We have embarked together on an epic voyage of discovery over the past three years — an exploration of worlds both familiar and strange, some both at once.
Our magically intimate Murray Adaskin Salon has transported us back to a time of ancient legend explored vividly through Heather Pawsey’s brilliant one-woman show, perfectly expressed through Jeffrey Ryan’s Unheard, right up into the frozen, snow-drenched mountaintops of the Andes through Lloyd Burritt’s powerful opera Miracle Flight 571.
We have sailed with the salmon down BC’s mighty rivers in Murray Adaskin’s A Wedding Toast, and flown through the soaring Pines of Emily Carr so beautifully illustrated through the lyrics of Dorothy Davies — “from root to sky, no twist, no deviation” — and evoked so magisterially by Jean Coulthard’s elegiac music.
We have ventured into the avant-garde through the portal of Barbara Pentland’s intense serialism and Rudolf Komorous’ penchant for the unlikely; frolicked with frisky, lascivious vegetables in the unruly gardens of Leslie Uyeda; and walked through time and history and place, listening through the mystical ears and mind of Hildegard Westerkamp. We have even explored the quantum through Barry Truax’s evocative and brilliantly original granular synthesis.
And through our Jean Coulthard String Quartet Readings, we have limned more than 2200 years of western musical traditions, exploring the roots of polyphony and harmony itself.
All of this is encapsulated in the musical journey that Janet Danielson has herself undergone in a trajectory that spans post-war modernist serialism, the origins of harmony, explorations of the music of other cultures and traditions, and more.
Which makes this Celebration of her music so perfect to hear at this stage of our journey as it marks an inflection point, an opportunity to reflect on the music we’ve heard and the extraordinarily diverse worlds we’ve visited along the way.
Janet enthusiastically agreed to dedicate this concert to Women’s History Month in Canada. We are at an exciting time in history and in our own cultural evolution, wherein we are challenged to realize the more enlightened society envisaged by brave women who have fought over the past century for a more equal, just, and better world. The concert includes Cedar, a new work by Featured Emerging Composer Maren Lisac, inspired by another iconic tree so emblematic of the Canadian West Coast.
This is a journey, too, that we are all embarked on together, and it may be the most exciting and rewarding yet!
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