The audience at the wildly successful New Music Festival in Winnipeg has embraced the music of composer T. Patrick Carrabre for well over a decade. The works on this disc offer an in-depth sound portrait of the creative partnership between composer, musicians and audience that ranges from hipsters to veteran symphony lovers.
From Sea to Sea' is an a cappella song cycle made up of thirteen musical settings of celebrated Canadian poems. In composing this work, I have selected one poem per province/territory of Canada - each poem written by a writer native to the region - and have set this text to music. Featured poets include such highly regarded and award-winning poets as Gwendolyn MacEwen, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Robert Service, and Shane Koyczan. I have received permission and endorsement from all poets and/or their legal estates. These pieces explore the range and versatility of the human voice and cover a wide range of musical genres ranging from contemporary classical choral, to lively folk melodies - from driving bebop vocalese, to minimalistic soundscapes.
Chasing Light and Sound: The Tuba Music of Elizabeth Raum presents the works written for the tuba in a solo role between 1991 and 2002 by Canadian composer Elizabeth Raum. The works on this recording were all written for and commissioned by the late Canadian tuba virtuoso John Griffiths. These works include pieces originally written solo for tuba and large ensemble: Legend of Heimdall, T for Tuba, Pershing’s Concerto, and Concerto Del Garda, as well as one work for unaccompanied tuba, Sweet Dances. These works are all presented here with the accompaniment as piano reductions. These pieces have become standards in the solo tuba repertoire, are frequently required as solo competition pieces world-wide, and are included in the standard recital repertoire.
Elizabeth Raum is arguably the most prolific composer for the tuba in a solo role. Tubist Tom McCaslin is currently the Principal Tuba in the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and is the instructor of tuba and euphonium at the University of Calgary. Described by Fanfare Magazine as "one of the contemporary tuba virtuosos", he has performed as a soloist in Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Portugal, Finland, New Zealand and Australia. He has released solo recordings on Crystal Records: “Inside Out” (2009) and on Potenza Records “One More Dance” (2011). He was a student of the famed Canadian tubist John Griffiths during the period that all the pieces presented here were composed. He is joined on this recording by pianist Akiko Tominaga.
Even among innovative geniuses, Russian physicist Leon Theremin is a giant. His work in electromagnetic fields and radio frequency lead him to invent his namesake instrument, the theremin, in 1920 and thereby usher a new era in electronic musical instruments. A century later, this album presents new works for theremin and piano by Canadian composer Aleks Schürmer. These works contain elements of 18th and 19th century forms and performance practices, popular music tropes and post-20th century tonalism, and while they are often harmonically challenging, the music can still feel comfortable and familiar to the uninitiated listener. Many of the album's works reflect on the optimism of the early 20th century's imagined utopic future and where we've ended up a hundred years later. Aleks Schürmer is a Canadian composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and artist who merges disparate genres, historical periods and cultural interests in his work, exploring the underlying sameness of all things. An Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre (CMC), Aleks holds a Masters degree in Historical Performance from the Schulich School of Music at McGill and studied modern flute with Patrick Gallois. His compositions have been called "major discoveries" (Stephen Ritter, American Record Guide) and he has been called "particularly brilliant" (Claude Gingras, La Presse), and a "young visionary" (Marilis Cardinal, Nightlife Magazine). Grégoire Blanc is an emerging French musician among the few virtuosos of the theremin today. Following engineering studies at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers, Grégoire completed his Masters degree in Sciences and Technologie for Music at the Institut de Recherchre et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) and his ongoing artistic research centers around expressiveness in electronic music, with classical music as a starting point.
