Confluence Concerts’ first show of the season was curated by Patricia O’Callaghan and aimed to explore the Divine in music from many angles.  It played at Heliconian Hall on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

The music ranged all over the place in terms of time, place and concepts of the Divine.  Digging deep into the past we got Hildegard von Bingen’s setting of Hodie aperuit and the traditional Gayatri Mantra.  There was modern classical music. of a religiously inspired nature, in Pärt’s Fratres, Violet Archer’s unusual setting of Psalm 23 and Duruflé’s setting of the Ubi caritas.

More “popular” approaches included “By my side” from Godspell and works by Leonard Cohen and Willie Bennett.  There were also works by the performers such as Maryem Tollar’s Secrets/Asrar and two pieces by Waleed Abdulhamid; one inspired by traditional African spirituality and one riffing off Sufi tradition,  There was even a Bach concerto for two violins and piano that suggested that the Divine transcends words as did Anne Southam’s Glass Houses No.5; a fearsomely intricate piece of pianistic minimalism..

As always with Confluence the performers showed great versatility of style in pulling off arrangements for various combinations of voices and instruments with everyone singing at some point and, I think, everyone playing some sort of instrument whether it was violin or a hand bell.

For the record, the line up included Waleed Abdulhamid on guitar ad percussion, Larry Beckwith and Bijan Sepanji on violin, Gregory Oh on piano, Maryem Tollar on Qanun and Máiri Demings, Patricia O’Callaghan and Suba Sankara on hand held percussion.

An intriiguing start to the season.