We would like to thank everyone who came to our concert Message Exchange. Without the support of the community and audience we cannot continue to perform and bring the music from living composers to life. We had a lot of very positive feedback and people asking when our next concert will be, we do have some exciting projects coming up including at least one new commission! Please stay tuned and thank you again for your continued support and patronage!
Message Exchange
Thank you!
Philip Parker is a composer and percussion teacher at Arkansas Tech University. The Five Bagatelles were written in 1983 and the movements are Intrada, Nocturne, Waltz, Song and Reel. Each movement has a very different feel from the others and have a quirkiness and dance-like appeal.
Intrada is lively with punchy articulations to properly introduce the other music to come. Nocturne is much more subdued and makes for a beautiful lyrical contrast to the first movement. The Waltz is not something you would want to try and dance to, with dramatic changes in tempo this movement will keep you on your toes. The fourth movement Song is a quiet interlude with vibraphone incorporated and makes for a ethereal and dream-like sound quality. Finally the Reel ends this piece with a lively and friendly note. Incorporated in this movement is a 7/8 time signature section as well as material quoted from the folk-song the Arkansas Traveller, although I always knew it as “Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee”.
Singing Wood is based upon interpretations of four woodcut prints: “Lake Louise” by Walter J. Phillips, “Singing Wood” by Gustave Baumann, “Willows and the Moon” by Arthur Wesley Dow and “Sierra Skyscrapers” by Frances Hammel Gearheart
Walter J. Phillips was an Canadian painter and printmaker born in England in 1884. He was artist in residence at the Banff School of arts in 1940 and later built and moved to a home in Banff. In 1960 he moved to Victoria where he retired and passed away 3 years later. He leaves a legacy as a fine painter and printmaker. (Source: https://www.lochgallery.com/exhibition/calgary-grand-opening-exhibition-walter-jphillips-june-15-26)
Gustave Baumann was a German born (1881) American artist and attended the Art Institute of Chicago as well as Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich and studied wood carving. He later moved to Santa Fe and became a member of the Taos Society of Artists and performed with marionettes! He passed away in Santa Fe in 1971. (Source: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/gustave-baumann-282)
Arthur Wesley Dow was born in 1857 in Massachusetts and studied in Paris and became an important commercial designer. in 1895 he met curator Ernest Fenollos, who introduced the artist to woodblock prints of Hiroshige and Hokusai. He continued to teach and in 1899 published Composition which had a series of exercises for students. He died in 1922 in New York. (Source https://americanart.si.edu/artist/arthur-wesley-dow-1325)
In 1869 Frances Hammell Gearhart was born in Sagetown and became a teacher of English History in Los Angeles Schools. She is considered self taught however spend summers studying with with Charles H. Woodbury and Henry R. Poore. In 1919 she joined the Print Makers Society of California and became an influential artist in the community. She participated in many shows and her works can be found in the United Stated as well as Toronto. She died in Pasadena, California in 1958. (Source: https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/781/Gearhart/Frances)
Composer Greg Danner was born in Missouri in 1958 and is currently Professor of Music at Tennessee Technological University. He has won many awards for both composition as well as teaching. As a performer he has held positions at numerous symphonies and currently plays horn with the Jack Daniels Silver Cornet Band, the Southern Stars Symphonic Brass Band, and is a freelance and studio musician in the Nashville area.
Lisa Neher is an American Composer born in Seattle and writes theatrical, dramatic music. She draws inspiration for her instrumental works from the natural world, and in the case of Gulper evoking the eerie mystery of deep ocean life.
The gulper eel or pelican eel is not an eel at all but a deep-water fish named for it’s enormous, pelican-like mouth, which is much larger than the rest of its long, skinny body. At the end of its tail, the gulper eel has a special organ with many small tentacles that glows pink and occasionally flashes red to attract prey, mostly squid and crustaceans.
It is tragic and deeply frustrating that what little we know about these animals comes from those inadvertently caught in fishing nets. The sudden change of temperature as they are pulled fromthe depths to the surface kills them, and thus research on live gulper eels in their natural habit is extremely limited.
In this piece, the gulper eel comes to life, illuminating its lure, lying in wait for prey, moving about in the deep sea with its whip-like tail, and finally coming in for the kill. I hope this piece cultivated interest and empathy for this fascinating and mysterious creature.
We are priveleged to know Kendra Harder from our time living in Saskatoon and even more thrilled that she wrote the piece Cat Fight for us. Inspired by our two cats Artemis and Xena who incidentally are also from Saskatoon.
Kendra is making waves as a composer by writing works for opera in Musique 3 Femmes: The Next Wave and is now working with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and Toronto based ensemble Collectif on a project called “Mozart Reimagined”.
Cat Fight is a sort of limping tango (Artemis is a three-legged cat) with comic and Klezmer inspired elements. It is a single movement work for clarinet, marimba and snare drum, highly melodic and fun it will be featured mid program. Stay tuned for recorded snippets of this work.
Without further adieu, our contenders:
Announcer Voice:
In this corner, the three-legged terror, Artemis the Hunter!!!!! Thunderous applause
#teamArtemis
And in this corner, Warrior Princess, destroyer of couches, Xeeeeeena! Thunderous Applause
#teamXena
The title work for our February concert Message Exchange is by American composer Rain Worthington. We are so happy that she is allowing us to perform the Canadian premiere of this work.
Rain Worthington’s compositions have been performed from Iceland to Brazil, Japan to India. Self-taught in composition, her catalog includes orchestral, chamber, duo, solo and miniature works. Her orchestral music has been premiered in the U.S. and internationally in Italy and Brazil. “There is a deep interiority to this music . . . a composer of considerable imagination, emotional expressiveness, and poetic sensibility.” – American Record Guide
Program note: The two movements – I. That’s What I Heard, II. Are You Sure? of “Message Exchange” were inspired as an electronic-age reimagining of the 1948 humorous painting “The Gossips” by Americana painter Norman Rockwell.
Check out the painting “The Gossips” from the Norman Rockwell Museum!
Our concert Message Exchange will now take place on February 21st, 2020 at 7:30pm. We are excited to be performing at the Robin and Winifred Wood Recital Hall at the Victoria Conservatory of Music on 907 Pandora Avenue. The concert will be featuring works by composers such as the title piece Message Exchange by Rain Worthington. Also featured is our commission and the work we performed at ClarinetFest 2018 Cat Fight by Kendra Harder.
Tickets will go on sale at noon on January 24th at tickets and at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall box office phone number is 250-386-5311 900 Johnson street.
Keep checking back for more details on the works being performed in the coming weeks!
Recently I (Melissa) joined the talented faculty at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. I will be teaching not only at the downtown location but also at the Westhills location in Langford. There are a variety of programs offered such as private lessons, group lessons, masterclasses, recitals and chamber music. I am excited to be able to offer more than I could on my own. Let me know if you would like to take part in these programs!
