The Signal with Pat Carrabré- Friday May 16, 2008
Tonight the Signal features a quirky little hoedown with a live session from Toronto’s Sunparlour Players, so gussy up. Pat will also take a gander at the incredible and varied musical career of Veda Hille. Just when you are ready to call it a night the dust refuses to settle when new music from Portishead, Xiu Xiu, the Cinematic Orchestra and Hanna Hukelberg takes a spin. So grab your partner and listen up.
The Signal with Pat Carrabré - Saturday, May 17, 2008
Tonight Pat puts a new collaboration by Jazz musicians Scott Thomson and Lori Freedman into high rotation. That same CD titled PLUMB, will also be offered up as a loot-bag give away. You can’t win if you don’t listen. In concert from Toronto the constantly stylish Art of Time Ensemble with interpretations and inspiration courtesy of Schumann. Some of the guests will include Justin Rutledge, Andy Maize, John Southworth and Kyrie Kristmanson. Pat will also spin cds from Ayal Senior, Julia Kent, and The Inhabitants.
The Signal with Pat Carrabré - Sunday, May 18, 2008
Tonight there will be no moderation when Pat dips into the Bjork composed soundtrack for Mathew Barney’s epic art film: Drawing Restraint Nine. Pat will also listen in on the Canadian performances recorded live at this year’s prestigious Eckhardt-Gramatté new music competition. Hear Canada's newest voices: competition winner Kristin Mueller-Heaslip also sings with the Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra. And Vania Chan volunteered the winning performance of "Involuntary Love Songs" by Vancouver composer Jocelyn Morlock. Other Canadian gems are by Claude Vivier, John Greer, and Jose Evangelista. Plus there will be new music from the Silver Mount Zion Orchestra and Meredith Monk.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
For me, it’s the listening and the seeing that count.
There’s a strong link between music and the visual arts. French Impressionism found its realization in the paintings of Monet and the music of Debussy. American minimalism evolved in the music of Steve Reich and the paintings of Frank Stella. Found objects started showing up in the visual arts around the same time that found sounds or samples insinuated their way into contemporary music. This Friday, May 9th, The Signal spends most of the evening lining up music that’s been influenced by or makes a reference to the visual arts.
Some people’s creativity is both aural and visual. Arnold Schoenberg wasn’t just a ground breaking avant-garde composer, he was also a member of the Blaue Reiter group of painters. The legendary folk singer Joni Mitchell’s painting has taken up more of her creative energy as the years have passed and Temple Bates and Amy Bowles from Pony Da Look split their creativity between music and the visual arts. A recent show at the Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto showcased the visual work of a number of Canadian indie-rockers, from Buck 65 to Chad VanGaalen.
Some composers are just inspired by the visual arts. Gunther Schuller used his Seven Studies on Themes by Paul Klee as a platform to bring jazz into new classical music in the late 50s. Harry Freedman gave up his dream of being a visual artist, but wrote quite a few major works inspired by paintings and his friends who were painters, including Harold Town. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s new Composer-in-Residence, Vincent Ho has tried to transmute the emotion of the visual medium into music in his Nighthawks (interpreting the famous painting by Edward Hopper) and Four Paintings by Leestemaker – we’ll hear the second movement on the show.
Is it possible to convey the same emotions or sensations that can be expressed with visuals in the temporal dimensions of sound? I’m not sure that’s answerable, given the current state of scientific research. But I don’t think there’s any question that all of the different art forms try to express the spirit of their times. And in our diverse age, there are many simultaneously existing aesthetics. The ultra polished and DIY often appear side by side. We value the pure emotion of Kyrie Kristmanson singing a cappella in her Song for a Blackwind and we’re thrilled by the total control that comes through in Cornelius’s Fit Song (The Books Eat White Paint Remix). The extremes of the virtuoso and the naïve seem to attract us. Perhaps it’s the non-verbal nature of most music and visual art that allows them to take in the same territory. We desperately need the grey area that exists beyond language, so we can indulge in our own creativity –interpreting what we hear and see, putting our own kind of order on the world around us.
I’ve given up worrying about the technicalities of this debate. There’s just too much good music and art to experience. For me, it’s the listening and the seeing that count.
Some people’s creativity is both aural and visual. Arnold Schoenberg wasn’t just a ground breaking avant-garde composer, he was also a member of the Blaue Reiter group of painters. The legendary folk singer Joni Mitchell’s painting has taken up more of her creative energy as the years have passed and Temple Bates and Amy Bowles from Pony Da Look split their creativity between music and the visual arts. A recent show at the Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto showcased the visual work of a number of Canadian indie-rockers, from Buck 65 to Chad VanGaalen.
