On Sunday, November 10, 2024, Piano Lunaire will give the world concert premiere of For Celine (1995, dedicated to my niece). “Fourths + Fifths” (2012, from Children’s Suite) will also be performed. These two short pieces are part of Composers in Play XII: Still Reeling, an expansive program that highlights world premieres by Charlie Piper, composer and pianist Christopher Mayo, and composer, pianist and Piano Lunaire co-founder Adam Sherkin, as well as music by Allison Cameron, David Sawer and Sean Shepherd. The concert will take place at 3 pm at Arts & Letters Club, Toronto. Doors open at 2:30 pm.
On Saturday, November 23, 2024, the same program will be performed, with songs by Emily Hall sung by Nathaniel Sullivan in place of the Cameron work. This concert will take place at 8pm at the Tenri Cultural Institute, New York City.
I performed For Celine several times in the late 90s in informal settings, always from memory with a variable duration and improvised details. I’m excited to have it played for the first time in its notated form by an expert performer in fine settings. This will also be the first time “Fourths + Fifths” has been performed as a standalone work, and its second appearance on a program since Stephen Clarke premiered the complete Children’s Suite at Arraymusic in 2020.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to have my work presented by Adam and Christopher, two wonderfully accomplished artists.
On November 16th, 2024, my second portrait concert “Perhaps Bells” will take place at Arraymusic, with much anticipated performances by the adventurous and multi-talented junctQín keyboard collective. This is a special program I’ve been hoping to hear since the start of my Array residency. It’s all piano solos and duos, all world premieres of work composed in the 90s and 00s when there were few audiences or concerts if any, and includes a new arrangement of Madra (originally for variable instrumentation). These pieces relate directly to my recent ones written for Array and other ensembles. They were created under the influence of American and Canadian minimalists, popular music in general, and a more expansive list that includes Wally Badarou, Harold Budd, John Cage, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Henryk Górecki, Kraftwerk, Arvo Pärt, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Erik Satie, Ann Southam, Linda Catlin Smith, and James Tenney.
On the same weekend, Freesound will present their season opening program in the Array Space (“Music for Piano Quartet II,” November 15th and 17th), making for an exciting mini-fest of contemporary concert music.
Stay tuned for another piano announcement (November is my piano month) and more.
On Sunday, June 23, 2024, a concert performance of my latest composition ex tempore (ik’stempəri) will be broadcast across Canada on CBC Radio’s “In Concert with Paolo Pietropaolo,” along with two other recorded performances from Arraymusic’s “New Encounters” concert on February 1st. Hanna Benn‘s Introitus and Kathryn Patricia Cobbler‘s Echoes will also be included in the broadcast. This will be a first for me both as a composer and curator. “In Concert” runs from 11:05am-3:00pm in five of Canada’s time zones (11:35am-3:30pm NT) and can be heard on terrestrial radio (94.1 FM in Toronto), streaming live at cbc.ca/listen or on the CBC Listen app. Select a city in the desired time zone on the app or website. The best time to tune in prior to the Arraymusic portion is 2:15pm.
I’m very pleased to share the studio recording (see below) and performance video of Sequences (2000 rev. 2024), featuring the University of Delaware Percussion Ensemble directed by Dr. Gene Koshinski, who gave the concert premiere of the piece in April 2024. The recording and video shoot were done in the weeks following the premiere. My thanks to the UD team for showing such care towards my work.
I composed Sequences at the start of a 20-year hiatus from the arts world, when I was composing in private and before any of my notated music had been played. I’d always hoped it would one day be performed, and it’s wonderful that it can have its own rebirth and reach listeners.
The title refers to sequences both in the sense of a musical phrase that repeats with a variation in pitch each time (in this case, with a variation in rhythm as well), and in the sense of arrangements programmed electronically using a sequencer.
The piece is a study in diatonic rhythms (the different phases of a 7-stroke pattern in a 12-beat cycle) which are paired with harmonically diatonic melodic canons. With each change of chord root, the overall pattern changes once or more. Four chords are used exclusively: D dominant, C major, G major and A minor, i.e., V – IV – I – ii in the key of G. There is a separate chordal flow and cadence on E minor in the bridge section.
Parameters vary within a narrow range: harmony, rhythmic phase, register that expands or contracts symmetrically from pattern to pattern, and interval quality, i.e., one pattern may feature predominantly small intervals and another, widely spaced ones. As the piece progresses, new sets of patterns emerge on the same four chords. Harmonic rhythm is slowed through increased repetition and variation.
Sequences shares some material in common with my string quartet Madra, as these compositions emerged during the same period (along with Kalimba Canon). My primary interest during this period was fusing a pop sensibility with minimalism derived from West African traditional structures.
The piece is not unlike a pop song in terms of its structure, duration, and harmonic character; however, a tension exists between this aspect and the statistical regularity of the material from beginning to end. The marimba parts require virtuoso players, while the “beat” is a relatively straightforward alternation of kick and cross stick with constantly varying accents in 3/2 metre, in response to the marimba music. The beat should support but not overpower the marimbas.
