish, our physical spaces are in a constant transformation, even at their slowest speed. It made me reflect on the possible details and similarities that can be found within this duplication of oboes, tangled with the profound sound of the viola. In my vision, repetition is never absolute, it is rather fragmented on a smaller level.”
Though the concert has seen many different iterations since originally being programmed last spring, the New Music Ensemble has adapted to these changes with aplomb. “New music ensembles are always at the cutting edge and are used to taking whatever madness composers throw at them” says Current. “They’re used to dealing with very challenging things, they’re used to having to think outside the box and leading the way”.
And lead the way they certainly have.
“FLIPBOOK: Music and Images” will be broadcast on the RCM’s livestream page on Thursday, February 18 at 8 p.m., and will remain accessible after its premiere.
