MICROCOSM

June 28, 2022

7 PM

Winnipeg Art Gallery

PROGRAM

A World Unknown - Scott Reimer
Marvellous Error! - Edie Hill
White Fang - Luke Nickel
Night is the darkest weather - Amy Brandon
Dring, dring - Ana Sokolovic

Intermission
Da Pacem Domine - Arvo Pärt
fly away i - Caroline Shaw
Raindrops, Footsteps, Raindrops, Footsteps - Rita Ueda
Protect yourself from infection - David Lang

POLYCORO

John Wiens, Conductor and Curator

Zohreh Gervais, Soprano

Chloe Thiessen, Soprano

Nikita Labdon, Alto

Sarah Hall, Alto

John Wiens, Tenor

PJ Buchan, Tenor

Scott Reimer, Baritone

Jereme Wall, Baritone

PROGRAM NOTES

Welcome to the last concert of the 2022 season. Thank you so much for sticking by us through a pandemic that challenged so many of us, and made us wonder if we would be ok.

We are ok. And we also are not. Many of us feel like we lost a few years of our lives. Some of us find ourselves in new professions, or looking for new professions, or actively training for them. Some of us have graduated from university. Some of us have moved provinces. Life has been fluid.

The music for Microcosm has taken on a North American form. With the exception of Arvo Pärt, this concert is entirely of North American composers. It has also become a program about improvisation. There are many significant improv elements in this concert, making it a concert we will never be able to recreate again no matter how we may try.

Edie Hill might not be that well known yet, but her music is steadily gaining traction for a willingness to do away with convention and embrace a somewhat eccentric approach to composition. The beauty of this piece is found just as much in the text chosen as her treatment of it.

By now the names Scott Reimer and Luke Nickel are synonymous with composition in Manitoba. Scott seems to be able to do nearly anything, and has been singing and assistant conducting at Polycoro for many years now. He wrote three pieces for Polycoro during the Pandemic. Two of those pieces were released in the form of videos - In the Bleak Midwinter, and Light of a Clear Blue Morning. Today we finally perform the third work and my personal favorite : A World Unknown. A World Unknown is based on the musical language of the Shakers, and was suggested to us by Matthew Knight as a piece of musical material of interest.

Luke Nickel’s piece, White Fang, is an exercise in limited improvisation. We are given a few notes to hum, instructed to speak words we think are sonically interesting, all the while reading the first chapter of White Fang silently. The title of the first chapter is The Trail of the Meat, and the subject material is a pair of trappers who discover they’ve lost one of their huskies.

What more can be said about Amy Brandon, who put together most of the App we released last month called TouchGrass? If you haven’t taken the time to look at the app yet, please do. It is very interesting. Amy is a wonder, and a terrific musical talent currently living in Truro, NS, and teaching at Dalhousie University. It is an honor to premiere this piece. We hope there will be many more.

We first performed Ana Sokolovic’s Dring Dring in 2015 at the WNMF. We are revisiting it with an entirely new group of singers, and its just as much fun now as it was then. Much of the music is taken from the music and noise cell phones generate themselves. Its a lighthearted look at a device that has changed everyone’s lives.

Arvo Pärt has composed for most of his career in a timeless manner. He himself seems somewhat timeless, a spirit who has showed us a way to live and be without the difficulties of the modern day world. He is a fascinating character who, along with John Tavener, rebuilt composition to suit a more meditative, yet no less moving style.

Caroline Shaw is a major force in composition today. Her works are performed widely, and fly away i is a piece hard to come by and tricky to perform. The altos are stuck in their lowest register most of the work, and while the music might sound great (in some ways) it is also very demanding.

Rita Ueda is a generous spirit who has written enough works for choir to fill an entire program. Her music is delicate, smart, and atmospheric. She is among my favorite Canadian composers. Throughout this work we are improvising almost non-stop. The raindrops are a metaphor for the tears she is shedding over the loss of someone close to her. The story told in the poem is one of loss and letting go of heartache. It ends with a blessing from the one who has departed.

David Lang has been a star of vocal composition for many years. He has offered us incredible works like the Little Match Girl Passion and The National Anthems. Protect yourself from infection has two different ideas tracking simultaneously. One track lists a series of people who died in the pandemic, presented in an improvisatory manner. On the other, 5 of us sing a quasi-Anglican Chant of a pamphlet published in 1919 during the last pandemic. Lang is never afraid to go into painful territory to make his point.

We owe a debt of gratitude to many people and organizations. The Parish Church of St. Luke and St John’s Anglican Cathedral have been particularly supportive this year. We are grateful for our funders, the Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and the Foundation for Choral Music in Manitoba. Our private donors really stepped into the breach this year and helped us continue operating. Finally, our board has been stalwart and resolute in providing us with amazing help all year long.

On behalf of everyone who sang this season, our board, and the staff at Polycoro, and in the words of the 1919 pamphlet, I wish you an easy summer. Keep supporting live music. Keep well, and be good to others. And let us find ourselves again in the fall refreshed and ready for the challenges of a new season.

-John Wiens, Artistic Director

POLYCORO BOARD + STAFF

John Wiens, Artistic Director

Zohreh Gervais, Creative + Executive Director

Ricardo Soriano, Social Media Manager

Catherine Marshall, Chair

Oscar Pantaleon, Treasurer

Murielle Fontaine, Vice-Chair

Carolyn Basha

Jody Smith

Joe Dudych

Harley Dick

Lindsey Kilcup

Volunteers:

Aly Amin, Meredith Liu, Sarah de Rose, Mackenzie Smith

DONORS + SPONSORS

Winnipeg Arts Council // Manitoba Arts Council // The Winnipeg Foundation

Thank you to our generous sponsors!

Anonymous (2)

Carolyn Basha

Jeri Bjornson

Ross Brownlee

Coralie Bryant

CanadaHelps

Joe and Sandra Dudych

Bryan Hemeryck

Susan Bond Hurka

Paul N. Johnson

Lindsey Kilcup

Bill Kirkpatrick

Catherine Marshall

Michael F.B. Nesbitt

Oscar Pantaleon

Nadine Shelton

Jody Smith

Muriel Smith

Jason Fung