Monthly archive for April 2018

Woodwings

On April 23, 2018   /   Commissions, Concerts   /   1 Comment
Woodwings

I’ve just finished my first wind quintet, Woodwings, for Fifth Wind Quintet, of Halifax, NS, as part of their Forecasting the Canadian Wind project. Woodwings will be premiered in September by Fifth Wind, as well as Choros (Montreal), Blythwood Winds (Toronto), Mistral 5 (Saskatoon), and Ventos (Vancouver), along with premieres by Carmen Braden, Cris Derksen, Daniel Janke, and Cameron Wilson. (If you play in a wind quintet and would like to have access to these and other new works after their premiere, you can sign up at Wind Quintet International!)

Woodwings is based on the songs and calls of a number of birds that are fairly widespread in Canada – the Bobolink, Hermit Thrush, Snow Goose, Winter Wren, and a selction of owls (Boreal Owl, Northern Pygmy Owl, Hawk Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, and Western Screech Owl). It’s been a great pleasure to write this piece, both because I’m a (mostly former) oboist myself, and because the musicians in Fifth Wind are long-time friends, and in some cases my former teachers. (Oh dear – I’ve just calculated and realize I have known several of them for more than 30 years! Am I really that old?) I’m really looking forward to the rehearsals and workshops in May, and to the performance in September!

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Musings on the Pultizer

On April 19, 2018   /   General Musings   /   Leave a comment
Musings on the Pultizer

I have no great attachment to the Pulitzer Prize being for “classical music,” so if Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN is a great album, then fantastic that it won! I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m looking forward to listening! The thing I wrestle with is that so often becoming more inclusive gets equated with including new genres — while still leaving out the women, people of colour, and other marginalized people whose works have been overlooked in the original genre. Eg. I’m sure there are many black “classical” composers whose work continues to get overlooked by the Pulitzer and similar awards. I can’t speak to how black “classical” composers are feeling about the Pulitzer (and if you know of any commentaries, please point me in their direction), but I can speak to how I feel in a parallel situation. I’ve always hated how when classical music anthologies and form and analysis texts decide to add some women composers for their second (or 25th) edition, they usually just add a couple of popular songs. I mean yes, song-writing is great, and it’s a genre in which women have often had more opportunity to succeed than, say, Romantic opera — but it’s still overlooking all the “classical” women composers. I feel like just adding a couple contemporary women song-writers and no-one else to a text/anthology that is clearly mainly about “classical” music actually serves to reinforce the idea that women can’t or don’t write “classical” music even more than leaving out women entirely! At least the text or anthology with no women can’t pretend it’s trying to be egalitarian, while the text with two women popular song writers and 102 male “classical” composers will claim that it is being inclusive! Of course I’m in favour of including new genres in things too — just tired of the way “inclusion” and “new genres” get equated, and many people still get left out!

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