March 2010
In February, Shawn Mativetsky and I released The Road Ahead..., a disc of new works for violin and tabla. The topic of my PhD has prevented me over the past few years from applying for arts funding, and my academic studies haven’t given me the time or mental space to compose music. Instead, I have returned to commissioning - the activity that started the ball rolling on the Attar Project some 15 years ago when I commissioned the seminal work, La for violin, tabla and drones (1996) from Alberta composer Robert Rosen.
I booked the Toronto launch gigs around two days of workshops and performances Shawn and I led at the University of Western Ontario in London, at the invitation of composer Paul Frehner. Paul’s 2007 work, “Oracle” opens the new disc. Although originally composed for violin and bongos, Shawn heard the piece performed on framedrum and thought the part might transfer well to tabla. And it does! Shawn and I performed in UWO’s noon-hour series in Von Kuster hall - a wonderfully resonant (and violin-friendly) space - on February 25. Two nights before, we officially launched the CD at Musideum, attended by close friends and composer Meiro Stamm (“The Melody of Rhythm”).
While the Canadian men’s hockey team was playing against Slovakia at the Olympics, Shawn and I played a second Toronto show at C’est What. Hamilton composer, Christien Ledroit (“Never the Twain Shall Meet”) joined us on that evening and he was particularly happy with the violin sound created thanks to both using my student, Kelly Lefaive’s, pickup on my violin and overall balance achieved by my good friend Adam Faux working the soundboard. The Canadian men won the game, and we had a good gig!
We played our third and last Toronto gig on the 27th at the Tranzac, one of my favourite improv and intimate live music spaces in the city. We had a great turnout and had lots of fun playing... even if we were competing some of the time with what someone in the audience described as a “middle-age crisis tribute band”! By the time Nicole Rampersaud arrived, the band next door had finished sound-checking, and we were able to do justice to Nicole’s piece and the album’s title track, “The Road Ahead... is Longer Than the Trail Left Behind.”
The only composer who wasn’t able to join us - even though by chance he was in Toronto that week! - was composer Andrew Staniland. Andrew moved to The Rock - to St. John’s Newfoundland - in November, to take up a position at Memorial University. I’m very happy for Andrew and his family! I know so many wonderful people in St. John’s, but after jamming with Andrew for five years in The Human Remains, I was sad to see him and his family leave. We had great plans for our own improv duo - although perhaps the best fun was in choosing whether to name ourselves Staniwala or Attariland! Andrew’s work, “Sudoku,” is chock full of references to the kinds of improvisations Andrew often heard me play. There are some sounds I am called to make that cause Shawn Mativetsky to cringe, while I find myself laughing inside, knowing that those were the kinds of sounds I made when I was angry and felt like no one in the band was listening to the violin! (It would seem Andrew was listening) And then, there are some fiercely challenging moments in “Sudoku”: pure Staniland.
I am happy with The Road Ahead... my third CD. Each disc has been a huge undertaking and has stretched me artistically. I feel like this CD also stretched our composers. The only unifying element on the disc is the two instruments. The fact that there is such an extraordinary diversity of sonic palettes is a tribute to the imaginations of our composers. Kudos to them!
I bow also to the wonderful, wonderful knob-twiddling, mic-placing gentlemen who helped me and Shawn sound so good! Jeremy Darby, Mr Sound himself; Sam Ibbett (who I’m quite sure thought the music was insane when he first heard it, but whose contemporary sensibility did especial justice to balancing the acoustic instruments against the electronics of Andrew and Chris’ works); David Travers-Smith (is there anyone with more precise ears, efficiency and generosity of spirit in the audio world of this town?) ; and Andy Hurlbut, who has been on this journey from the beginning... and who just gets it!
Now, we go from bowing to word-stringing: along the topics of liberal democracy, arts councils, multiculturalism and how they all play together (or don’t) in the Canadian musical sandbox.