As we head towards the end of 2019, I’ve had the chance to reflect on a year that has provided artistic challenges, growth, and travel — in particular an exceptional five days spent in San Luis Potosí, Mexico this past November.

There’s a bit of exposition required for this story: part of my LUTALICA project (which you can read more about HERE) involved commissioning three new works by Canadian composers, including the Mexican-born composer Alfredo Santa Ana. Santa Ana’s piece, which I premiered in April, is called Notgnirrac and is inspired by the work and words of the British-Mexican surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington. Sometime after the premiere I discovered that there is, in fact, a museum dedicated to Carrington’s work, Museo Leonora Carrington, located in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Formerly a colonial-era prison, the city transformed the space into an arts centre that includes the museum, an art gallery, and a music and dance academy.

I reached out to the museum director, Antonio García Acosta, asking about the possibility of filming a video of Santa Ana’s piece within the museum’s galleries and courtyards. This grew into an invitation to not only record the video on museum grounds, but to perform at the museum’s monthly event, Noche de Museo. So on Friday, November 22nd I performed works by Nicole Lizée, Jordan Nobles, and Alfredo Santa Ana; and on Monday, November 25th Alfredo and I filmed for a solid nine hours with Bernardo González Burgos and his team from Kiné Producciones. Below you can see pictures from both the performance and the video shoot — it gives one an idea of the incredible artwork of Leonora Carrington (particularly her sculpted works), as well as the museum space itself.

The Notgnirrac video should be ready in early 2020, completing the trio of videos I set out to make for the LUTALICA project, including forever after by Hope Lee (which can me viewed HERE) and a forthcoming video of Nova Pon’s virtuosic solo flute piece Wrenegade (made by filmmaker Mark Mushet and animator Cindy Mochizuki).

Friday, April 26 will see the third installation of my LUTALICA PROJECT, my exploration of Pacific Rim composers, music, and cultural identity, co-presented by Redshift Music and Vancouver Inter-cultural Orchestra. This has been a tremendous ongoing journey: to date, I’ve performed and recorded roughly half of the twenty pieces selected from an international Call for Scores by composers who live in, or hail from, countries along the Pacific Rim.  LUTALICA Part III will feature music by Nirmali Fenn (Australia/Sri Lanka/ Singapore), Mario Mora (Chile), Chun-Ju Yen (Taiwan), and a newly commissioned work by Canadian-Mexican composer Alfredo Santa Ana: Notgnirrac, a piece inspired by the British-Mexican surrealist painter, Leonora Carrington. For this concert I’ll be joined by the Taiwanese-Canadian zheng virtuoso, Dailin Hsieh. Together we’ll perform Kan-Kin by the late Canadian composer Elliot Weisgarber.

This evening will also the digital release for my studio recording of Lutalica: Part One, featuring works by Hope Lee, Ellen Lindquist, Pedro Alvarez, Kaiyi Kao, Philip Brownlee, Etsuko Hori, Nova Pon, Graham Flett, and Emilie LeBel. The album will also include the video of Hope Lee’s forever after, made by Vancouver film maker Mark Mushet (which can be viewed above). So it’ll be a very special evening! Tickets for LUTALICA Part III can be purchased HERE.

For a lot of people I know, the New Year simply can’t come fast enough. And admittedly, this year there was a lot of bleak news in political, environmental, and human rights circles — news that gets heaped upon whatever personal challenges we may have had to deal with in 2018. For me, this year saw upheavals in a few different areas of my personal life, the ghosts of these events having a pesky habit of rearing their ugly heads in unexpected (and often poorly timed) ways. But the year also had its share of wondrous moments as well, moments that make you realize what a privilege it is to be able to travel and to play music for a living. One of those moments happened rather recently: this past November I performed as concerto soloist with the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra in Taiwan. The LGCCO, led by Chi-Sheng Chen, is one of Taiwan’s premiere traditional Chinese-instrument orchestras: instead of Western violins, violas, harps, and woodwinds, the ranks of the LGCCO consist of erhus, gaohus, guzheng, yangqin, sheng, and dizi — a truly gorgeous and, to the uninitiated, entirely unique sound world.

