Recording: Mika Posen String Quartet

Artist: Mika Posen String Quartet

Song: Pathways [excerpt]

Recorded at Highway 407 Station (Intersection Day 1: Music For Subways), August 29, 2019.

Mika Posen String Quartet - Pathways [excerpt]

A couple years back, Intersection made its first step into presenting creative sounds in unconventional environments. This sequel moved from the core to the end of the line, exchanging a jam-packed greenhouse for plenty elbow room in the city's newest subway stations. Mika Posen (playing viola and joined by Aline Homzy and Jessica Hana Deutsch on violin and Beth Silver on cello) brought the most on-point and musically-pleasing of the night's sets to Highway 407 Station, whose very name evokes a sort of grim, romanceless utilitarianism — and where the click-clack of the fare gate behind the audience added small waves of percussion as each arriving trainload of passengers departed the station.

Her "Pathways" uses a graphic score in the shape of the subway map, the various stations marked with one of five different colours. The musicians pick their own starting station on the map and play the associated musical instruction, coming to a common held note when a train pulls in to the platform below the players and each then moving on to the next station on their score when the train departs. As such, the piece will never quite unfold the same way twice, although the various parts of the score are designed to stay in pleasing consonance in any combination.

[Mika Posen's electronic project Merganzer will be celebrating the release of its new Montage album at a Venus fest-presented show at The Drake Hotel on Saturday, October 26th, alongside Leucrocuta and Blue Light.]