which will explore new music and its philosophical, sociological and psychological underpinnings. On Friday March l lth at .8:00, a concert will take place at the Church of the Redeemer, 162 Bloor St. W. The next day, the symposium and concert take place from 10 until 5 p.m. at Canada Court in the Royal Ontario Museum. Speakers at the symposium include Mark Kingwell, Russell Smith, Wayne Koescenbaum and Jan Zwicky. The concert is reprised on Sunday March 13th at 2:00 at the ROM. All events are free. For more info phone 416-924-4945. Earshot Concerts presents its sixteenth concert, Impromptu, featuring acclaimed trombonist Scott Good in concert with ensemble, performing compositions by Aaron Gervais Jerome Blais, and more. This concert tak'es place at Victoria College Chapel, 91 Charles St. W., on Sunday March 20th at 8:00. Tickets are , $10 for seniors and members, for students. Also on March 20th, Ensemble Noir presents African composer Martin Scherzinger and his ensemble in a concert of music by Scherzinger, Kevin Volans, and Bongani Ndodana at the Winchester Theatre, 80 Winchester St. This concert starts at 7:30. Tickets are , for seniors and students. New Music Concerts presents world-renowned composer, conductor and oboist Heinz Holliger at the Jane Mallett Theatre on March 29th. Mr. Holliger will lead the New Music Concerts Ensemble and the U of T Contemporary Music Ensemble in a program of Holliger's music, as well as Elliot Carter's 2001 Oboe Quartet, written for Mr. Holliger. Please note that the date of this concert was changed from April 1 to March 29, and that the Jane Mallett is a change of venue as well. Tickets for this significant show are , for seniors, and for students. In an affiliated event, the U of T Thursday Noon Series, presents Mr. Holliger with the U of T Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Gary Kulesha on March 3 lst at Walter Hall at 12: 10. This is a free event. So, shake off the winter doldrums and open your ears to the music Toronto offers up! Keith Denning is webmaster of the new music coalition website www. torontohearandnow. corn COMPOSER To Composer INTERVIEW WITH DENYS BOULIANE FEBRUARY 2005 Denys Bouliane (born 1955) is a composer, conductor, teacher, concen presenter, and verbal dynamo. On March 6th, he visits Toronto as guest conductor of Esprit Orchestra in the premiere of his piece La neige est blanche, mais l'eau est noir (Snow is white, but water is black), before travelling back to Montreal with the orchestra to perform it at Montreal/ Nouvelles Musiques (28 February to 10March). What follows is a linear cross-section of our fast-paced discussion. PAUL STEENHUISEN: At times I'm skeptical about the ' interview process. We 're experts in our field but perhaps I doubt that we can get close to the true idea of your work through words. Is this necessary hyperbole? For the time being I'LL suspend judgement. On the one hand, this statement is a suitable argument against our conversation, and on the other hand it's a fitting introduction to your piece, La neige est blanche, mais L'eau est noir. BOULIANE: It is, yes. When talking about music we must accept that it's a bit triv.ial, but it can also make us understand what's behi!1d a piece. I talk about music as a metaphor - it's a transposition. If we could express in words and verbal concepts what music conveys, we wouldn't need music. But one tries to convey an idea. I have the tendency to come up with strange programme notes and now I realize that they have the purpose of saying something about how I feel, what I thought, NEW MUSIC QUICK PICKS For details on these, see the comprehensive concert listings, commencing on page 42 NN = some contemporary repertoire NNN = thoroughly contemporary NI = new/improvised music Discover new sio an if's'fq tisth Tor iif.llf+& ListMe is a unique mailing list servicing Toronto's New Music organizations. It is for everyone who wants to be kept informed about the many New Musi
what I believe, how I perceive my own situation as a human being in the world, and how to discuss it in music. The programme notes are also used to trigger imagination. For example, my piece Contredanse du silene Badouny (1998) is four minutes long, but the program notes take longer to read than it takes to I isten to the piece. That's done on purpose just to show how paradoxical it is to write about music. In the case of La neige est blanche, mais l 'eau est noir, it relates to ancient Greek philosophy, from the fourth or fifth century. In particular, one thread of philosophy, the so-called "skeptical" school and the philosophers around Sextus Empiricus and J.C. Pyrrhon. They call themselves "zetetics" - they're looking for something, they're researchers - they have a way of thinking called epoche, which is suspending judgement. This is also used a lot by Hegel. The idea is to look at something from different angles, and in a different light, rather than sticking to one perspective. Music can also be like that, and for a long time, the ideas of paradox and suspending judgment have been part of my being. If you think of the title, The snow is white, but water is black, it's what Sextus called "discordance" - a statement that has the appearance of logic, but isn't logical. With the word "but", the title seems to induce a relationship between the first half of the sentence and the second. Snow is white - this I can accept; water is black - well, one can imagine dirty water - it's possible, but why is the black there? This is where your brain· starts triggering back and forth the many possibilities you can find - it leaves you with an endless thinking, a chain of thought that you can't really bring to a conclusion. I like that. STEENHUISEN: How does this relate to the music itself? ter, and I'm playing with that. The second movement is "Frosted BOULIANE: Jn the process of composing it I used some elements of snow and water. For example, the first movement is called "Snowball Ciaconna". A snowball is a frozen state of wa- Passacaglia". There we have another state of water, starting to freeze. The third movement is "Canto figurato with melting ground". There you have the melting of the ice. Of course, I don't think the music represents that as such, but it's a mixing of meanings, of pseudomeanings, which come from the title. As a composer, it's extremely fruitful for me to think this way. I find that it triggers my imagination. For example, the first movement, the Ciaconna, explores the idea of accumulation, the snowball effect. That means what you've got is a very short motive (sings...) that's the repeated ciaccona - very, very short. Then it proliferates. It gets expanded, changes speed a little bit, slower at times, faster, and repeats and CONTINUES NEXT PAGE Sunday, March 6, 2005 at 8.00 pm Alex Pauk and Denys Bouliane, conductors GUEST ARTISTS: Erica Goodman, harp I Colleen Skull, soprano I David Pomeroy, tenor PROGRAMME: Alex Pauk Concerto for Harp and Orchestra Denys Bouliane Snow is white but water is black World Premiere Alexina Louie Prologue, Berceuse and The Death of Seigen (from the opera The Scarlet Princess) Thursday, May 26, 2005 at 8.00 pm Chris Paul Harman Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Paul Frehner Sanctuary, Profanity Scott Wilson Four Names of Beauty Gyula Bankovi Accord(ion) Concerto GUEST SOLOISTS: Shauna Rolston, cello /Joseph Macerollo, accordion * World Premiere * world Premiere World Premiere Canadian Premiere 'ESPRIT ORCHESTRA COMMISSION w w w .espr torchestra MARCH 1 - APRIL 7 2005 WWW. THEWHOLENOTE.COM . c o m S t I ..•(., ...1 St. Lawrcncl: Centre for the Am