As you might imagine, there aren’t a lot (read: any) concertos for Western flute and Chinese-instrument orchestra, so the Canadian-Iranian composer Farshid Samandari created a new, 20-minute work, Phoenix Rising, thanks to generous assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts. It’s an exciting, virtuosic work that begins with an extensive orchestral tutti (symbolizing the “absence” or “death” of the phoenix); followed by the gradual emergence of the flutist/phoenix, who “activates” the various orchestral instruments (which can be heard in excerpt one, below); before finally transforming into a triumphant climax (excerpt two, below). Phoenix Rising isn’t just a fantastic piece that I’m proud of having a hand in creating; it’s also an apt metaphor for any of us who, after a turbulent year, are looking forward to 2019 for a chance at rebirth or renewal.

LUTALICA (n. The part of one’s identity that doesn’t fit into categories. From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

This Friday I’m continuing my exploration of of Pacific Rim composers, music, and cultural identity with the LUTALICA PROJECT, presented by Redshift Music Society and The Little Chamber Music Series That Could. Just over a year ago I asked composers from around the Pacific Rim to send me their works for solo flute — I was curious to see what commonalities might exist outside of what has essentially been a very Western European tradition. On Friday I’ll be presenting music by Etsuko Hori (Japan), Emilie LeBel (Canada), Hope Lee (Taiwan/Canada), Eve de Castro-Robinson (New Zealand), Jeffrey Ryan, as well as an old favourite of mine, “Air” by Toru Takemitsu. The concert takes place in the beautiful acoustics of Celebration Hall at Mountain View Cemetery (5455 Fraser Street, Vancouver) at 8pm. And, in the traditions of both Little Chamber and Redshift, the event is absolutely free to attend.

THE LUTALICA PROJECT

Music by Hori, LeBel, Lee, de Castro-Robinson, Ryan, & Takemitsu

Friday, July 20, 2018 at 8pm

FREE ADMISSION

Celebration Hall, Mountain View Cemetery (5455 Fraser Street, Vancouver)

Enter the cemetery from Fraser Street at East 39th Ave.

Last week I spent a couple of wonderful days at the University of Montana in Missoula at the invitation of Emilie LeBel, who helms the School of Music’s composition program. While there I had the opportunity to speak to composition and woodwind students about my experience working with composers, commissioning new music, and life in general as a freelance musician. I also had the opportunity to present an evening performance as part of the Faculty Guest Artist Series — a concert that included LeBel’s own Hiraeth for solo flute, Yota Kobayashi‘s Tensho for flute and tape, and Kaija Saariaho‘s NoaNoa for flute and electronics — a piece I haven’t played in over a decade! (And boy, that Max patch sure has changed in the meantime.) Our performance at the UM Recital Hall was recorded and can be heard below:

LeBel’s Hiraeth is an intensely beautiful work that explores a more subtle side of microtonality and multiphonic writing. The title is Welsh: Hiraeth has no direct English translation, but means something along the lines of “homesickness tinged with grief, knowing one can never return.” LeBel’s Hiraeth — like so much of her music — is lyrical, introspective, and bittersweet. You can hear the live performance below:

LeBel’s ethereal melodies were floating through my head the entire day after our concert and inspired me to take a few pictures of Missoula’s Clark Fork River. The river was absolutely stunning in February, with its drifting ice patches evoking some alien arctic landscape:

Please note that I restrained myself from photoshopping Imperial Walkers and fleeing rebel troops into the above photos. (Actually, that’s a bald-faced lie; I have no frigging idea how to photoshop anything. It’s a minor miracle that I can post photos at all.)

I realize we’re well into 2018 now, so posting about something that happened in November of the previous year may seem a bit odd — except that “something” was the ISCM World New Music Days, that took place November 2 – 8, 2017 in Vancouver. The festival was covered in thorough detail by wordsmiths more clever than me (including a great review in MusicWorks magazine by Alex Varty), but I wanted to share three personal highlights:

I. Performing Invention à deux voix? by Maria Christina Krithara with François Houle, clarinet

This performance came with its fair share of drama: Krithara’s piece was originally supposed to be performed on another concert, but was cancelled because one of the performers fell ill — all the more unfortunate as Maria Christina Krithara had flown in all the way from Athens to hear her piece! At the eleventh hour, François Houle and I were asked to play the duo — which we learned over the course of a single, evening-long rehearsal. The performance was absolutely one of those flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experiences, resulting in moments of synergy that surprised perhaps even François and myself.

