THIN EDGE NEW MUSIC COLLECTIVE + THE CANADIAN MUSIC CENTRE PRESENT:
DARK FLOWER
April 16
8pm EST
FREE
Dark Flower is the first in a series of digital concerts marking Thin Edge New Music Collective’s 10th anniversary season. Named in honour of Linda Catlin Smith’s newest piano quartet, Dark Flower, was commissioned by TENMC with generous support from the Ontario Arts Council. This concert is a celebration of our long standing relationship with Linda. A guiding voice, and mentor to so many within the contemporary music community, she has been a source of inspiration to us from the earliest days of our ensemble.
Co-presented in partnership with our friends at the Canadian Music Centre, we are thrilled to be able to share this wonderful digital programme featuring works by Jonathan Bailey Holland, and Sarah Hennies, alongside world premieres by Alex Jang and Linda Catlin Smith.
We hope you can join us April 16th at 8pm EST!
We are deeply honoured to announce that TENMC is the recipient of the Canadian League of Composers/Canadian Music Centre 2020 Friends of Canadian Music Award. We have selected Vancouver-based composer Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi as our co-recipient. The prize will be officially presented during the livestreamed concert.
Read the full announcement at:
http://bit.ly/2020-FCMA-winners
Dark Flower is free to attend virtually, with the option to contribute a PWYC donation to TENMC through our Canada Helps Page.
During these difficult times, if you have the means to contribute the price of a ticket, we would like to suggest that in lieu of donating to TENMC, you direct your funds towards the Native Youth Resource Centre.
"The Native Youth Resource Centre provides support and advocacy in the areas of housing, education and employment for Aboriginal youth ages sixteen to twenty-four. While many of our clients have been involved with our Child Welfare services, some are Aboriginal youth who have recently arrived in Toronto. All are seeking opportunities, supports and stability." - Native Child and Family Services of Toronto Website.
PROGRAMME
Jonathan Bailey Holland - The Intimacy of Harmony (2013), for solo piano
Sarah Hennies - Lake (2018) for violin, vibraphone and piano
Alex Jang - Three Short Pieces (2020) for piano, percussion and violin*
Linda Catlin Smith - Dark Flower (2020) for piano, violin, viola, cello**
TENMC Performers
Amahl Arulanadam - Cello
Cheryl Duvall - Piano
Nathan Petitpas - Percussion
Aysel Taghi-Zada - Viola
Ilana Waniuk - Violin
*world premiere commissioned with generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the SOCAN Foundation
**world premiere commissioned with generous support form the Ontario Arts Council.
Dark Flower is presented with generous support from the Canadian Music Centre, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Dream Cymbals, the Toronto Arts Council and the SOCAN Foundation.
COMPOSER BIOS
photo credit: Martin Weinhold
Linda Catlin Smith grew up in New York and lives in Toronto. Her music has been performed and/or recorded by: BBC Proms, Tafelmusik, BBC Scottish Orchestra, Tectonics Festival (Glasgow), Trio Arbos (Madrid), Arraymusic, Tapestry New Opera, and the Penderecki and Bozzini string quartets, as well as by soloists including Eve Egoyan, Philip Thomas and Elinor Frey. Recordings include: Thought and Desire, with Eve Egoyan, and four recordings: Dirt Road, Drifter, Wanderer and Among the Tarnished Stars (with Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time), on the label 'another timbre'. A new cd of her string trio Meadow was released with Louth Contemporary Music Society. Her works are available through Composers Edition and the Canadian Music Centre.
Alex Jang is a composer and guitarist based in Victoria B.C. His music studies began in earnest with violin lessons. At fifteen, Alex had to stop playing violin due to a back injury, which prompted him to start composing, as a way to stay in contact with music. His first efforts at writing music led him to study composition, conducting and chamber music performance at University of Victoria and University of Huddersfield. During his studies, Alex learned from and worked with Christopher Butterfield, John Celona, Ajtony Csaba, Alexander Dunn, Pauline Oliveros, Peter Ablinger, Linda Catlin Smith, and Antoine Beuger, among many others. His recent compositions offer possibilities for drawing musicians and listeners deep into the present moment. His focus is on writing and making music where sounds are produced as a result of the performer trusting a resonant space, their own instrument, or their fellow performers. Some people who have performed his music include Apartment House, A Place to Listen Ensemble, Sylvia Hinz and XelmYa+, Erica Roozendaal, Música Experimental da Cámara, Ultraviolet, Adrian Verdejo, and the Victoria Composers Collective. He has been a member of A Place to Listen Ensemble, founded by Daniel and Laura Brandes, since its inception in 2012. He is the co-founder of Omni Temporum Duo with his wife and fellow composer Maria Eduarda Mendes Martins.
