Author: debmin

Yarilo

This piece is named after the Slavonic sun deity. According to legend, Yarilo returns from the otherworld each year after Shrovetide to usher in springtime and provide a bountiful harvest. He is celebrated in the springtime through the midsummer, but as his life is connected to the agricultural cycle, he is “killed” at the end of summer, along with the harvest of the crops. This piece takes its source material from four traditional Russian folksongs. Beginning with darkness/winter, the piece moves progressively through the yearly agricultural cycle.

  • Yarilo was premiered by Ariel Barnes at “Further East, Further West: Global Pilgrimage” concert of works for solo cello, Heritage Hall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 29 June, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Anagrams for November

beaches, babes, heads, cafes—

each faded, deaf,

each sees seas— ages,

ages, faded, dead

 

Anagrams for November was written especially for the Vancouver Miniaturist Ensemble. The alto flute spells out the musical anagrams of this collection of words (in concert pitch), while the viola provides some counterpoint, creating a breathy dialogue between the two parts.

The piece was edited again in 2017, to create a new arrangement for tenor recorder and violin.

 

  • Premiered by the Vancouver Miniaturist Ensemble (in version for alto flute and viola), at the Western Front, Vancouver, 10 December 2007.

 

  • Performed (in version for tenor recorder and violin) by XelmYa at “Klangräume”, St. Thomas Church, Berlin, Germany, July 2, 2017.

 

Sheet music (for both versions) is available through Syrinx Press:

https://elizabethknudson.ca/syrinx-press

 

Winter Suite: Eight Vignettes

This piece was composed as a series of eight miniatures, or vignettes, inspired by a cycle of three poems about winter (by Robert Pack). Each vignette bears a subtitle taken from a line of poetry, representing the character of that particular movement—all being reflections on different facets of the winter season (i.e. brightness/exuberance, deadly chill, beauty, storm/chaos, stillness).

  1. I. Prelude
  2. II. I watched drowned snow appear to lift up from the lake
  3. III. Your red cheeks radiant against the wind
  4. IV. A frame of gilded twilight
  5. V. Cascading snowflakes settle in the pines
  6. VI. Homeward into the howling woods
  7. VII. Only a whiter absence to my mind
  8. VIII. Merely a mockery of spring
  • Winter Suite: Eight Vignettes was premiered by Mark D’Angelo and Daeyong Ra- trumpets, and Miri Lee- piano, at the Canadian Music Centre- BC Creative Hub (Vancouver), 27 February, 2011

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

À travers la mer

À travers la mer is based loosely on the idea of an ocean voyage — Jacques Cartier’s first of three trips from France to New France (Québec), in 1534. He was not the first European to arrive in the eastern parts of Canada. However, Cartier ventured into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which was still uncharted territory, and the voyage would have been extremely dangerous, and exciting, to say the least.

With no accurate maps to guide them, and no means of accurately measuring longitude (this did not exist until over 100 years later), the travelers must have been reliant on the heavens, and intuition, to guide them. I did not want to make this piece especially programmatic, but rather, I was interested in the various conflicting emotions that may have been in the air: excitement, memory/nostalgia, trepidation, and not least, the beauty and terror that the ocean must have inspired. The ocean and the stars are present in various shifting layers, as are fragments of a folk melody from Basse-Bretagne.

Read by the Victoria Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Tania Miller), at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, 2 February, 2007. Also read by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as part of Jean Coulthard Reading Sessions, (conducted by Bramwell Tovey), at the Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, 19 April, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Foliage

I have always been fascinated by architecture. Not just the architecture of buildings, but also that of nature. One of the most interesting aspects of the natural landscape is foliage, and its ability to transform completely over the course of the year. This piece was devised as a miniature set of variations, and it is like foliage in that it evolves from relatively simple material into something more complex, making use of variations in shape, texture, density and color as means of growth.

  • Foliage received its premiere with the Turning Point Ensemble, as part of the Sonic Boom Festival, at the Western Front, Vancouver, 17 March, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.