Regular readers will be familiar with the Happenstancers.  They are a shifting group of young musicians convened by Brad Cherwin who have been presenting innovative chamber music concerts in an assortment of venues for a few years now.  Last year Brad was selected to curate a concert for Soundstreams at the Jane Mallett Theatre which was very like a Happenstancers concert in many ways with the advantage of exposing the approach to a wider audience.  On Friday night they were back under their own flag at Temerty Theatre as part of the 21C festival.  Which is a long winded way of saying this is a very happening and innovative group who are emerging as a significant player in the Toronto chamber music scene.

Friday’s concert, as you would expect, consisted mostly of 21st century music but in line withe theme of “exploring the space between two people” and in typical Happenstancers’ style there was music from the Renaissace plus Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.  The ensemble consisted of sopranos Danika Lorèn and Reilly Nelson, Julia Mirzoev, Russell iceberg and Christopher Whitley on violin, Hezekkiah Leung and Hee-See Yoon on viola, Peter Eom on cello and Brad Cherwin on clarinets with constantly changing combos across the evening.

Kaija Saariaho’s oi kuu for bass clarinet and cello kicked things off with the bass clarinet having some quite strange things to do.  Brad and Peter were joined by the singers for the 16th century chanson mille regretz (attributed to Josquin des Prez).  It was simple and beautifully sung before the two ladies took on Saariaho’s fiendishly difficult from the grammar of dreams.  Sung facing each other so there was a real sense of dialogue this was really fantastic.  Next the sopranos were joined by violin, viola, cello and bass clarinet for Nicolas Gombert’s take on mille regretz.

The first half was rounded off by more contemporary music.  There was Du Yun’s dreams-bend for violin, cello and clarinet which included a spoken part for Peter and some very unorthodox clarinet technique; at one point treating it a bit like a transverse flute.  Finally, Katherine Petkovski’s rather ethereal and beautiful above for string quartet.

The second half began with Reilly and Danika, again face to face, performing excerpts from Ana Sokolović’s dawn always begins in the bones; another pretty challenging piece performed with apparent ease!  Then came the lengthiest piece of the programme; Verklärte Nacht arranged for strings and bass clarinet.  It’s a modern classic and it was intriguing to hear it with bass clarinet in place of string bass.  The woodwind sound adds interesting colour, if perhaps at the expense of the original’s stark clarity.  The result was very interesting and really quite satisfying.

Cristóbal de Morales take on the chanson du jour; the agnus dei from his mass “mille regretz”, came next in an arrangement for two voices, violin, viola and clarinet.  I definitely found that the Renaissance pieces made a very effective “palate cleanser” between the more challenging material.

The final piece was Philip Glass’ knee play 5.  This is complex.  It’s scored for two violins, viola, cello and clarinet with prerecorded and “live” electronics (the singers are miked) and also features spoken text (Brad in this case).  It’s a weird combination of almost disorientating complexity and very stark minimalism.  And that’s probably the best place to mention Fish Yu’s excellent management of electronics throughout the evening backed up by atmospheric lighting by Billy Wong.  Last but not least I want to give a shout out to production manager Hoi Tong Keung who made sure the frequent set up changes were very fast and efficient and didn’t break up the continuity of the evening.

It’s great to see the Royal Conservatory giving a platform to a really exciting group like the Happenstancers.  I hope it won them some more adherents who will come out for their regular gigs.

Images are taken from a Happenstancers promotional video.