Art Choral Vol. 9, Canada (13 Works by Canadian Women Composers). Ensemble ArtChoral. Matthias Maute, conductor. ATMA Classique (ACD: ACD22428). Total time 55:16.
DIGITAL REVIEW — Quebec’s Ensemble ArtChoral, led by founder Matthias Maute, is on a mission. Their Art Choral series on ATMA Classique Records, in partnership with Mécénat Marchand and Mécénat Musica, aims to encapsulate “the history of choral singing through six centuries.” The latest release, Volume 9, Canada, is the first in the series to feature only works by Canadians. All 13 composers are women.
The album’s opener, The Sacred One, establishes the centrality of women, not only as composers but more generally as members of the family unit. Sandy Scofield’s music and lyrics celebrate the strength of mothers, grandmothers, and daughters. The choir clearly expresses the prose-like text in ever-changing rhythms driven by the natural flow of the text. Scofield chose a simple, mostly homorhythmic declamation, which grounds and emphasizes the message.
Another composer to use her own words is Carmen Braden, whose Now, at the First Fire of the Fall ponders the changing of the seasons, when the early darkness and chilly air inspire the building of a friendly, sociable fire. The melodic shape cleverly has repeating peaks and valleys, like lapping flames. Maute keeps the motion and even the vocal timbres malleable, appropriate to a fire’s unpredictable energy.
The tiny text by Amy Brandon that she set as Dust of the Water represents some of the best poetic imagery in the collection. The three lines, written in the first person, are a kind of “what am I?” riddle; the answer seems to be “snow.” With its intricate and beautiful interplay of voices, this piece is a rare case on the album where the poetry is not designed to be clearly understood. Given the originality and oddity of the metaphors, it would be impossible to have any understanding of this work without reading the libretto.
Karen Sunabacka and her mother, composer Joyce Clouston, have collaborated on several songs together over the years. Here they are represented by Lives Entwined, a vignette recalling two best friends in childhood (one of whom is named Joyce, like the poet, although the narrative is in the third person). Sunabacka weaves a delicate fabric of sound that captures the fleeting nature of relationships that can seem solid as they’re happening, before time sweeps them apart.
Leslie Uyeda’s Salvation opens like a Gregorian chant, soon blossoming into quiet dissonances to express Patrick Lane’s meditation on the beauty of nature. A different kind of prayer can be found in Kati Agо́cs’s Arise, Be Enlightened! Taken from Isaiah 60:1-2, the Latin text calls upon people to recognize the glory of God, both around and inside themselves. Far from being somber, the syncopated vocal lines are underpinned by nonsense syllables and ululation that act as ecstatic percussion.
Several pieces deal with heartrending topics. In Two Worlds, Halifax-based Fiona Ryan wrote words to her own chorus but otherwise used excerpts from interviews with refugees who describe their experiences coming from their countries and trying to make Canada their new home. Say the Names by Katya Pine sets a long poem by Dipika Mukherjee, paying tribute to the victims of the mass shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012, in which seven people were killed. More hopeful is You’re Free to Love by Iran-born Afarin Mansouri (text by Jennifer Wise), addressed to someone who has fled persecution: “You’re free to love / You’re here, you’re safe.”
As a break from such seriousness, Mari Alice Conrad’s Dum felis dormit, at only two lines the shortest text among the offerings, gives a lively, neo-Medieval setting to a familiar Latin proverb: “When the cat’s asleep, the mice will play.” Foot stomps and hand claps seem to predict trouble for the mice!
The wide range of styles represented in this collection must have presented a challenge to Maute and the choir. But every track finds the singers well controlled and expressive, with good intonation and diction. The conducting is always musical, intelligent, and nuanced.
Most of the other volumes in the Art Choral series on ATMA have been themed by era; the regional focus of Volume 9 is new. If it’s an avenue Maute decides to continue down, the possibilities are endless. Whatever’s next is sure to be worth a listen.
