The Canadian Art Song Project presented their latest commission in the RBA on Wednesday lunchtime. But first we got Jorelle Williams and Steven Philcox with four songs by iconic Canadian/American composer R. Nathaniel Dett. I confess that early 20th century American song is rarely to my taste and the first three Dett songs I found workmanlike but not especially interesting. The fourth though; The Winding Road to a text by Tertius Van Dyke I found much more interesting. It seemed that Dett had allowed himself to be more “American”. There were influences from both “Negro music” and marching band here with an overall effect not unlike some of Charles Ives’ songs. I can’t knock the performance though. It did full justice to the songs; especially the last.
Known to Dreamers: Black Voices in Canadian Art Song is a new CD from Centrediscs and the Canadian Art Song Project containing Canadian art songs composed by or setting lyrics by Black Canadians, sung by Black Canadians. The first set on the disk is Robert Fleming’s The Confession Stone (Songs of Mary) which sets texts by Owen Dodson’s texts about the life of Christ from his mother’s point of view. It’s a very beautiful piece and must be in the running for the most performed Canadian song cycle of all time! Curiously though it’s only been recorded commercially once before (by Caroline Gélinas on ATMA Classique). The singer here is Measha Brueggergosman-Lee. She wouldn’t be my first choice for this piece but she sings it pretty well. I find her style a bit mannered but she’s accurate and her diction is good. Steven Philcox accompanies with great skill (as he does on all the tracks).
Not so long ago if one wanted to do interesting electronic music things one needed a studio full of enormously expensive equipment, access to which was likely restricted to a fortunate few. Now with a few relatively inexpensive mikes, a laptop and some speakers one can create all kinds of cool stuff and perform it in almost any venue. The recording ‘m going to talk about here was made a few years ago but it’s good and pretty typical of what I’m talking about.
operaramblings 