Unruly Sounds in Princeton

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Anna

I am excited to be performing my piece What else can I give him? at the Unruly Sounds Festival taking place tomorrow (Sunday, Oct 2) outside of the Princeton Public Library in Princeton, NJ. I will be joined by Nick Tolle (cimbalom), Mark Eichenberger (percussion) and Florent Ghys (bass), who premiered the piece with me in December 2015. We are welcoming a new violinist, Andie Springer, for this performance.

The festival is free and will run from 12:30 to 7:00 pm. I will be performing around 2:00 pm. The rain location is inside the public library’s community room. For more info on the festival, visit this Facebook page.

What else can I give him? is part of a growing cycle of pieces I call ‘invented folksongs’ – pieces which draw heavily from the Ukrainian folksong tradition and marry it with a more contemporary compositional approach. Here’s a recording of the premiere performance with super duper violinist Courtney Orlando:

Leading up to the festival, composer-vocalist Annika Socolofsky and I got to visit Community Park Elementary school to chat and play with some kids in grades 4 and 5. Annika showed them some really cool ways to use their voices, and I told them about my upcoming opera Wild Dogs. We did some great howling, yipping, barking, chirping and croaking together. The kids made particularly great frogs hoping up with every “Enid” croak. I’ve never done something like this before and was surprised at how much fun I had with the kids.

Birds-of-Paradise in Korea

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Anna

Tomorrow, April 22, gamin and Alexander Sheykin will perform my piece On the courtship displays of Birds-of-Paradise at the National Gugak Centre in Seoul. This duo for saenghwang and accordion was commissioned by Soundstreams and premiered earlier this year by gamin and Michael Bridge in Toronto. This performance, entitled “Paradise Laboratory”, will include traditional Korean dancers and improvisations by gamin. It will be the first time that my music is heard in Asia.

For more information, visit the National Gugak Centre site.

This woodblock print is my study of the transformation of the Black Sicklebill.

“Like doves” in Edmonton

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Anna

My piano trio Like doves with grey wings embracing, which was originally written for the Gryphon Trio, will be presented at New Music Edmonton’s Now Hear This festival. The piece will be performed by members of the Violet Collective at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church (10037 84 Ave) on Sunday, March 20 at 2 pm.

I’m happy to be sharing the program with Colin Labadie and Lesley Hinger, two very talented composers whom I met back in 2012 at the National Arts Centre Emerging Composers’ Program. The concert also features music by Talia Amar, Alex Mincek, Lansing McLoskey, Erin Rogers, Morgan Krauss.

This is the second time that my music is featured at this festival and I am eternally grateful for their support.

More info about the concert can be found here. Check out the rest of the festival here.

The Gryphons in Ukraine

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Anna

I am super excited that the Gryphon Trio will be taking Like doves with grey wings embracing to Ukraine in a few weeks. This amazing ensemble will perform in Kyiv on September 28 (6:00 pm) as part of the Kyiv Music Fest. Please watch the festival’s Facebook page for locations. On October 4 (11 pm), they are performing in Lviv’s Contrasts Festival. This will be the first time that my music is heard in Ukraine. It’s amusing that a Canadian ensemble is importing music to the country of my birth.

Added info:

The Kyiv concert takes place at the following location: Будинок Актора, вул. Ярославів Вал, 7.

Wild Dogs Project

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Anna

I am super pleased to finally announce that for the past year I have been involved in the development of a brand new chamber opera based on Helen Humphrey‘s novel Wild Dogs. The project is being produced in Vancouver by Robert Carey and his black bachx opera lab. The opera is set in a small Ontario town plagued by unemployment and a pack of feral dogs made up of former pets, which have either escaped or been thrown out by their struggling owners.

I recently participated in a three-day libretto workshop with librettist Val Brandt, dramaturg Ann Hodges, producer Robert Carey and a crew of six fantastic actors (Kyle Jespersen, Heather Pawsey, Julia Arkos, David Adams, Shawn Macdonald and Kayla Dunbar). Ann led the workshop in a beautifully smooth and professional manner getting all of us to articulate our interpretation of the novel and our vision for the opera. She expertly mined the actors for feedback using them as a kind of “consumer testing” group. These super talented performers truly inhabited the world of the libretto and gave remarkably insightful comments. Val pulled some all-nighters to make significant revisions, which could be workshopped yet again the next day. She’s a superhero! The libretto has a solid dramatic arc and is well on the way to completion. It was a remarkably productive and inspiring process, and I’m grateful to have been involved.

From top left: me, Kyle Jespersen, Heather Pawsey, Julia Arkos, David Adams, Ann Hodges, Val Brandt, Robert Carey; Bottom left: Shawn Macdonald, Kayla Dunbar

In the evening of the final day, we held a reading and information sessions for some invited guests. The actors were fabulous, the atmosphere buzzing with excitement. The workshop and reading session were held in the East Studio at the Post at 750, the new downtown Vancouver venue inhabited by PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Touchstone Theatre, Music on Main, and the DOXA Documentary Film Festival. Our time in the studio was generously donated by Music on Main.

In the next few months, Val will turn the currently more play-like libretto into a form more suitable for opera. I will start working on the music at the end of this year in preparation for the first music workshop scheduled for June 2016.

I would like to thank the Shevchenko Foundation and our private donors for sponsoring this project. I can’t wait to begin the music!

Interview on SoundLab

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Anna

Paul Steenhuissen recently interviewed me for his podcast series SoundLab. The interview was commissioned by Toronto’s New Music Concerts in preparation for the Ukrainian-Canadian Connection concert happening on April 4th, which will feature the premiere of my piece Weeping. Paul asked some very probing and difficult questions, which forced me to define my compositional practice and goals.

