Volume 24 Issue 7 - April 2019

PERRY WALKER Jamie Day

PERRY WALKER Jamie Day Fleck with Marjan Mozetich “He had a lot of courage to do that,” accordianist Joseph Petric remarks in the film, “because it wasn’t a very popular style. And yet he’s become, in time, the most performed composer in the country.” contemporary composers, and a professor of composition at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, listened and was impressed. Harman remembered the program: “The first sounds I heard consisted of abrasive scratch tones played by a string quintet; these eventually gave way to vigorously bowed passages outlining clustered pitch collections, in turn leading to a plaintive modal chant and finally, an austere dissonant chorale. When finished, the work was identified as Serenata del nostro tempo (1973) by Marjan Mozetich. There followed an interview in which Marjan explained how he had eschewed such sensibilities to embrace a lighter and more whimsical style in works such as Fantasia...sul un linguaggio perduto (1981). I was absolutely intrigued. How does one reinvent one’s self in such a manner? Is one such ‘self’ more authentic than another ‘self?’” In the course of producing that concert recording and broadcast, I had mentioned to Mozetich that his quartet, Fantasia...sul un linguaggio perduto (...on a lost language), might work well in an adaptation for string orchestra. He subsequently did just that, and his string orchestra adaptation has become one of his most performed works. Not too many years later, in 1989, CBC Records accepted my proposal to make a CD of Mozetich’s music on their Musica Viva sub-label. The CD, titled Procession, included the Amadeus Ensemble, a string ensemble led by Moshe Hammer, joined by guest soloists Joseph Petric, accordion, and harpist Erica Goodman. The recording included several important pieces in Mozetich’s developing style, such as Dance of the Blind, the string orchestra version of Fantasia... sul un linguaggio perduto, and his 1981 work for harp and strings, El Dorado. It was this latter work which revealed the special feeling that Mozetich had for the harp. As Mozetich told me: “It all started with El Dorado and my friendship with harpist Erica Goodman. It was with this work that it all gelled with me and the harp. Over the years Erica commissioned three other works with harp which have all been recorded. I think it is the unique resonance and visual allure of the harp that attracted me to it. Subsequently I wrote four quintessential harp pieces, Songs of Nymphs, that are performed by numerous harpists around the world. To date I’ve written seven works with significant harp parts.” One of those harp pieces, The Passion of Angels, actually includes two harps: Mozetich wrote the work in 1995 on a commission from CBC Radio Music, for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and harp soloists Nora Bumanis and Julia Shaw. Mozetich moved to the Kingston, Ontario area in 1990, initially to find the solitude he needed to compose. The move was just what he needed, and many of his most successful scores come from the post- 1990 period. In 1992, he wrote the imposed Canadian work for the Banff International String Quartet Composition, supported again by a commission from CBC Radio Music. The quartet, Lament in the Trampled Garden helped the St. Lawrence String Quartet win not only the Banff competition overall, but also the award for the best performance of the imposed work that year. In Fleck’s film, Barry Shiffman, one of the founding members of the St. Lawrence says: “After winning the competition we went on to share that piece that he wrote in concerts all over the world.” All the repertoire on the CD, Affairs of the Heart, was composed during this period. Besides the violin concerto that gives the CD its title, there is the double harp concerto, The Passion of Angels, and a set of short pieces for string orchestra, Postcards from the Sky, composed in 1996. Vancouver producer Karen Wilson, who was managing the CBC Radio Orchestra at the time, had met Mozetich while serving on an arts council jury. They hit it off, became friends, and when that fateful broadcast of Affairs of the Heart created scores of “driveway experiences” and CBC switchboards lit up all over the country, she knew she would have to quickly get a proposal together for the CBC Records selection committee. The recording with the radio orchestra under Mario Bernardi, and soloists Juliette Kang, Nora Burmanis and Julia Shaw, went flawlessly, and by the summer of 2000, the CDs were being scooped up by the truckload by thousands of consumers who couldn’t get enough Mozetich into their listening lives. Randy Barnard, who was the managing director of CBC Records at the time, said: “A Canadian composition outpacing core repertoire was a rarity, never mind becoming a bestseller in the catalogue.” The original CBC Records CD has been out of stock for years, but it’s now available as Centrediscs catalogue number CD-CMCCD 21815. For ordering information, see: cmccanada.org/shop/CD-CMCCD-21815. Mozetich has made an impact in the Kingston community since settling there almost 20 years ago. In the film, Glen Fast, the conductor emeritus of the Kingston Symphony notes: “I think Kingston knows they’re lucky to have him here, in this position as a composer, as a real music maker, as a substantial composer with his own voice.” Mozetich also taught as an adjunct professor of composition at Queens University most of those years. He retired from that position last June. John Burge, who, along with his teaching at Queens, is also in charge of the Queens Faculty Artists Series, commented in the film: “I know that if I can find a way to integrate Mozetich’s music into the concerts that we put on in Kingston it’ll make everyone happy. And I can tell you, that if we present a concert that has Marjan’s music programmed, there will be people that will come because they just want to hear Marjan’s music. They just want to see him walk up onstage and talk about his music.” As for hearing live performances of Mozetich’s music this month, the Niagara Symphony Orchestra and music director Bradley Thachuck will perform his Postcards from the Sky on Saturday, April 27 at 7:30pm and Sunday, April 28 at 2:30pm in the recital hall in the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines. David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster based in Toronto. 14 | April 2019 thewholenote.com