https://alexjang.wordpress.com
Jonathan Bailey Holland’s works have been commissioned and performed by the Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, National, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and South Bend Symphony Orchestras; Da Capo Chamber Players; Left Coast Chamber Ensemble; Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota (currently Vocal Essence), and many others. A recipient of a 2019 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship, and a 2015 Fromm Foundation Commission, he has received honors from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, American Music Center, ASCAP, the Presser Foundation, and more. He served as the first ever Composer-in-Residence for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra during their 2018-2019 season, composing a companion work to accompany Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; and he served as the Classical Roots Composer-in-Residence for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He has held similar roles with the; Ritz Chamber Players; South Bend Symphony; and the Radius Ensemble. His music has been recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony; the Radius Ensemble and numerous others. Recent highlights include performances by Eighth Blackbird, Aeolus Quartet, Arx Duo, and commissions by Boston’s Phoenix Ensemble, as well as pianist Awadagin Pratt with Room Full of Teeth and A Far Cry. Holland is Chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and is a Founding faculty member of the composition program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Jonathan Bailey Holland
Sarah Hennies (b. 1979, Louisville, KY) is a composer based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, love, intimacy, psychoacoustics, and percussion. She is primarily a composer of small chamber works, but is also active in improvisation, film, performance art, and dance. She presents her work internationally as both a composer and percussionist with notable performances at Le Guess Who (Utrecht), Festival Cable (Nantes), send + receive (Winnipeg), O’ Art Space (Milan), The OBEY Convention (Halifax), Cafe Oto (London), ALICE (Copenhagen), and the Edition Festival (Stockholm). As a composer, she has received commissions across a wide array of performers and ensembles including Bearthoven, Bent Duo, Cristian Alvear, Claire Chase, R. Andrew Lee (Denver), LIMINAR, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Two-Way Street, and Yarn/Wire.
Her ground breaking audio-visual work Contralto (2017) explores transfeminine identity through the elements of “voice feminization” therapy, featuring a cast of transgender women accompanied by a dense and varied musical score for string quartet and three percussionists. The work has been in high demand since its premiere, with numerous performances taking place around North America, Europe, and Australia and was one of four finalists for the 2019 Queer|Art Prize. She is the recipient of a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a 2016 fellowship in music/sound from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has received additional support from New Music USA, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.
Sarah is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College.
tenmc performers
Amahl Arulanandam
Cello
With interests from baroque to metal, Toronto cellist Amahl Arulanandam is known for his musical versatility and ability to adapt to many genres. At home in studios, clubs, and halls, Amahl hopes to convey that musical expression is beyond labels. Passionate about the music of our time, Amahl has performed with ensembles such as Soundstreams, New Music Concerts, Caution Tape Sound Collective, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Music in the Barns and Esprit Orchestra. He has had the opportunity to work with leading composers such as Salvatore Sciarrino, Ana Sokolovic, Luna Pearl Woolf, and Brian Current. A co-founder of VC2 Cello Duo alongside colleague Bryan Holt, he has helped foster the creation of brand-new, genre-bending music for cello that is wholly unique, but wholly Canadian. Amahl has wholly embraced the bizarre sounds the cello has to offer and takes special pleasure in playing on areas of the instrument other than the strings.
Cheryl Duvall
Piano + Co AD
Toronto-based pianist Cheryl Duvall has established herself as one of Canada's foremost contemporary music interpreters. In 2012, she co-founded the "adventurous and smartly programmed" (Musicworks Magazine) chamber group Thin Edge New Music Collective. They've commissioned over 70 works, mounted multidisciplinary productions, and collaborated with leading performers like Charlotte Mundy, Jason Sharp, and Ensemble Paramirabo (with whom they recorded an album.) Widely noted for their direct engagement with composers—among them Linda Catlin Smith, Elliott Sharp, Barbara Monk Feldman, and Sarah Hennies—they've also toured and performed across Europe, and in Japan and Argentina. A dynamic soloist and in-demand collaborator, Duvall has immersed herself in a wide variety of compositional aesthetics and collaborative endeavours. She is currently gathering bold new commissioned solo repertoire from Daniel Brandes (of the Wandelweiser collective), Kotoka Suzuki, James O'Callaghan, Emilie Lebel, and Anna Höstman. A former member of the wayward ensemble Bespoken, she has worked with the likes of stalwart choreographer Peggy Baker, cellist Paul Pulford, film composer Darren Fung, and Essential Opera. She released her debut solo album, Harbour, the piano works of Canadian composer Anna Höstman, in January 2020.