The latest Happenstancers gig, which took place at 918 Bathurst on Thursday evening, was an exploration of the death of Ophelia and related ideas with works for assorted chamber ensembles plus/minus voices.  Ten composers; all of whom could at a stretch be considered “contemporary”, were featured in a programme that, with interval, lasted two and three quarter hours.  That’s a feat of stamina for performers and audience alike as none of the music performed was “easy” and no notes or introductions were provided.

Each half of the programme started off with a piece by Linda Catlin Smith, who was in the audience.  Stare at the River for piano, string bass, trumpet, clarinet, violin and percussion was quite sparse and open textured while The River was more obviously lyrical with guitar, cello and Danika Lorèn replacing piano, trumpet and bass.

The first half continued with Shawn Jaeger’s Love Is for two sopranos (Danika plus Reilly Nelson) and two baritones (Dion Mazerolle and Jesse Blumberg) and it’s quite dark and weird in its exploration of what exactly love is.  Two new pieces by Ryan Chase to texts by Chaucer; Now Wonder Nyce and Straunge featured Reilly with small ensemble.  This was spiky, shimmery kind of music and an interesting contrast with Luis Ramirez’ more tonal/lyrical piece Drawn which almost evokes bird song.

Ophelia got a look in with Wolfgang Rihm’s Ophelia Sings for piano and soprano (Reilly).  For Rihm, it’s a surprisingly straightforward setting of text from Hamlet which quotes from anon or Walter Raleigh depending who you believe.  Penderecki’s ethereal Abschied for strings and clarinet finished off the first half.

The second part of the programme seemed less dense, at least to start with.  Following the Smith we heard Thomas Adès’ minimalist and fragmentary Arcadiana (selections from) plus selections from Ann Southam’s piano suite Rivers.  Then it got a whole lot heavier with Knussen’s Ophelia Dances; a heavily chromatic piece for large chamber ensemble, and finally Vivier’s Bouchara for soprano (Danika) and large ensemble.  This was really complex, heavily textured and very loud!  Brilliantly sung too.

Conceptually we had heard two possible ways of depicting Ophelia’s fate in music over the course of nearly three hours.  That’s pretty ambitious and I would suggest that however well done, and it was well done, would overtax most any audience without at least some explanation of what was going on.

For the record the Happenstancers were the afore-mentioned singers lus Luri Lee and Sienna Cho on violins, Hee-Soo Yoon on violin/viola, Hez Leung on viola, Peter Eom on cello, Travis Harrison on bass, Lenny Ranallo on guitar, Jonnghun Cho on keyboards, Wesley Shen on celeste, Chris James on flute, Aleh Remezeau on oboe, Brad Cherwin on clarinets, Nicolas Richard on bassoon, Ryan Garbett on horn, Declan Scott on trumpet , Nikki Huang and Thomas Li on percussion with Simon Rivard conducting when things got past critical mass.  Also a massive shout for heroic work by Hoi Tong Keung as production/stage manager.