Life Emerging
May 2021
Online only – visit Watch and Listen!
Antarctica: Life Emerging features a musical journey through the icy landscape of Antarctica as part of the global campaign to safeguard the Southern Ocean. Created in collaboration between composer Marcus Goddard, photographer Paul Nicklen, SeaLegacy, Aventa and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the work features musical contributions from forty artists from eighteen orchestras from around the world, as well as a special appearance by the celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The premiere will be followed by a conversation between the creators, moderated by Katie Couric.
“Music has a unique power to move people that no other artistic medium can match,” says Nicklen, Co-founder of SeaLegacy. “Marcus Goddard has harnessed that power in Antarctica: Life Emerging – an emotionally engaging symphonic journey that reveals the beauty and the plight of Earth’s most remote continent.”
“In Antarctica: Life Emerging, I aspire to bring audiences on a unique artistic journey into not only the awe-inspiring ruggedness and beauty of Antarctica, but also to the tenderness of life expressed so eloquently by Paul Nicklen’s stunning images,” says Goddard. “I hope to express the mysterious combination of reverence, wonder and concern that surround my own emotions when I contemplate this region.”
Spanning Tree
September 2020 – Online visit Watch and Listen!
Aventa launches our 2020/21 concert season with Michael Oesterle’s “Spanning Tree”, featuring solo percussionist Bill Linwood.
Born in 1968, Michael is a Canadian composer who currently lives in Deux-Montagnes Québec. In his introduction to the piece, Michael writes “A tree grows toward the sun, spanning the distance between itself and the light—each branch, each new angle reaching forward. In mathematics the branches of the spanning tree never grow back on themselves, never interfere with the light or each other, or, more accurately: “A tree is a connected undirected graph with no cycles.” It is a spanning tree of a graph if it includes every vertex (every corner) of the graph and every edge in the tree belongs to it. In reality (or art), the branches may not be straight, they might just sustain themselves beyond supportability, endure past simple logic or usefulness, exceeding the limits of prescribed space and ownership, straining to become something new.”
Aventa presents
Spanning Tree By Michael Oesterle
Bill Linwood, solo percussion
Recorded August 20, 2020
University of Victoria Farquhar Auditorium
Michael Oesterle, Spanning Tree (2013-14)
0:00 – introduction
00:15 – SIX
05:11 – THREE
09:55 – ONE
13:26 – FIVE
18:49 – FOUR
28:11 – TWO
“In this piece the growth of the tree is the labour of a lone percussionist. The parameters for the development of the “tree” are distilled into a simple format – balancing sounds that are long and sustain effortlessly with sounds that are short and have minimal sustainability. In each cycle the ratio of instruments that sustain, to instruments that support a clean attack, is even: moving through 1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:4, 5:5, and 6:6. The ordering of the six parts is up to the performer, as is the choice of the instruments and their combination. The six stages are not designed to evolve from simple to complex, but instead, they outline musical tableaux which are presented to the performer in the form of six maze-like graphs. The way that the points of the graph are connected are determined by the percussionist. The choice of instruments renders duets of long and short sounds forming paths that lead us through, or perhaps, keep us trapped in the maze.” – Michael Oesterle “Spanning Tree” was commissioned by Daniel Cooper for percussionist David Schotzko.
Hitchcock Etudes – a Lizée double-feature
Feb 23, 2021 Online only – visit Watch and Listen!
Aventa presents the music of Gilles Tremblay
November 2020 Online only – visit Watch and Listen!
Over the past season, Aventa has enjoyed the privilege of recording several works from the iconic Quebec composer, Gilles Tremblay. Following our recording sessions, we always took the time to film several of these works “live”, which we are pleased to present in this virtual concert.
Aventa Ensemble
University of Victoria Farquhar Auditorium 2021
Music of Gilles Tremblay
One of Canada’s foremost composers, Gilles Tremblay travelled an exemplary route. The Quebec pianist and composer never stopped pushing back the frontiers of his research. His contribution to contemporary music is remarkable, distinguished as it is by an exceptional open-mindedness and a keen awareness of the very nature of sound.
00:18 Champs I – Gilles Tremblay
Roger Admiral, piano | Karl Williams, percussion | Aaron Mattock, percussion
09:48 Le sifflement vents porteurs de l’amour – Gilles Tremblay
Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute | Bill Linwood, percussion
26:58 Chants Convergents – Gilles Tremblay
Ansârî “Tu es tout et c’est tout”
Hillesum “…une grande vie universelle…”
d’Avila “TOI, MOI.”
Helen Pridmore, soprano | AK Coope, clarinet | Karl Williams, percussion | Aaron Mattock, percussion | Roger Admiral, piano | Bill Linwood, conductor
47:40 Solstices – Gilles Tremblay
Mark McGregor, flute | AK Coope, clarinet | Darnell Linwood, horn | Darren Buhr, double bass | Karl Williams, percussion I Aaron Mattock, percussion | Bill Linwood, conductor
Champs I for piano and percussion was completed in 1965 and later revised by the composer in 1969. Composer Bruce Mather commented: “The work is splendidly successful in its integration of the role of the piano with that of the percussion, and in the natural blending of pitched instruments of with those possessing more complex or imprecise pitches.”
Aventa’s virtual concert continues with Gilles Tremblay’s classic work for flute and percussion, “… Le sifflement des vents porteurs de l’amour…”. Gilles Tremblay wrote that “the theme of this work is wind, physically and spiritually. Its presence forms the music – breath, through the pureness of silence; frozen states, fringes of existence, a warmth that melts and fertilizes in multiplied and endless plays and possibilities.” In his 2003 work,
Chants Convergents, three chants originate from times and places far from each other: Ansârî is an Afghan Muslim mystic of the 11th century; Etty Hillesum is a young Dutch Jew who died in Auschwitz in 1943; the Castilian Thérèse d’Avila is one of the great Christian figures of the 16th century, both in her writings and in her foundations.
“Solstices” (1971) is essentially a game of music based on the four seasons. The overall feeling of the interpretation is influenced by the time of year the work is performed. This performance is influenced by the Fall season with the decomposition of sounds realized by harmonics, parasitic noises, white noises and other extended techniques. While the double bass is responsible for Fall, each of the wind instruments is given a season of its own. The flute takes the lead in Spring with lively outbursts of melody and interjection, the clarinet continues with summer in the “music of insects” and the horn foreshadows the icy coldness of winter.