KOERNER HALL 10 th ANNIVERSARY 2018.19 Concert Season Marina Piccinini SUN., APR. 7, 1PM MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL Free (ticket required) Flutist Marina Piccinini, hailed by Gramophone as “the Heifetz of the flute,” is joined by pianist Benjamin Smith in this performance of works by Aaron Copland, Bach, Strauss, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Elliott Carter. Generously supported by Dorothy Cohen Shoichet Richard Goode SUN., APR. 7, 3PM KOERNER HALL, Tickets start at only “It is virtually impossible to walk away from one of Mr. Goode’s recitals without the sense of having gained some new insight, subtle or otherwise, into the works he played or about pianism itself.” (The New York Times) Goode will perform an all Ludwig van Beethoven program. Presented in memory of Robert Calvin Rebanks Family Fellowship Concert WED., APR. 10, 7:30PM / MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL Free tickets for this concert will be available starting Wed. Apr. 3 Hear artists on the cusp of major careers. This concert features solo and chamber works performed by Rebanks Fellows currently enrolled in the one-year Rebanks Family Fellowship and International Performance Residency Program at The Glenn Gould School. Presented with the generous support of the Rebanks Family and Academy Chamber Orchestra SUN., APR. 28, 7PM KOERNER HALL Free tickets for this concert will be available starting Mon. Apr. 22, 2019 String students from The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists come together as the Academy Chamber Orchestra to perform this special concert. Luca Pisaroni and Thomas Hampson: No Tenors Allowed TUES., APR. 30, 8PM PRE-CONCERT TALK 7PM KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni returns to Koerner Hall, this time with his father-in-law, famed American baritone Thomas Hampson, for a light and fun evening of operatic arias and Broadway songs. Presented in memory of Gary Miles András Keller conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra FRI., APR. 26, 8PM / PRELUDE RECITAL 6:45PM / PRE-CONCERT TALK 7:15PM / KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only Hungarian violinist, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra, and founder of the Keller Quartet, András Keller leads the RCO in a performance of Shostakovich,Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Part of the Temerty Orchestral Program TICKETS & SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208 RCMUSIC.COM/PERFORMANCE 273 BLOOR STREET WEST 237 (BLOOR ST. STREET & AVENUE WEST RD.) (BLOOR TORONTO ST. & AVENUE RD.) TORONTO ´ ´ ´ ´