The piece initially included a TR-808 style electronic kick drum tuned to a single pitch, and in 2020, I expanded this part into a bassline for a tunable kick sound/bass synth. This can be played on a keyboard or pads, with the range of pitches being G0 to E1. The bassline exactly doubles the rhythm of the unpitched kick; the two lines should blend without either sound dominating the other.
Depending on tech setup, the piece can be performed as either a trio or quartet.
In 2024, I extended the piece with additional repeats, added a few subtle transitions in the beat/bassline, and created a new ending.
Recorded May 2024, University of Delaware, Newark, DE Shared with permission
Ensemble: Haolin Li and Joe Tremper, marimbas Gene Koshinski, bass synth and drum kit
Audio (mixing and editing): Gene Koshinski
Video and Lighting: Ben Hausman
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2024
My composition Sequences (2000) will receive its belated world premiere this Saturday, April 20th, 2024 in a concert that runs from 3-4 pm EST. It will be livestreamed for free.
I’ve been waiting 24 years to hear this piece live! It’s for two marimbas and a light drum beat doubled with a synth bassline. It was revised this year for the University of Delaware Percussion Ensemble led by Dr. Gene Koshinski.
The music is from my Madra period, and is similarly small-scale minimalism, with all of its melodic and rhythmic patterns derived from the West African standard bell pattern and the harmony straight out of four-chord pop. It’s highly structured and finely detailed, and can be enjoyed simply with the body: groove music. It’s where I was stylistically just before I decided to put my aspirations as a working musician on pause (for twenty years…)
I don’t know the running order, so if you have an hour in your Saturday and would like to dedicate it to livestreamed percussion pieces… this is for you!
aix (“waters”), for two pianos, is a short study in rising and falling patterns, with alternating chordal and canonic textures. It’s a slightly unsettled lullaby, composed on “04 04 04” (April 4, 2004, the 36th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.).
The primary melodic shape, an ascending seventh followed by a descending second, is heard in several of my piano pieces of the early to mid 2000s, which I later grouped together as a cycle under the title “Kindred Pieces.” The piece is written in diatonic A-flat major, with a harmonic progression on the scale degrees 4-3-2-1-5-6.
Stephen Clarke, Wesley Shen, pianos Recorded live at The Array Space, Toronto by Daniel Tapper, November 21, 2020
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2024
In August 1999, while I was co-hosting Radio Music Gallery, I was fortunate to have composer Ann Southam (1937-2010) as a guest. It was optional content for the show, unrelated to promoting the concert calendar at The Music Gallery, but more than relevant to the focus of the organization in those years. Early on a Friday morning, she ascended the stairs to the attic studio in the old 91 St. George St. location of CIUT, introduced tracks from recent CD releases of her work, and answered a few questions.
Unfortunately, due either to nervousness or studio chaos, I neglected to record the interview until after it started. The recording begins while she is discussing a recent commission. I loved doing the show but was still inexperienced at doing interviews and a bit brash. Despite that, an iconic Southam is in evidence: engaging, wise, funny, and disarmingly homespun. The fragment is a fractal.
My co-host Christina Jol was present for the interview, and her voice can also be heard at points.
I recently rediscovered the cassette of this recording, around the time I was thinking of dedicating a composition in Southam’s memory. That eventually happened with ex tempore (2024). It’s hard to say whether Southam’s music was more of an influence on my style or simply an inspiration; it was certainly both. She loomed large in Canadian composition, and deservedly so given how extraordinary her music is. She was also a wonderful human being.
At the end of the interview, I asked her if she had advice for young composers, to which she responded, “Don’t get pushed around by influences, just listen to your own voice as much as you can.” That seems to symbolize her own work as much as it invites examination, like any platitude. Southam’s work embodied both her unquestionable uniqueness as a musician, and her relationship to a style movement (minimalism) that tended to erase women from its early narratives.
Technical note: I’ve posted the digitized audio of the cassette without any editing or cleanup. Two recordings of her music can be heard briefly (15-20 seconds each).
I made a playlist to explore the influences and lifetime inspirations behind my upcoming new work ex tempore (exempla ex tempore: “examples from time”).
On Thursday, February 1, 2024, as part of New Encounters, the Array Ensemble will give the premiere performance of my new work ex tempore (ik’stempəri – out of the moment / out of time / at the time / from time), for flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, and cello. The piece is dedicated to the memory of composer Ann Southam, a pioneer for women in Canadian composition.
Recently, I found an old cassette which contained a fragment of an interview I did with Southam at CIUT in 1999. I was reminded that I had asked her if she had advice for young composers, to which she responded, “Don’t get pushed around by influences, just listen to your own voice as much as you can.” That seemed a good starting point for a piece, flipping the intention to explore the nature of influence as another kind of listening.
