Showing posts with label sarah fraser-raff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sarah fraser-raff. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Recording: Contact Contemporary Music

Artist: Contact Contemporary Music

Song: Beneath a Landscape [excerpt] [composer: Jason Doell]

Recorded at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station (Intersection Day 1: Music For Subways), August 29, 2019.

Contact Contemporary Music - Beneath a Landscape [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. At that literal end-of-the-line, the musicians of Contact (along with some of the night's earlier performers joining in) formed into a rough circle to begin an unhurried drone before some of them (especially those with melodicas) started to freely wander around the space.

As is often the case, composer Jason Doell attempted to downplay the notion that he actually did much composing, but there were some savvy music ideas here nonetheless. At the piece's start, one could see the musicians playing but could scarcely hear anything, as Doell had spent some time at the station, recording and analyzing its ambient hum, and then starting the musicians in that same zone. Slowly, the highs of the strings, followed by the other instruments, began to cut through the background hum as the soundfield evolved, seeping fog-like into the curved corners of the station's alien spaceship contours.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Recording: Sarah Fraser-Raff

Artist: Sarah Fraser-Raff

Song: The Beginning Of Infinity, 3rd movement [composer: Jeremy Bellaviti]

Recorded at The Music Gallery (Emergents III), April 8, 2016.

Sarah Fraser-Raff - The Beginning Of Infinity [3rd mvt]

The second half of this Alex Samaras-curated showcase saw violinist Sarah Fraser-Raff play this brand new piece, composed by Jeremy Bellaviti especially for the event. The music was inspired and shaped by the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in the David Deutsch book from which the piece has taken its title. Over five movements, Fraser-Raff managed to explore a lot of terrain without the piece getting showy or concerned with merely technical aspects. A sole musical voice in the darkened and hushed space of the Music Gallery's santuary, this was quite entrancing.

[This year's Emergents series concludes on Thursday, May 26th. Curated by Ben Dietschi, the night will match the Kiri Koto Ensemble with a set of music performed on Boomwhackers (yes, those plastic tubed people band together at sporting events).]