Some composers are just inspired by the visual arts. Gunther Schuller used his Seven Studies on Themes by Paul Klee as a platform to bring jazz into new classical music in the late 50s. Harry Freedman gave up his dream of being a visual artist, but wrote quite a few major works inspired by paintings and his friends who were painters, including Harold Town. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s new Composer-in-Residence, Vincent Ho has tried to transmute the emotion of the visual medium into music in his Nighthawks (interpreting the famous painting by Edward Hopper) and Four Paintings by Leestemaker – we’ll hear the second movement on the show.
Is it possible to convey the same emotions or sensations that can be expressed with visuals in the temporal dimensions of sound? I’m not sure that’s answerable, given the current state of scientific research. But I don’t think there’s any question that all of the different art forms try to express the spirit of their times. And in our diverse age, there are many simultaneously existing aesthetics. The ultra polished and DIY often appear side by side. We value the pure emotion of Kyrie Kristmanson singing a cappella in her Song for a Blackwind and we’re thrilled by the total control that comes through in Cornelius’s Fit Song (The Books Eat White Paint Remix). The extremes of the virtuoso and the naïve seem to attract us. Perhaps it’s the non-verbal nature of most music and visual art that allows them to take in the same territory. We desperately need the grey area that exists beyond language, so we can indulge in our own creativity –interpreting what we hear and see, putting our own kind of order on the world around us.
I’ve given up worrying about the technicalities of this debate. There’s just too much good music and art to experience. For me, it’s the listening and the seeing that count.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
May 9, 10, 11
The Signal with Pat Carrabré- Friday May 9, 2008
Get out your eyeliner, tonight Pat delves into the multifaceted Jaz Coleman- composer, keyboardist and lead singer for England’s Killing Joke. The sounds of Winnipeg’s Christine Fellows will also get spun along with Cornelius, Vincent Ho, and Don Byron. In concert from Toronto the sweet collision of two distinctive pianists: Canada’s John kameel Farah and Germany’s Hauschka.
The Signal with Pat Carrabré - Saturday, May 10, 2008
Electronics, guitars, ballads and improvisation are put under the microscope tonight when Pat slips Eric Cheneaux’s new CD into high rotation. If you tune in you might also walk away with a loot-bag full of Ghost Bees. In concert from Kitchener ‘s Open Ears Festival work by Peter Hannan and Linda Catlin Smith that challenges and embraces the idea of orchestra. All this wrapped in a burrito of Four Tet, Ween, Gavin Bryars and Bell Orchestre with extra sour cream.
The Signal with Pat Carrabré - Sunday, May 11, 2008
This evening Pat tips his hat to Winnipeg’s Nuna Now Icelandic Festival with music from Mugison, Sigur Ros and Kyrie Kristmanson. For Soundtrack Sunday Pat slips on his backpack and follows the musical path led by the globe trotting Oscar winner Babel. The Signal also stops in on Toronto’s New Music Concerts for a live recording of work by Chris Paul Harman, Juan Trigos, Alice Ho and So Jeong Ahn and Rodney Sharman. Don’t forget your water filter.
Get out your eyeliner, tonight Pat delves into the multifaceted Jaz Coleman- composer, keyboardist and lead singer for England’s Killing Joke. The sounds of Winnipeg’s Christine Fellows will also get spun along with Cornelius, Vincent Ho, and Don Byron. In concert from Toronto the sweet collision of two distinctive pianists: Canada’s John kameel Farah and Germany’s Hauschka.
The Signal with Pat Carrabré - Saturday, May 10, 2008
Electronics, guitars, ballads and improvisation are put under the microscope tonight when Pat slips Eric Cheneaux’s new CD into high rotation. If you tune in you might also walk away with a loot-bag full of Ghost Bees. In concert from Kitchener ‘s Open Ears Festival work by Peter Hannan and Linda Catlin Smith that challenges and embraces the idea of orchestra. All this wrapped in a burrito of Four Tet, Ween, Gavin Bryars and Bell Orchestre with extra sour cream.
The Signal with Pat Carrabré - Sunday, May 11, 2008
This evening Pat tips his hat to Winnipeg’s Nuna Now Icelandic Festival with music from Mugison, Sigur Ros and Kyrie Kristmanson. For Soundtrack Sunday Pat slips on his backpack and follows the musical path led by the globe trotting Oscar winner Babel. The Signal also stops in on Toronto’s New Music Concerts for a live recording of work by Chris Paul Harman, Juan Trigos, Alice Ho and So Jeong Ahn and Rodney Sharman. Don’t forget your water filter.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Music Monday
Music Monday is on its way this coming week. It’s a big celebration of how music enriches our lives, with a special focus on music in the schools. I’m not generally a fan of our public education system. It seems to me that the emphasis is too often placed on conformity and obedience – not on developing the skills to help you learn on your own or the desire to challenge conventional wisdom and search out the new. After all, an educated population isn’t so easy to control!
