The Happenstancers latest concert We’re Late! happenstanced on Saturday evening at Redeemer Lutheran.  It was a typical Happenstancers sort of event with chamber music works for various forces split up into their movements with the components then rearranged to make an interesting line up.

Lukas Foss’ Time Cycle provided the opening piece which also provided the title for the concert as a whole.  It’s a setting of Auden for soprano and chamber ensemble and begins “Clocks cannot tell our time of day”.  Which was pretty much the theme for the evening.  This was followed by Toshi Ichiyangi’s Music for Electric Metronomes which had the whole ensemble banging things rhythmically and making stylsed gestures.  Then came the first of three parts of rather a good musical joke; John Cage’s 4’33” arranged into three movements for different forces. which as might be expected cropped up at intervals during the show.  For the record the movements were scored for piano and percussion, conductor and oboe and percussion.

Elliott Carter’s Tempo e Tempi; an eight movement work was presented straight up.  The oiece is scored for soprano, clarinets, oboe, violin and cello and sets a series of short time related texts.  More Cage and another Foss movement; this time a setting of a Housman poem I’d never heard before; “When the Bells Justle” took us to the break.  Interesting scoring here including some very loud bells.

After the break more Foss; this time a Kafka setting, followed by Anna Korsun’s Moshi Moshi, which involved the ensemble processing around the church doing strange things with their phones.  It started quite conversational but then got more insistent and angrier; “we have no time” before subsiding into something more gentle.  Then more Cage plus three movements from Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.  It’s one of my favourite chamber pieces and it was beautifully played.

The last Foss movement sets a series of declamatory phrases from “Also sprach Zarathustra” which provided an interesting contrast with Messiaen’s ecstatic Chants de terre et de ciel; for soprano, clarinet, oboe, violin, cello, piano and percussion.  It’s loud, insistent and inventive and a splendid close to an interesting programme.

And so to our boiler suited ensemble.  They were excellent across a wide range of musical styles and at doing what Humphrey Lyttleton used to describe as “silly things to do”.  So props to Eiizabeth Polese (soprano), Aleh Remezau (sundry oboes), Brad Cherwin (multiple clarinets), Hee-Soo Yee (violin), Sarah Gans (cello), Jean-Luc Therrien (keyboards) and Bevis Ng (percussion).  And a special mention for conductor Simon Rivard who was precise and clear at all times (especially in the Cage).

Some serious thought went into planning a most intriguing concert and some serious musicianship into executing it.  In some ways it was the most ambitious Happenstancers gig I’ve been at and I hope there will be many more.