II. Solo flute performance: A Walk in the Countryside by Gonçalo Gato

This solo flute piece by the Portuguese/British composer Gonçalo Gato was such an intriguing study in contradictions and thwarted expectations. For starters, the work’s title, A Walk in the Countryside, implies bucolic melodies and whimsy — nothing could be further from the truth. Gato presents us with an arsenal of seemingly disparate gestures that gradually form a sense of cohesion as the piece progresses, resulting in a sort of “action landscape”. Commissioned by Ensemble Recherche, Gato developed the piece with Recherche’s flutist Martin Fahlenbock — resulting in a piece that is as idiomatic as it is virtuosic.

III. Curating and performing for Powell Street Festival’s ISCM concert

Back when I was still AD of Powell Street Festival Society, ISCM2017 artistic director Dave Pay and I spoke about giving Powell Street Festival a presence in World New Music Days. It was an idea that I found really attractive: PSFS’s mandate of connecting communities and supporting diversity was, I felt, very sympathetic to the ideals Dave envisioned for the WNMD festival. Dave also introduced me to the music of the Japanese composer Yasunoshin Morita, specifically his ReincarnatiOn Ring II for sho and half-broken iPods — a luminously beautiful piece performed by the Japanese sho virtuoso Ko Ishikawa. We decided to build our programme around this piece, with myself, pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, and percussionist Brian Nesselroad joining Ishikawa on the performers roster. And while the concert was not without its hiccups, I’m intensely proud of what we presented: the Canadian premiere of Morita’s piece, alongside works by Justin Christensen (Canada), Etsuko Hori (Japan), Murat Çolak (Turkey), and Laura Manolache (Romania). My performance of Hori’s solo piccolo piece, Tamazusa (singled out as a “perfectly crafted” highlight of the festival by Alex Varty) can be heard below:

The concert was a fitting swan song for my role as an artistic director and programmer for Powell Street Festival Society, and the World New Music Days festival as a whole was an unbelievable way to connect with composers, musicians, and new music concert programmers from around the world. Kudos to the incredible ISCM Vancouver team for turning out this monolithic event, and in particular Morna Edmundson, Jim Hiscott, and Dave Pay.

When you spend years commissioning and performing new music for your instrument, a funny thing begins to happen: you gradually acquire a repertoire of exceptional works. Pieces that beg multiple hearings beyond their premiere. Pieces that need to be shared. I’ve said before that one of the greatest affirmations we can receive as performers of new music is when other musicians begin performing the works you’ve commissioned — and this remains entirely true. But occasionally one needs to simply get off one’s tush and bring the music to the people. Occasionally one must tour.

And tour we did! Throughout September and October, Toronto-based composer Gregory Lee Newsome and I presented a programme of works for solo flute and flute + electronics clear across the country: Winnipeg (Sept. 14th, presented by GroundSwell), Moncton (Sept. 16th, presented by Le Hum), Saint John (Sept. 17th, presented by Open Arts), Toronto (a self-produced event on Sept. 19th, at the Canadian Music Centre), and Montreal (Oct. 1st, presented by Innovations en Concert). The repertoire was eclectic, diverse, and, I’m proud to say, all-Canadian:

Gregory Lee Newsome: Ambitus for alto flute and Max/MSP

Hope Lee: forever after

James O’Callaghan: Doubt is a Way of Knowing for flute and electronics

Michael Oesterle: Delilah

Nicole Lizée: Tarantino Études for bass flute and glitch

At our performance for Innovations en Concert, we mixed things up a bit: I joined forces with Montreal flutist Jeffrey Stonehouse and we presented the premieres of “double” versions of the pieces by James O’Callaghan (Is Doubt a Way of Knowing?) and Nicole Lizée (Tarantino Études: Doppelgänger and Duel). Many thanks to the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this tour so generously, and thanks as well to Matthew Fava at the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Music Centre for making our show there happen with such support and ease.

I love road trips. Why? Probably because I never actually learned to drive, so my road trip duties have always included less stressful chores like “music selector”, “semi-engaging conversationalist”, and “occasional nap-taker”. It’s a tough life, but someone has to do it.

