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The
first year of the Debut Atlantic residency was very exciting. I
wrote works for pianist Lucille Chung, cellist Denise Djokic and
soprano Measha Brueggergosman, as well as joining them on their
tours of Atlantic Canada. We were involved in presenting school
shows on each tour, introducing school students of all ages to the
musicians and to the new compositions which had been written for
them. I also led creativity workshops in St. John's, Newfoundland
at Memorial University and the Holy Heart of Mary High School, and
in Fredericton at the Fredericton High School.
In my spare time this summer, when I wasn't writing for Debut Atlantic's
current season artists, I joined playwright Kent Stetson in leading
a two-week music theater workshop at Confederation Centre in Charlottetown,
P.E.I. which culminated in a successful public reading of our show-in-development
'Caledonia'. The large-cast musical is based on the story of an
alienated teenage girl who begins to discover who she is through
learning about her grandfather's Gaelic past.
The first new composition Debut Atlantic audiences will hear this
season is 'Insomnia Songs',
three songs for basso cantante voice and piano, which were written
for Robert Pomakov and Brahm Goldhamer's tour in October. The subject
of the three songs is obvious from the title: unwanted wakefulness.
Each song has its own mood; the first, 'How Little I Know', is an
almost angry lament by a young man who finds himself alone late
at night; the second, 'Quiet Moon Dreaming' is more reflective and
somewhat melancholy, while the third, 'Insomnia', is a slightly
lugubrious take on being wide awake, and wishing, more than anything,
to be asleep. |
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