Volume 30 Issue 3 | December 2024 & January 2025

IN WITH THE

IN WITH THE NEWDECEMBERDROUGHT,JANUARY FLOODWENDALYN BARTLEYAfter a drought of new music events duringDecember (not unusual), a flood arrives in Januarywith the Royal Conservatory of Music’s 21C NewMusic festival and the University of Toronto New MusicFestival following back to back. While taking placegeographically less than five minutes walk apart, theycould not be more different in their approaches.21C at a glanceAs is customary, the 21C Festival invites a local new music presenterto contribute one concert to the festival. This year’s communitypartner is Continuum Contemporary Music, with a program to celebratetheir 40th season. Their January 25 concert will present sixcompositions chosen to feature flutist and core ensemble memberLeslie Newman (who will perform Terrestre by Kaija Saariaho). And,as is often the case with 21C, the community partner concert willinclude a newly commissioned work from a locally based composerwho is perhaps not as well-known to audiences here as they shouldbe – in this case Kotoka Suzuki, who is currently teaching music andcomposition at the University of Toronto, dividing her time betweenthe Scarborough campus and the downtown Faculty of Music.(Suzuki’s new work for Continuum is one of 14 premieres featured atthis year’s 21C, which offers eight concerts, most of them in January.)On January 24 Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee joinsthe Hannaford Street Silver Band and the Aaron Davis Trio to repriseZombie Blizzard, a new song cycle commissioned by the Hannafordsfrom composer Aaron Davis, based on a Margaret Atwood collectionof poems titled Dearly. The work, which features a recording of eachpoem read by Atwood before each song in the cycle is sung, premieredto acclaim at the Jane Mallett Theatre on March 3 of this year.Another highlight of the festival will be the North Americanpremiere of Bernard Foccroulle’s The Journal of Hélène Berr. Thislyrical drama offers a poignant tribute to the Parisian Jewish diaristand musician who perished in the Holocaust, and features excerptsfrom Berr’s diary, written between 1942 and 1944. There will be threeperformances of the piece on January 21, 22 and 23.The festival will also showcase concerts by exceptional performerspassionate about new music. On January 18, Imani Winds will joinpianist Michelle Cann for an eclectic program featuring the Canadianpremiere of a work by American composer and flutist ValerieColeman. Coleman, the creator of the Imani Winds and a prominentAfrican American composer, was named Performance Today’s 2020Classical Woman of the year.Kotoka SuzukiThat same evening, an Afterhours concert will feature performersfrom the Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble in an innovativeprogram includes a piece by Italian composer Luca Francesconi,two compositions by Alice Ping Yee Ho - one of which, Dark Waters,was written about in my October/November column - and a worldpremiere by Canadian composer Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, one of tworecipients of this year’s Kathleen McMorrow Music Award.Finally, later on in the spring, the eclectic singer-songwriter andpianist Bruce Hornsby teams up with the genre-defying ensembleyMusic on May 3, to offer a rich encore to January’s musical feast –a program of ten Canadian premieres, works that combine musicalinnovation with a concern for the environment and the climate crisis.Suzuki’s In Praise of Shadows. This adaptation for a singleplayer was created and performed by Aiyun Huang forthe U of T New Music Festival in February 2021Kotoka Suzuki, composerSuzuki’s commission for Continuum Contemporary Music’s 21CJanuary 25 concert is still, at time of writing, a work in progress but itsconceptual underpinnings, she says, are solidly in place.Her approach has evolved significantly since she last wrote forContinuum (in 1999), reflecting a growing interest in the relationshipbetween sound and space – elements which her work with electronicmedia allows her to combine.“I’m very strategic about placing the speakers and instrumentalistsin certain positions to create a certain kind of movement in relationto space,” she explained. “This will be a challenge for the new piecebecause it’s solely for instruments (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, pianoand percussion featuring the vibraphone).”GUANGLONG PENG & HENGJIE ZHAO AIYAN HUANG10 | December 2024 & January 2025 thewholenote.com

