“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
“Indigo Pool” is the first song from my 1991 DIY cassette album ōo, in my lo-fi, high-concept early period. The song was composed as it was recorded, layer by layer, beginning with the rhythmic pattern in 11/8 played on two empty plastic water cooler bottles anchored by an abandoned ride cymbal I found in the cluttered basement of the apartment I was living in at the time. Next, I added the synth patterns and fades — all live to recording without programming, software assists or editing — creating a spacey, minimalist, Lydian mode texture. I also worked without notation, which was typical for me at the time as a self-taught musician who played by ear.
The text was an obscure communication to myself and fellow artists, in a rugged, childlike vocal performance. I still made songs the same way I had as a teenager, in that I didn’t rehearse beyond the testing of word sounds and vocal ranges (which usually doubled as a recording sound check), and made as few takes as possible. Once I had the general idea captured, I moved on and called it a tune, wobbly bits and all.
Composed and recorded November 1991, remixed April 1992 4-track cassette recorder, Yahama DX-27, percussion, voice Cassette mixdown transferred to digital 2017, unmastered
Photo: cassette inlay designed by the composer
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2021
Fresh from giving the world premiere of we have lived before at Toronto Summer Music, Gryphon Trio performs my new work twice at Ottawa Chamberfest, on Wednesday, July 28 (7 pm, virtual only, in-person sold out) and Thursday July 29 (2 pm, limited in-person still available). I’ll be there to introduce the piece and tell the stories behind it. I’m excited to travel—on a train no less—and say a rare hello to the capital city.
On Friday, July 16, 2021, Gryphon Trio will premiere my three-movement work for piano trio we have lived before (2021), as part of Toronto Summer Music. The virtual concert is free as is the entire festival. The title of this work is taken from an Earthseed verse in Octavia E. Butler’s novel Parable of the Talents (1998). This is my first commission for notated music, arriving somewhat on its own timing in my composing life as these things oftentimes do. I’m very grateful for this opportunity.
Holding Pattern (2003) is the closest thing to garden variety minimal music that I’ve written. It’s somewhat less a composition than an active meditation ritual. The steady, two-against-three rhythm established in the opening measures remains the same for the entire duration of about ten minutes. The right hand remains fixed on a droning, pendulum-like figure on the notes D, E and A. The left hand cycles through a gamut of dyads on complementary pitches, usually changing one note in the dyad at a time while the other acts as a common tone. The upper note of the dyad is occasionally added to the right-hand part. The hands eventually cross as higher inversions of the dyads are played, revealing more complex melodic possibilities.
In 2003, I had briefly returned to songwriting and was trying to stay engaged as a vocalist on my demos, during a particularly unhappy and unrooted time. I felt disengaged from the idea of being a composer. I found myself gravitating as a diversion—from all of that though not unmindful of it—towards the simple tension and release of familiar and sometimes dramatic chord progressions, locked in a basic polyrhythmic groove.
In 2021, the distraction was away from a relatively positive though sometimes traumatic set of personal and artistic changes in the preceding 24 months. Something to practice daily for a few weeks.
The harmony moves most often by a descending fifth in regular groupings of four or eight measures, moving through several different key centres in a partly recurrent, partly through-composed structure. I felt free to leave the material as is, without applying transformations like phasing or additive process or layering in other parts. There are few if any surprises or random moments. It’s just a stream of harmonies in the middle register, though not quite ambient music. With relatively little piano technique required, the focus is on flow and overall shape.
Composed 2003 Recorded March 2021, unedited take on Roland digital piano
Photo: NYC, 2003
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2021
As part of Black History Month 2021, Soundstreams highlighted my work. This included profiles of several of my compositions with newly written introductions by me (Kalimba Canon, Companion and Linea Nigra), which can be found here: Part 1Part 2Part 3.
EL MAHBOOB 