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 period. 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).
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.
On February 28, 2023, I’ll be at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts at Queen’s University to introduce a performance of my first string quartet Madra (1999) by The Isabel Quartet. The concert is at 7:30 pm Eastern. This will be the premiere of the newest revision of the score, which postdates the Madawaska Quartet’s recording. I’ve been working with the Isabel on the piece and am excited to hear where it lands. In-person and livestream tickets are available here.
I began compiling the songs for this mixtape at the beginning of 2020, letting the playlist shift and grow over three tumultuous years. This is my “ultimate” mixtape; one that covers the formative decade of my childhood that began a half century ago (concentrating on the early 80s), and focuses on Black legends in the genres of R&B, jazz-funk, disco and boogie during the final period of analog recording. This is music that finds me most at home in my body, with familiar and positive lyrical themes. It’s a Black yacht rock movie dream.
As with previous mixtapes, there is melodic and harmonic mixing as well as beat matching and a smooth tempo curve. I worked to create an occasionally seamless conversational flow from song to song, and was surprised that led me to include well-known anthems alongside my usual “rare groove” selections. The result is a more unified mood and less eclectic set. No effects have been used, and where possible, songs are segued naturally with little or no crossfading.
PART I Barry White | Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up (1973) DeBarge | I Like It (1982) Wally Badarou | Preachin’ (1980) Gene Dunlap Featuring The Ridgeways | It’s Just the Way I Feel (1981) George Duke | Corine (1979) Syreeta | I Don’t Know (1977) Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson | Alien (Hold on to Your Dreams) (1980) Tania Maria | Come with Me (1983) Minnie Riperton | Adventures in Paradise (1975) Anita Baker | Do You Believe Me (1983) D Train | Children of the World (1983) Jeffrey Osborne | Ain’t Nothing’ Missin’ (1982) Herbie Hancock | Magic Number (featuring Sylvester) (1981)
PART II The Jones Girls | Nights over Egypt (1981) Odyssey | Love’s Alright (1982) Billy Ocean | Everlasting Love (1981) Patrice Rushen | Get Off (You Fascinate Me) (1984) Brenda Russell | Way Back When (1979) Chaka Khan | I’m Every Woman (1978) Aretha Franklin | Jump to It (1982) Luther Vandross | I Wanted Your Love (1983) Bernard Wright | Move Your Body (1983) Dazzle | All (1979) Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly | Love Is the Key (1983) The Emotions | Here You Come Again (1981) Sylvia St. James | So I Say to You (1980)
“Fourths + Fifths” is the first of three movements from Kenza (2012), and the fourth movement in the cycle of nine in Children’s Suite (2007-2014). It was composed the year my second child Kenza was born. Like all the other movements in the suite, it’s written entirely on the white keys of the piano, in pandiatonic C major. My intention was to create music that was both childlike and abstract.
The movement is structured around a sequence of six diatonic modes, each associated with a melodic pattern. Each pattern is built up from a single, seven-note arpeggio into a homophonic canon by layering the pattern against copies of itself with different starting points. The intervals of the fourth and fifth predominate throughout.
Performed by Stephen Clarke, piano, as part of a composer portrait concert by Arraymusic, November 2020
Audio and image from video by Daniel Tapper
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2022
My music was included in a concert reimagining* of the picture book Li’l Shadd: A Story of Ujima, that paired the story with music by composers of African descent. The book was originally commissioned by the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum, and the reimagining was created for the Regina Symphony Orchestra as an online education tool for their RSO in Schools program: “This story chronicles one of Saskatchewan’s first settlers of African descent, Dr. Alfred Schmitz Shadd. The concert features music by composers of African descent, performed by the Regina Symphony Chamber Players. The story is narrated by Sharon-Ann Brown. This education program includes the concert, which is available for online streaming, as well as a teacher’s guide with detailed background on the story, activities and information the contributions Black composers have made to classical music.” *The teachers’ guide download icon is below the video embed in the link.
(Excerpt of Madra for string quartet, 3:42-4:47)
I’m grateful to have been included in this project, and it was a special thrill to find my bio in the guide on the same page as the esteemed Florence Price!
On Thursday, June 23, Thin Edge New Music Collective will give the world premiere of my sextet in the sea of being as part of the inaugural edition of Reverb, at 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media and Education, in Toronto. I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to work with TENMC, whom I’ve long admired for their adventurous and broadly inclusive approach. After thirty-odd years of composing, this marks only my second commission, but it was well worth the wait. The title is taken from Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Lathe of Heaven (1971).
On Saturday, February 19, 2022, pianist Stephen Clarke of the Array Ensemble will present the world premiere of my solo piano work “dream of a blue elf” (2007, from perhaps bells do not play tunes), as part of the prerecorded and livestreamed program “Premieres.” Event details and a link to purchase a ticket (CAD$25 or pay what you want) can be found here.
I also had a “Living Room Talk” with Arraymusic artistic director David Schotzko, to give a brief introduction to the piece. That can be found here.
Companion (2019) was composed through late 2018 and early 2019, while the first pencil sketches date to 2011. It is dedicated to my two youngest children. All of the material derives from seven-note rows: orderings of the pitches of the diatonic scale. The harmony resembles traditional tonality heard through a pandiatonic filter. There are four sections, divided by key signature: F major, A-flat major, B major and D major.
Each section is constructed from one or two unique, quasi-symmetrical rows that proceed most often by the interval of a fourth or fifth. Each row is layered against itself in a homorhythmic canon of up to six voices, often accompanied by high and low pedals tones that present an additional canon in augmentation. Almost every chord in Companion is the result of a basic serial process, one exception being the transition between the third and fourth sections, which features chords built from nested fifths. Ultimately, such chords result from the canons as well.
The final chord is arrived at through symmetrical voice leading from the penultimate chord and is also the initial row spelled vertically from bottom to top. Form at the local and vertical levels is highly rationalized, while global and horizontal form—rhythmic structure and phrasing—is loosely associative.
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 2022
EL MAHBOOB 