On June 16th, these mad skills were put to the test when five of us piled into a van and began the 10-hour drive to Prince George, BC for the 2017 Casse-Tête Festival. Helmed by Jeremy Stewart, Casse-Tête has been treating Prince George to an incredibly diverse lineup of improv and contemporary music for the last five years. The 2017 instalment of Casse-Tête was particularly exciting for us Vancouverites as it marked the official unveiling of Redshift Music Society‘s 16- channel speaker system, The Array.

After four days of performances — including those by cellist Marina Hasselberg, soprano Cathy Fern Lewis, composer-pianist Christopher Reiche (who played Satie’s Vexations for 24 hours), and the wonderfully bizarre improv duo ManZap (which included a hair-raising performance on Casse-Tête’s resident “bass piano“) — Redshift and I took to the stage on June 18. I performed a solo set that included works by Salvatore Sciarrino and Toru Takemitsu, as well as two works from my Pacific Rim project: forever after by Calgary composer Hope Lee and the world premiere of Hiraeth by Toronto/Montana composer Emilie LeBel. Afterward, Redshift’s Array closed out the festival with three premieres: Jordan Nobles‘ Air for 17 bass flutes (or in this case, one live bass flute and 16 pre-recorded bass flutes); a scene from Benton Roark‘s forthcoming opera, The Handless Maiden, featuring guest soprano Melanie Nicol; and Fantasiae for alto flute and electronics by Victoria composer Annette Brosin, a work that playfully explores time and memory: the flutist sits at a desk, “composing” G.P. Telemann’s Fantasy in A minor, which becomes the source material for the rest of the piece (with some text quotations from Takemitsu’s Voice thrown in for good measure).

It was terrific to be part of the festival, and a great was to kick off the summer season!

Last Saturday (April 1st, 2017), the Junos were held in Ottawa, where my good friend, co-conspirator, and former co-worker at Redshift, Jordan Nobles, was nominated in the category of “Classical Composition of the Year” for his four-movement work, Immersion. Jordan was attending the awards ceremony with his wife Kelly and texting me updates. What follows is a highly edited, highly paraphrased transcript of our exchange:

J: My category’s up next

M: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (author’s note: I was merely trying to express my support and enthusiasm. Please don’t judge me for squealing over text)

M: Lemme know what happens!

[Dead silence]

M: Hullo?

[More dead silence, whereupon I finally decide to text Kelly]

M: Kelly, Jordan isn’t responding to my texts. I need an update.

K: WON!!!

M: Uh, you’re April fooling me aren’t you. (author’s note: in my defence, the awards were being held on the 1st of April)

K: No, really! He won!!

M: Holy Sh*t!!

K: That’s what I said! He went up there and made a speech and they whisked him off somewhere. I have no idea where he is now. I have to text everyone — I feel a bit rude doing this at our table.

M: I think it’s allowed in this case!

[Several hours later…]

J: Holy sh*t…

There’s more, but I think you get the gist. I’m so happy for Jordan to be honoured this way, not only because it’s really nice to occasionally get some mainstream acknowledgement for one’s artistic work, and not only because Immersion is a truly original piece written for a very specific space, but because Immersion was, at the end of the day, a collective effort. On a chilly October morning in 2014 a whole squad of Vancouver based sound artists, engineers, and performers (yes, including me!) donned steel-toed boots, reflective vests, and hard hats; descended into the bowels of the earth in North Vancouver; and recorded, in one take, some 30 minutes of music in the Break Head Tank: an enormous concrete bunker connected to 7 km of water tunnels that allow Capilano water to be pumped to the Seymour Capilano Filtration Plant for treatment. Shortly after the recording, the Break Head tank began its service as part of Metro Vancouver’s water system, and was flooded with water forever, making the whole experience a fleeting, bittersweet thing.

It was, I have to admit, one of the stranger gigs I’ve done. Who would have thought that an underground filtration system would actually look more like the vaulted subterranean passages of Tolkien’s Moria? Seriously, check it out:

As one might gather from the photos, the acoustic in this space is really something else — and Jordan crafted Immersion to perfectly exploit the cavernous echoes of the Break Head Tank. You can listen to this beautiful, haunting work HERE. Congratulations, Jordan!