I do know first hand how important a good music teacher can be. With the talented students you never really have to worry about teaching them – from my experience, they mostly learn on their own. But they do need support. You have to open a few doors, help them to keep asking the right questions and be there when they doubt themselves.
I don’t know Michel Gonneville personally, but he must be a great teacher. I do know one of his former students - André Ristic - and André is a great example of the kind of unique musical voice we like to celebrate on the Signal. He’s developed a personal language that easily handles all the contradictions and “isms” in our modern musical world. He always seems to be challenging himself and us with new ideas and new technologies. We’ll hear music from both Michel and André on Sunday night in a live concert recording from Toronto’s New Music Concerts. They put together a program of music by Michel and some of his former students – including Nicolas Gilbert, Benoit Coté, Charles-Antoine Frechette, Maxime McKinley, and Frans Ben Callado.
Frans Ben Callado is supposedly the only student ever expelled from the Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal. That type of distinction fits in better with the indie side of our musical world. Moby is the focus for our vertical tasting this weekend. He dropped out of College to pursue his musical dream and so did Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. I hope that same fate doesn’t fall on Will Curry and the Country French. They’re all students in the music program at Wilfred Laurier and on Saturday night we’ll hear a tune from their first album.
Will Curry and the Country French.
Success is great and it’s very seductive if it comes early. But if it puts you out there too soon, before you’ve had time to fill up your tool kit and find your own creative centre, then you risk having a very short career. In the end it’s all about balance. You have to have new ideas, which are usually messy – and you need to develop the craft to do something with them.
Over the last year, we’ve done a series of city and region profiles on the Signal. And in every region we seem to have great places that support the development of young musical talent. Some are formal institutions, like Mount Royal College in Calgary (full disclosure here, my daughter’s a student there). I was amazed to hear so many Alberta musicians give credit to the environment there as they were finding their feet. Some are Festivals with long standing workshops, like the Creative Music Workshop that Jerry Granelli does at the Atlantic Jazz Festival in Halifax. I know that Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal’s Generation project has been a jumping off point for quite a few careers – and the list goes on (sorry I can’t mention them all).
So in the lead up to Music Monday, we salute all those who support the development of musical talent in our country whether it’s the elementary school teacher who inspires you to open up your mouth and sing for the very first time or the experienced Professor who’s read all the books in the library.
I do know first hand how important a good music teacher can be. With the talented students you never really have to worry about teaching them – from my experience, they mostly learn on their own. But they do need support. You have to open a few doors, help them to keep asking the right questions and be there when they doubt themselves.
I don’t know Michel Gonneville personally, but he must be a great teacher. I do know one of his former students - André Ristic - and André is a great example of the kind of unique musical voice we like to celebrate on the Signal. He’s developed a personal language that easily handles all the contradictions and “isms” in our modern musical world. He always seems to be challenging himself and us with new ideas and new technologies. We’ll hear music from both Michel and André on Sunday night in a live concert recording from Toronto’s New Music Concerts. They put together a program of music by Michel and some of his former students – including Nicolas Gilbert, Benoit Coté, Charles-Antoine Frechette, Maxime McKinley, and Frans Ben Callado.
Frans Ben Callado is supposedly the only student ever expelled from the Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal. That type of distinction fits in better with the indie side of our musical world. Moby is the focus for our vertical tasting this weekend. He dropped out of College to pursue his musical dream and so did Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. I hope that same fate doesn’t fall on Will Curry and the Country French. They’re all students in the music program at Wilfred Laurier and on Saturday night we’ll hear a tune from their first album.
Will Curry and the Country French.
Success is great and it’s very seductive if it comes early. But if it puts you out there too soon, before you’ve had time to fill up your tool kit and find your own creative centre, then you risk having a very short career. In the end it’s all about balance. You have to have new ideas, which are usually messy – and you need to develop the craft to do something with them.
Over the last year, we’ve done a series of city and region profiles on the Signal. And in every region we seem to have great places that support the development of young musical talent. Some are formal institutions, like Mount Royal College in Calgary (full disclosure here, my daughter’s a student there). I was amazed to hear so many Alberta musicians give credit to the environment there as they were finding their feet. Some are Festivals with long standing workshops, like the Creative Music Workshop that Jerry Granelli does at the Atlantic Jazz Festival in Halifax. I know that Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal’s Generation project has been a jumping off point for quite a few careers – and the list goes on (sorry I can’t mention them all).
So in the lead up to Music Monday, we salute all those who support the development of musical talent in our country whether it’s the elementary school teacher who inspires you to open up your mouth and sing for the very first time or the experienced Professor who’s read all the books in the library.
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