Her primary inspiration for the piece was snowflakes, in particularthe complex ways that snowflake crystals form. “Usually [they] havesix stems, but sometimes they form irregular shapes, like twelvesidedcrystals or a triangular shape. I want to create an illusion of thismotion as the snowflake is formed,” she said.Suzuki’s compositions are often nature inspired. A recent projectwith Canadian pianist Megumi Masaki was titled Hearing Ice, atheme which she admits may have influenced her thinking for thisnew piece. Another upcoming project is a collaboration with Masakiand Austrian video artist, Claudia Rohrmoser with whom she’s beenworking since 2001. This piece too will continue her practice ofmerging artistic mediums.For interested readers, there is also a CD devoted exclusively toher music, titled Shimmer, Tree with seven works, spanning a rangefrom purely electronic to purely acoustic, that give a sense of hercomposing scope. Among these is a playful but intense piece titledIn Praise of Shadows, written for instruments made from paper andperformed in combination with fixed electronics, and scored forthree performers who rely on microphones to amplify the delicatepaper sounds: blowing through different size tubes, moving paperon surfaces, setting paper chimes in motion, and swishing a long rodwith hanging strips of paper – a structure that looks like a giant carwash mop.The score specifies paper types and sizes, while encouraging playersto create their own instruments, Suzuki explains. She meticulouslytested different paper types and sizes while composing, discoveringthat every type of paper sounds differently. This piece also mourns theloss of the tangible in our digital-saturated world, using paper as asymbolic medium.Yet another paper-based work on the CD, Orison, is scored for threemusic boxes and fixed electronics. The music boxes allow performersto create their own music by punching notes onto paper rolls, feedingthe punched rolls through the boxes, then passing them on to theneighbouring player when done.We concluded our conversation by discussing her very differentteaching roles, mentioned earlier, at the two different Universityof Toronto campuses. At U of T Scarborough campus, she says, theprogram has a different goal than at the downtown campus. TheUTSC music program is exclusively for undergraduates and is opento anyone who wants to study music, with electronics as a core partof the curriculum. She spoke passionately about the opportunity thisprovides to create pathways for underprivileged and underrepresentedstudents who really want to pursue music. By contrast, at the downtowncampus she advises graduate students, including those interestedin electronic music.She seems well suited to both roles.Distinguished Visitor in Composition Lecture will feature Iranianborncomposer Reza Vali, currently on the faculty at Carnegie MellonUniversity. Vali’s work will be included in a program of Iranian musicon January 31, and he will also lead two composition masterclasses.Additionally, an Iranian music symposium and performance will takeplace on February 1.The renowned JACK Quartet, known for their innovative chambermusic programs and educational activities, will also join the festival.As the string quartet in residence at The New School in New York City,they will host a reading session on campus and perform a concert onJanuary 30 at the Jane Mallett Theatre, presented in collaboration withMusic Toronto. Their program includes Philip Glass’s String QuartetNo. 5 and a world premiere by American composer and pianist AmyWilliams, who will also give a noon-hour recital on January 31 atWalter Hall.Another highlight is the participation of Amsterdams’ Orkest DeEreprijs, a dynamic ensemble also dedicated to performing worksby living composers, including interdisciplinary projects in dance,theatre and film. They will offer a composition workshop, a concerton January 29, and a noon-hour performance of student works onJanuary 30.The festival will also be celebrating the talent within U of T, withrecitals and performances by various student ensemble, including theopera student composer collective; student composer concerts, the Uof T Wind Ensemble, the DOG ensemble and jazz faculty, PercussionEnsemble, and Contemporary Music Ensemble.A fitting preview to UTNMF takes place January 24 with thepremiere of Norbert Palej’s accordion concerto entitled LacrymaeRerum - Tears of Things. Faculty member Palej has for several yearsbeen a key organizer of the festival. His concerto will be performedby one of the world’s top accordionists, Maciej Frackiewicz as part ofa Sinfonia Toronto concert at Trinity-St. Paul’s Jeanne Lamon Hall.The collaboration between Palej and Frackiewicz was inspired bySinfonia Toronto’s conductor Nurhan Arman, who was captivated byFrackiewicz’s artistry in a concert he conducted in Germany in 2022and brought the two together. Frackiewicz will also be performing arecital on January 26 at Walter Hall as part of the festival.Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocalsound artist. Sounddreaming @gmail.comU of T New Music Festival (UTNMF):This year’s festival is jam-packed with concerts, workshops,recitals, and an impressive lineup of visiting performers and collaborationswith local music presenters. Their signature Roger D. MooreReza ValiRashaan AllwoodKalaisan KalaichelvanREZA VALIKathleen McMorrow Music AwardComposers Rashaan Allwood and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan arethe recipients of this year’s ,000 Kathleen McMorrow MusicAward for contemporary classical music by Ontario composers.Kalaichelvan’s chamber orchestra work C’est Pas Beau?, commissionedby the Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble, willpremiere at the 21C Music Festival on January 18. Allwood’s newwork Black Ice, for piano and nine instruments, will premiereFebruary 8, 2025 with New Music Concerts in Toronto.thewholenote.com December 2024 & January 2025 | 11