RESURFACE

Nov 4, 2023 · Peggy Corkum Music Room · Halifax, Nova Scotia

RESURFACE continued Alkali Collective’s fourth season by returning to composers and musical ideas that had previously appeared in the ensemble’s programming. The concert revisited works by Jocelyn Morlock and Linda Catlin Smith in new instrumental contexts, bringing them together with music by Carmen Braden, Cassie Wieland, Jinhee Han, and Blasio Kavuma. Across the program, ideas of re-emergence and transformation took several forms: music reshaped through performance, individual voices finding their place within an ensemble, and landscapes and environments translated into sound.

Several works drew directly on the natural world. Carmen Braden’s The Bedrock Cycles takes its inspiration from the geology of Yellowknife and the different life cycles connected to it, while Jocelyn Morlock’s Bird in the Tangled Sky evokes wildlife navigating a landscape increasingly crossed by wires and technology. Linda Catlin Smith’s Wanderer unfolds through unhurried, meandering melodies, and Jinhee Han’s Echo Me[mi:] (iv) uses violin, saxophone, and piano to represent the migration patterns of orcas.

From the Artistic Directors

Thank you for joining us for RESURFACE, our second concert of this season. We strive to program and present compelling works from composers both in Canada and around the world, showcasing music that reflects the environmental, political, and social climate of today.

Now in our fourth concert season, we are excited to be calling on composers whose works we’ve performed previously and revisiting their music using different players and instrumentations. It’s very meaningful for the ensemble to be building long- lasting relationships with composers and their works, and to have these gems “resurface” in new ways within our ensemble’s repertoire.

Our concert title also takes on the meaning of reforming a work throughout the performance itself. We find this perfectly exemplified in Cassie Wieland’s “go together”, written for an unlikely trio of instruments finding their way as an ensemble, and Blasio Kavuma’s “Pathways”, about the individual choices of each performer contributing to a collective expression of musical thought.

Also present is a common theme of the environment found in several of the works on the program. In “Echo me[mi:](iv)”, the violin, saxophone, and piano work together to represent the migration patterns of orcas. The unhurried and meandering melodies of ”Wanderer” move like fog or smoke drifting through a landscape. Carmen Braden’s work is based on the dominant geologic feature of Yellowknife, NWT, and the vastly different life cycles connected to it. And the late Jocelyn Morlock’s work “Bird in the Tangled Sky” is one that Alkali Collective looks forward to presenting again, with its poignant imagery of a tangled sky of telephone wires and other technologies encroaching on wildlife’s natural habitats.

We are very grateful to be bringing new music and ideas to our audiences year after year. We sincerely thank you for your support, and look forward to bringing you more music this Winter!

– Megan Thibeault & Shauna DeGruchy