We discussed my work with Ukrainian folk music, focusing specifically on Weeping and the grieving songs which inspired and shaped it, as well as an earlier piece Bridal Train, which was commissioned by the Thin Edge New Music Collective. We also talked about my explorations of childhood, Carl Jung’s archetypes and the cello in the piece The Child, Bringer of Light premiered by Paul Dwyer at Carnegie Hall. Finally, we discussed my work with graphic notation and unusual materials in the piece Through Closed Doors, also commissioned by Thin Edge.

In addition to recordings of my music, the podcast includes archival as well as my own recordings of Ukrainian folks music, and a bit of my singing. You can listen to the podcast online or download it here.

Prints and Postcards for sale

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Anna

I am now selling art prints and postcards derived from my hand-drawn scores. I will be adding more items as they become available so check the Purchase page or follow my Etsy store to stay in the loop. I ship the items from Princeton, New Jersey.

Art Prints

Through closed doors, Illuminated manuscript, page 1
$40 CAD
This 11×14″ art print is a high-quality copy of the first page from the hand-inked score for Through closed doors. It is digitally printed on thick watercolour paper with hand-made deckle edging. Available from Etsy.

Post Cards

Through closed doors, Illuminated postcard, page 1
$6 CAD
This 5×7″ postcard is based on the first page from the hand-inked score for Through closed doors. It is digitally printed on cardstock.Send through the mail as a lovely greeting or frame as wall art. Available from Etsy.

Through closed doors, Illuminated postcard, page 2
$6 CAD
This 5×7″ postcard is based on the second page from the hand-inked score for Through closed doors. It is digitally printed on cardstock.Send through the mail as a lovely greeting or frame as wall art. Available from Etsy.

“Ivan Kupalo” wins award

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Anna

I am ecstatic to announce that my chamber opera On the Eve of Ivan Kupalo has been awarded the BMO Mainstage Award by the Boston Metro Opera Company. I have no information yet beyond what is available on the website above, but it seems that the opera will receive a fully staged performance in Boston! I will post most details as they become available.

Ivan Kupalo shared the first prize in the Godfrey Rideout category of the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers in the summer of 2013.

Piano Trio Premiere

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Anna

On Wednesday (March 5), the Gryphon Trio will premiere my piano trio, Toss a flower on the water, which was created as part of the Soundstreams Emerging Composers’ Workshop. The performance will take place in the lobby of Roy Thomson Hall as part of a pre-concert event happening at TSO’s New Creations Festival, starting at 7:15 pm. The concert will also feature works by all the other workshop composers: Gabriel Dharmoo, Emilie Cecilia LeBel, Graham Flett, Adam Scime and Caitlin Smith. Click here for more info.

Toss a flower was directly inspired by my trips to Ukraine to research traditional folk vocal performance practice. In addition to recording many beautiful and often mournful songs, I also heard many stories. A common theme throughout my travels was domestic abuse, which is rampant in rural Ukraine. There are many folksongs dedicated to the subject as well.

This trio borrows thematic material, in a very fragmented form, from the folksong “Kalyna Malyna” which I recorded in October 2012 in the village Kozats’ke. This song compares a young woman stuck in an unhappy marriage to a guelder rose bush, its branches simultaneously weighed down by dew and wilting in the sun. The title of my trio refers to an image from another folksong on the same subject. Here a similarly abused young woman tosses a flower on the water to send a message to her loved ones. When her mother finds the flower wilted despite being in water, she laments the hardships which have caused her daughter to age before her time.

The original folksong is very cut up, its pieces emerging from and dissolving into shifting textures and colours, like the flower being carried and tossed by the force of the river. You can hear my original sketches here.

This trio was very difficult for me to finish. The subject matter is heavy. It was hard to keep track of the scordatura (different tuning) on both violin and cello. And I was trying to combine my love for Ukrainian folksong with my fascinating with string timbral effects. The final stages of the composing process also happened in Ukraine, right when the protests were starting up. The piece is now irreversibly tied to the momentous and tragic events, which have rocked the land of my birth in the last three months.

I am dedicating this premiere to Ukraine and its people’s ardent struggle for a better life and for freedom from corrupt governments both within and beyond its borders. Let these cycles of abuse finally break.

Super concert with Thin Edge

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Anna

I just want to say that I am thrilled with how the Thin Edge concert went last Friday. Gallery 345 is a beautiful space with great acoustics. The new violin duo, Through closed doors, looked great in there and Ilana and Suhashini sounded FANTASTIC! I couldn’t be happier with the piece at this stage in the process.

Photo by Terry Lim. Performers: Ilana Waniuk and Suhashini Arulanandam.

I am happy to say that the notation seems to be working exactly as planned. I feel so lucky to work with such adventurous and dedicated musicians. Now I’m waiting for the recording (and taking a little breather) before making some revisions and starting on the next stages: making the final layout of the score and engraving the door (if this sentence is confusing, look down at the last two posts).

I am also extremely happy to have met the cellist Dobrochna Zubek, who performed The Child, Bringer of Light. It was great working with her to prepare the piece. She approached it with thoughtfulness, sensitivity and a strong desire to make it her own. She is now the fourth performer to take it on and it’s fascinating to hear the transformations the piece goes through each time.

Photo by Terry Lim. Performer: Dobrochna Zubek.

Speaking of The Child and its transformations, the piece will be performed at the end of March by Claire Poillion in a brand new arrangement for viola. I am very curious to see how the piece will transfer to this instrument. The performance will be my Uruguayan debut (check the Events page for details).

Anna Pidgorna

Composer

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