Soundstreams Commissions

Small and Curious Places, puts aside the question of East vs. West and instead approaches the ensemble as a group of individual instruments and their unique characteristics, with none more distinct or exotic than the others.

'Breathe' redefines many musical periods through its blending of ancient and modern texts, and through the performance of new music with historical instruments and techniques. Each part of the piece focuses on one of the four classical elements—air, fire, water, and earth—all of which are strongly present in the poems Rolfe has chosen for his text.

Lost and Found represents Chang’s embrace of a musical heritage that had hitherto exerted little influence on her compositions, and her exploration of how that heritage might intersect with her own musical voice. Each of the work’s five short movements takes its own approach to integrating the Chinese and Western traditions.

'El sueño de Aquiles' ('The Dream of Aquiles') is a setting of a poem by Mexican writer José Manuel Recillas. The composition calls for four immense percussion setups, placed at the front and back of a room. Also, four voices alternate between clusters of close harmonies, complex rhythmic Sprechstimme, and intricate contrapuntal lines.

As a young woman who works as a shoe-store clerk daydreams about shoe ownership on a grand scale, her inner reverie alternating with her rapid-fire recital of the romantically named stock of which she is taking inventory, Current makes use of his signature “slanted time” to suggest the character’s underlying neurosis.

Harman composed Projection at a time when he was pursuing his growing interest in condensed forms of expression. Consisting of many small sections and many even smaller fragments, the piece has a decidedly anti-narrative large-scale structure. Yet despite its lack of an overarching narrative, it still creates dramatic expectations—even though these are systematically undermined.

The characteristic playfulness of Sokolović’s music is prominently represented in this short piece, which the composer has dedicated to her son Gustave. Her aim in Nonet was to create a progression from static, non-evolving material to material that is faster and more directional, and then to repeat this process several times to achieve a humorous effect.

As he contemplated writing a chamber concerto for oboist and Soundstreams Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney, Chan thought immediately of the oboe d’amore—and, in particular, of that double-reed instrument’s age-old association with snake charming. It was with that exotic quality in mind that he set out to compose this piece.

Laudes Creationis exemplifies many of the characteristic aspects of Holman’s musical style. Each movement has a distinct harmonic and rhythmic identity. The three percussionists and the harp add a distinct colour to each section by accenting the angularity of the melodic material. Though certain passages in the work are more tranquil in mood, these usually function as resting places between more actively rhythmical sections.