Super concert with Thin Edge

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.

"Through closed doors" premiere

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.

Dobrochna Zubek performing "The Child, Bringer of Light"

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).

New Year = New Notation

As discussed earlier, I am working on a piece for two violins built around an antique wooden door. Since this piece is already in an unusual form, I thought I would make it even more complicated by trying out some new notational techniques. I have completely done away with dynamic markings and bow pressure indications. Instead, I am using the staff lines themselves to shape the musical line. As much as possible, I am also trying to incorporate accents into this more visual system.

Through closed doors-1

I think the result is very intuitive. The dynamics are completely relative and bow pressure is not an ugly black wedge above the staff. I am hoping this approach will eliminate the arguments about the difference between mp and mf, and give the performers an opportunity to react to the page in a more emotional and intuitive way. It also makes the staff look like wood patterns, which makes me happy.

Through closed doors-2

I think this sort of notation would only really work with certain types of material. What I’m writing is fairly simple in terms of melody and rhythm, and the music doesn’t move up and down the staff very much. In fact, much of it happens below it or above it. So far, Ilana and Suhashini are not reporting any problems with legibility, but I think it would become an issue if I was writing anything much more complex. If the spacing between lines changes too much, I think it would be difficult to maintain any sort of reference point.

Through closed doors-3

Since I will be engraving the score onto a wooden door, this project must involve several stages. I would like to really test out the music before committing it for eternity to such a solid medium. The musical portion of this semi-theatrical work will be premiered by the wonderful Thin Edge New Music Collective in Toronto on February 21. The door itself will follow at a later date. I will also be making a colour paper score using some fancy markers and calligraphy pens (see my past hand-scoring work here).

Through closed doors-4

New Year = New Media

I started off 2014 with a brand new piece: a violin duo for Thin Edge New Music Collective. This piece is a fortuitous coming together of a commission and an idea that had been stewing at the back of my mind for quite some time.

To earn a living, I spend quite a bit of time restoring antique wooden doors, windows and all their trims. I have grown to really love these unique pieces built from beautiful oldgrowth timbre and hardened by a hundred years of service. I spend quite a number of hours with each piece slowly peeling off years of paint, sanding away the grime and revealing the highly varied wood patterns beneath.

Staring at the wavering lines made me think of musical phrases. Imagining notes on a horizontal wooden surface brought to mind early vocal music performed around a table. The individual parts would be oriented towards all four sides of a sheet of paper, which was placed in the middle of this table so all the performers could see their music. Naturally, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to engrave a score onto a door?

So when Ilana Waniuk from Thin Edge asked me to write a violin duo for her and Suhashini Arulanandam, sparks started flying from my brain. Imagine two young women, dressed in black, playing their wooden violins around a wooden door! Visual perfection!!!

The chosen door in its original condition 

The door

Now imagine that the chosen door was also attacked with a hatchet or cleaver at some point leaving a jagged hole in one of the panels. DRAMA!!!!

After the attack, the hole was patched with a little piece of plywood

The door's wound

So I’ve spend the last few weeks working out the relationship between these two imaginary women trapped on opposite sides of a locked door. This relationship does not seem very peaceful, I must admit.

The door being stripped of the cheery green paint

The stripping of the door

 

** The door was generously donated by a friend. Thank you! **