The title is intended to encompass several possible interpretations; for example, something improvised (in terms of compositional decisions rather than performance), or an immediate judgement without full consideration (as a legal term and reflecting our current times). The temporal theme applies to Southam’s minimalist pieces, in which material is spun out gradually over an extended duration, allowing it to be explored in detail or meditated upon. While I don’t quote Southam’s music, her technique of layering patterns to “spontaneously produce little tunes” has always appealed to me.
I juxtapose concise structures from pop, R&B, rock, and reggae absorbed in my formative years with the influence of minimalism present since my early work. Southam was inspired by Steve Reich, whose music I studied informally while also briefly studying Ghanaian drumming performance. I came to understand that the interlocking parts and West African timekeeping patterns which became a minimalist signature have always been part of African diasporic musical traditions, suggesting broader connections and possibilities in terms of style.
ex tempore is a companion to ex harmonia (2023), which was dedicated in memory of James Tenney, another important figure in my development. While both are chamber quintets written while I’m the Composer-in-Residence at Arraymusic, there are differences between the two pieces in terms of form and instrumentation. Each piece finds a unique balance of formalism and intuitive expression. In contrast to the earlier, longer piece, this one is focused less on systematic development of the material than casual variations on diatonic chord progressions, groove, and a sense of play. There are four key sections: D major, F major, B major and A-flat major (which includes a short passage in E-flat major/C natural minor). All the chord progressions in the piece are based on a cycle of fifths, with which I create melodic sequences and canons. The outer sections are busy, the inner ones, calmer. The tempo remains steady, while changing note values create a sense of the music being fast or slow moving.
My other projects of 2023, Loss (a multi-media live show written by Ian Kamau and Roger McTair and presented at Luminato Festival Toronto) and cane (for Artemis Musicians’ Society, premiere TBA), were neighbouring points along the creative curve.
New Encounters marks my first event as a curator. An interesting part of the process was gathering the other composers through their works and then only afterwards deciding what to include of my own, which was eventually a newly composed piece. I didn’t necessarily try to relate my music to the other composers, but I did get a sense of how special and unique all our voices are as Black creators. Greater than the sum of our influences, perhaps, and yet those influences are always there, manifest, or not.
I’m honoured to program my music in the presence of the celebrated work of Anthony R. Green, Hanna Benn, and Kathryn Patricia Cobbler. Each of their contributions to the program are so compelling in their own ways, reflecting a lot of loving labour and lived experience. I’m also thrilled to once again have the top flight musicians of the Array Ensemble performing my work.
On April 20 and 22, 2023 as part of Four New Works, the Array Ensemble premieres ex harmonia, in memoriam to my former teacher, the late James Tenney. There have been a few big firsts for me as a re-emerged composer in the past three years, and this is perhaps the one closest to my heart.
35 years ago, I sat in Jim Tenney’s composition class for the first time and dreamt of composing music for a contemporary classical ensemble – the Linda Catlin Smith-era Arraymusic in particular. Despite that fortunate and promising beginning, I ended up focusing on self-performed, non-notated music outside of the concert scene in my early years and eventually put my arts career on hiatus. Three decades would go by before I had the first concert of my music (by Array) and my first commission (Gryphon Trio). Life has taken me the long way round, and I’m so overwhelmed with joy as this great circle closes.
Still being a bit new to this kind of collaboration with other musicians, this was the hardest piece I’ve had to write so far. I sincerely hope it doesn’t sound that way, though! I had both the memory of Jim and my 20-year-old self quietly with me at times, and what felt like eons of struggle and loss emerging as grief in the process. I went through many revisions as the pandemic wore on and the premiere was delayed.
Old binary conflicts sowed some tension once more: am I an experimental or sentimental composer? Forward looking or traditional? In my skin as a Black creator, or not? I thought of Jim seeking to overcome dichotomy in his compositional explorations, and that one was of several ways he was an inspiration. Those familiar with his work may also hear echoes of it in ex harmonia. Hence the title: “out of harmony,” a tribute to his Harmonia pieces among others. It’s a strange composition for me in some ways, but I’m most eager to share it as part of integrating my experience of personal change, growth, and movement.
I also wrote my first grant application in decades and am grateful to Toronto Arts Council for coming through. On top of that, I feel the support of my family and extended community this week. Not least, my good friend and editor Ash Mistry, the magic man, was of critical help with his always excellent work.
As I’ve been getting to know the community of classical musicians working in Toronto and North America more broadly, some of whom I knew before as a fan, I’m so floored to have players of such high calibre offering their time and incredible talent to realize my work. It’s really cool and also humbling.
I’m honoured also by the composer company on the program: Seung-Won Oh, Rose Bolton and Cheldon Paterson (aka SlowPitchSound). And my thanks continue to go out to David Schotzko, Sandra Bell, Mark Wilson and the rest of the Array team and Board of Directors for making me feel so welcome as the inaugural Composer in Residence.
Both live audience and livestream pay-what-you-want tickets are available, depending on the night.
EL MAHBOOB 