Tag Archives: arulanandam

Bestiaries

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773811306226Continuing the contemporary CanCon theme I’ve been listening to Bestiaries; a CD of music by Bekah Simms.  I first heard her music at the TSO in June and liked it enough to want to explore further.  There are three pieces on the CD; each a little over ten minutes long.  The first, Foreverdark, is a 2018 piece for solo cello, chamber orchestra and live electronics.  It’s inspired by the compose and cellist Amahl Arulanandam shared love for metal and quotes from iconic metal albums.  I’m not a metal fan but I am intrigued to hear younger composers using ideas drawn from more popular genres.  Think Missy Mazzoli and electronic dance music.  It’s no different really from Ralph Vaughan Williams using folk songs or Michael Tippett aking ideas from blues music.  The result here is heavy textured, weird and chaotic with Arulanandam using all parts of the cello and acoustic instruments of the orchestra (the Cryptid Ensemble conducted by Brian Current) made to sound like electric, amplified ones with all the effects one usually gets from electronic manipulation generated acoustically. Continue reading →

hymns of heaven and earth

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hymnsofheavenandearthhymns of heaven and earth is a Centrediscs CD featuring three works by Halifax based Peter-Anthony Togni.  I have limited experience with Togni.  I thought his Responsio (reviewed for Opera Canada) was inspired but was less impressed with his Isis and Osiris – Gods of Egypt.  Perhaps unsurprisingly I found the new CD most interesting when it leaned towards Togni’s liturgical/spiritual side and less so when he seemed to be teetering on the edge of pastiche.  The title piece; a string quartet in four movements, is lyrical and rooted in the idea of “light”.  It’s essentially tonal with minimalist elements; repeated figures etc, and a distinctly liturgical feel.  I enjoyed it a lot and it gets a really good performance from Ilana Waniuk and Suhashini Arulanandam on violins, Rory McLeod on viola and Dobrochna Zubek on cello.

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Morphology of Desire

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To Mazzoleni Hall yesterday to hear Christina Campsall’s graduating recital.  I think over the course of the year she has become my “top tip” for this year’s graduating class at the Conservatory and nothing that happened yesterday did anything to shake that judgement. It was a pretty intense program that was definitely more shade than light but that, I think, rather suits her voice.  The opening set, Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, was a case in point.  Dark, brooding texts, dark, brooding music and a dark, brooding voice with plenty of power.  We have a mezzo here not a second soprano!  That said, her high notes are all there and there seems to be plenty of power all through the registers, though to be fait I’ve only seen her once in a large hall and that was in operetta.  Very good German too with a distinct northern inflection.  All the consonants!

campsall

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