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Program

Gordon Fitzell: Sleight of Hand (2024, world premiere)

For string quartet and electronics. Duration: 15’

Sleight of Hand is a celebration of my maternal grandfather’s creative spirit. Born to immigrant Canadian parents early in the twentieth century, Henry Mueller was a rural Manitoban farmer, but also a self-taught designer and builder. He crafted a curious array of handiworks ranging from small rockets to golf carts. He even constructed his own billiards table, including the cues. An amateur musician, Henry once modified a vacuum cleaner such that it silently and discretely delivered pressurized air to his player piano, rendering the instrument a hands-free pianola (feet-free, more accurately—no pumping required!). He was also a hobbyist magician, and a big hit at my tenth birthday party.

My grandfather was always up to date on the very latest technological innovations. He was famously the first in his town to own a television. Then came the 16 mm movie camera and projector. In the 1930s, he began making home movies featuring all the film trickery of the day—reverse motion, stop motion, substitution splicing, and so on. These short films, which were dusted off and shown in family basements from time to time, made a strong impression on me as a child and no doubt influenced my own creative pursuits later in life. Sleight of Hand, for string quartet and electronics, is intended to reflect the playful and mischievous nature of my grandfather’s creative diversions, as well as the sense of nostalgia that they evoke.

Örjan Sandred: A Ghazal (2017)

For soprano and live electronics. Duration: 17’

Fröding’s life was characterized largely by his mental illness and alcoholism. His poem A Ghazal was written during a period when he was admitted to Suttestad institution in Lillehammer, Norway. The poem paints an idyllic landscape full of life and joy, as seen from the eyes of someone who is unable to participate. In my musical setting of the poem, I wanted to highlight how the mind of a viewer colors impressions of the images that are described – how the unattainable idyll becomes more idyllic in the eyes of the viewer, and how the laughter and the joy enhances the feeling of alienation. The poem builds an almost desperate feeling of wanting to be involved, where the viewer is not able to break out of the isolation.

A GHAZAL
I stand and view the world through prison bars.
I can, I would not take away the bars,
So sweet it is to see how life goes hissing
And hurling billows high against the bars.
The clamor sounds so painfully enticing
When song and laughter bubble through the bars.

Out there the aspen foliage shakes and shines,
And higher stands the cliff-top dark with pines;
Their fragrant freshness pushes through the bars.
And on the water, what a dazzling glare—
In every drop a diamond solitaire,
How gorgeously it shimmers through the bars!

The bay is teeming now with boats and steamers,
Brass bands and vocalists, and flags and streamers,
And happy people by the scores of scores
Are making merry in the great outdoors.
I want—I want—I will—I must get out
And drink of life, if for a single bout—
Not slowly suffocate behind the bars!

In vain I wrench and twist, in vain I shake
The obdurate, unbendable old bars—
They do not wish to stretch, they will not break,
They’re riveted and wrought in me, these bars;
When I myself am crushed, so then the bars.

Gustaf Fröding (English translation: Judith Moffett)

Örjan Sandred: Sketches of Shifting Landscapes (2024, world premiere)

For string quartet and electronics. Duration:26+'

Sketches of Shifting Landscapes brings the listener on a journey through a sequence of various scenes and settings. As I composed this piece, I began to view its structure as a series of varied landscapes. Some returned in new colours and contexts, unveiling new expressions within the familiar material. The shifting atmospheres made me draw a parallel to the changing environment we experience in the real-world of today.

With eight loudspeakers surrounding the concert hall, I place the audience in the middle of these landscapes. There is a close connection between the electronic part and the string instruments; occasionally the electronic part reinforces the performed structures by doubling the instruments, occasionally it listens to the string players and adjusts textures and harmony to accompany the performance. The generated sounds are built from synthesized timbres based on the sounds of the string instruments, as well as characteristic sampled gestures (for example, the jeté: the gesture of the performers dropping the bow on the string). Some electronic gestures and melodies are generated by algorithms borrowed from artificial intelligence (kept on a short leash to support the musical intention), some are more traditionally composed.

Bios

Gordon Fitzell

Gordon Fitzell is a JUNO-nominated Canadian composer, improviser, and sound artist. He frequently explores peculiar points of connection between classical and popular elements of culture, freely delving into acoustic, electroacoustic, and interdisciplinary environments. His work is featured on various award-winning recordings, including eighth blackbird’s multiple GRAMMY-winning album strange imaginary animals. Fitzell has worked with a wide range of international artists and received performances in many countries across the world. He is a professor of composition at the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music and an artistic co-director of the Winnipeg new music organization Groundswell.

Örjan Sandred

Örjan Sandred is a Swedish-Canadian composer and is a Professor of Composition at the University of Manitoba in Canada, where he founded Studio FLAT. He taught composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1998-2005. In 2016 he was a DAAD visiting professor at Hochschule für Musik Detmold in Germany. He was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2022. In 2023 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Many of Sandred's pieces are the result of his search for new methods of composition, notably his interest in Rule-based Computer Assisted Composition techniques.

Stenhammar Quartet

Formed in 2002, the Stenhammar Quartet has established itself as one of Scandinavia’s leading string quartets. A wide-ranging repertoire spans from the classical period to contemporary works, including of course the elegant quartets of Wilhelm Stenhammar. The Quartet regularly commissions new compositions from Nordic composers, having collaborated with such luminary figures as Anders Hillborg, Sven-David Sandström, Kaija Saariaho and Bent Sørensen. In 2009 the ensemble was commended by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music for its contributions to Swedish music.

The Stenhammar Quartet has to date made some forty recordings for Swedish Radio, participated in broadcasts on Swedish television, and been the subject of a documentary on the French music channel Mezzo. They have also earned two nominations for the Swedish Grammis Awards. The Stenhammar Quartet has performed across Europe, as well as Japan, Algeria and India, appearing at prestigious venues including the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. Following their 2024 tour of Canada, the quartet will visit Greece and Japan in 2025.

Sarah Jo Kirsch

Sarah Jo Kirsch is a vocalist/soundmaker currently based in Coast Salish lands.
A practiced soloist and choralist in the Western European classical tradition, they have performed song, oratorio, and opera across Turtle Island and beyond. SJ is also a session musician and improvisor, vocal coach, poet, composer, and sound designer. When invited, they offer their insight on music and sound in lecture, workshops, adjudication, and vocal instruction for arts organizations and academic institutions.

Acknowledgements

Additional support for Stenhammar Quartet's performance has been provided by the Canada Council for the Arts, The Embassy of Sweden in Ottawa, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Swedish Arts Council.