Brave New Voices – forging tomorrow’s classical music (Part 1)

Many of our long-terms projects came to fruition in Winter 2024, especially those that involve the next generation of composers and performers. Fresh perspectives on contemporary music and audacity to try new things were at the forefront of these initiatives. Here is a 3-part blog of my impressions on working with these bright artists.

Harmonies inouïes

In the early 2020s we had a wave of strong applications to our composition residencies. It became clear that there was a cohort that was particularly interested in microtonal music and experimentation, so we created a unique one-off opportunity for them. Composers Francis Battah and Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière are based in Montreal, Paolo Griffin in Toronto, and Bekah Simms in Glasgow, UK. They came together for 2 workshop periods with us, once in April 2023, and once in December 2023.

During the first intensive period we did group listening and score studying of works by James Tenney, Marc Sabat, Alvin Lucier and Chiyoko Szlavnics, and preliminary work with their compositional sketches. The excitement of last spring was compounded by the April 5 ice storm on our last day. We lost power at the studio and had to go home early. Fortunately we did so because a huge tree branch had fallen in the alleyway right behind our studio after we left!

In December 2023 we tried different versions of longer sketches. It was interesting how some compositional materials came more easily than others – some composers already had swaths of music written and others were still searching for the right texture or timing of their sketches.

At the concert of world premieres on February 20, 2024 in Montreal, we had fun performing these four unique and insightful approaches to microtonality.  Paolo taking a Wandelweiser-like approach in the overall sense of space and score notation, Gabriel investigating shepherd tone phenomena and the momentum of shifting microtones like flowing water, Bekah exploring her way of writing melodies and tensions between consonant and dissonant harmonies, and Francis inventing a musical folklore tradition, with recognizable modal harmonies and, at times, schizophrenic switches between musical materials. As a performer, knowing all the work and compositional process from the beginning made the final performance even more fulfilling. Congratulations, Paolo, Gabriel, Bekah and Francis!

Read this concert review from PAN M 360 : https://panm360.com/gig_review/quatuor-bozzini-micro-tonalites-grandes-musiques-concert-harmonies-inouies-francis-battah-bekah-simms-paolo-griffin-gabriel-dufour-laperriere-montreal/

Alissa Cheung

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