The closing piece in my December concert with the UofT Wind Symphony was Beauty Broken by American composer Nicole Piunno. The piece was inspired by the unique photography of Ori Gersht, specifically the Untitled No. 1 from his Blow Up series, in which he captures the explosion of a vase of flowers. Piunno’s work features a “broken glass” sound effect at an early climactic moment, which can be achieved using either a pre-recorded digital sound file or one of a number of acoustic methods. After some experimentation, the percussionists of the Wind Symphony settled on the acoustic option: two sets of glass chimes, one struck forcefully to produce the immediate impact of breaking glass, and one played more gently with length to simulate the scattered tinkling of the aftermath. Dr. Piunno was very pleased with the result in our performance and shared an excerpt of the “break” moment and how we achieved it on her website.
Blow Up, Untitled #1, Ori Gersht
A few weeks later, Piunno was looking for someone to record the wind ensemble version of her piece The Spirit is Willing (originally written for brass band), and the Wind Symphony and I were happy to oblige. Despite some challenges with absences, we were able to produce a pretty good recording, for which Dr. Piunno was very grateful. Almost immediately after she posted it, she received an inquiry from a director wanting to perform it! You can listen to our recording below:
The Wind Symphony’s next concert, “To the Stars”, featuring the Kairos Quartet performing Kevin Lau’s Charon’s Dance, is Friday evening.
My goodness, it’s been a busy term! I’ve been juggling three different ensembles: Rouge River Winds, the UofT Wind Symphony, and covering the York Wind Symphony as well for the fall. As I considered the repertoire across the three groups, I realized that I had programmed quite a few pieces that had won the Howard Cable Memorial Prize in Composition over the years. To wit: Danny Choi’s Remembrance with RRW; Matthew Donnelly’s River Valley Sketches with UofT; and for the York Wind Symphony’s “Portraits of Canada” concert earlier this month, Swiftriver Passage by Paul Suchan, Autumn Down a Maple Lane by Chris Byman, and Portrait of Terry Fox by the late Quan Le.
My October concert with UofT featured and was named after Cable’s own Ontario Pictures, but it also included the Lake Superior Suite by Cable prize winner and my good friend Cait Nishimura. This performance brought a long journey with Cait’s piece full circle for me: I was in attendance at the work’s premiere in February 2018; I had conducted several movements with Rouge River Winds back in 2019, with Cait playing bass clarinet in the ensemble and her partner Brian playing piano; and I wrote a feature article about the piece for WASBE World magazine in 2021. My performance with UofT was the first to use Cait’s revised edition, and after the concert I presented her with the original edition of the score that was used for the premiere.
Pratik presents Cait Nishimura with the original score for Lake Superior Suite, October 20, 2023.
Cait and her podcast partner Dylan were also kind enough to invite me to be a guest on the Band Room Podcast back in September. Check out the episode here.
I am quite pleased at the positive feedback I’ve received about the Canadian Wind Repertoire database that I launched earlier this month! Many friends and colleagues have reached out to express their excitement at discovering works or composers they weren’t familiar with. I will be delivering a presentation about the database and also serving as a guide through the new concert and jazz repertoire for Long & McQuade Toronto’s annual reading session next week.
I have two other exciting bits of news to share. First, I have been selected as a finalist for the music director position with the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra, and will be conducting their season finale concert on Saturday, May 11, 2024, as part of my audition. Second, my contract with the University of Toronto has been renewed and I will be returning to direct the Wind Symphony again for the 2023-24 academic year!
The academic year draws to a close but musical activities are plentiful! Rouge River Winds just put on an excellent concert this past weekend, featuring 2020 Solo Competition winner Christopher Yeung, and the Ontario premiere of Robert Buckley’s Symphony No. 3, “Quebec Mosaic”. This follows upon a fourth successful appearance at the OBA Provincial Band Festival, achieving a gold standard with our performance of Jack Hughes’ After Rain and John Cheetham’s A.B.A. Symphonic March.
Rouge River Winds at OBA Provincial Band Festival 2023. Photo by Peppercorn Image Studio.
Over at the University of Toronto, we celebrated the illustrious career of Dr. Jeff Reynolds at his final concert on April 1. I got to conduct Kathryn Salfelder’s brilliant work Cathedrals and then joined the percussion section to clap along with the second movement of Omar Thomas’ Come Sunday. My own concert with the Wind Symphony the night before featured three world premieres of newly-commissioned works. We performed two new pieces of music by composers-in-residence, Beyond Stars by Stephen Morris and Mooyeh by Homa Samiei, and were also treated to a performance of a new spoken word piece by poet Hannah Flores, which was commissioned with funding assistance from the FMUA.
Our February concert was also quite special, featuring percussionist Hoi Tong Keung in a performance of the final movement of Christos Hatzis’ Tongues of Fire, as well as illustrations by a group of animation students from Sheridan College to accompany our performance of Julie Giroux’ Symphony of Fables. Composer Timothy Mahr shared the recording of our performance of his Imagine, If You Will…, calling it “stunning” and praising “the detailed care and sense of ownership” we demonstrated. The ensemble also delivered a beautiful rendition of Omar Thomas’ arrangement of “Shenandoah”, which you can view below:
It being festival season, I have also recently had the opportunity to work with a number of schools preparing for their own performances, including St. Joseph Morrow Park CSS, Our Lady Queen of the World Catholic Academy, Havergal College, and St. Michael CSS. Next month, MusicFest Canada’s national festival returns to an in-person format for its 2023 festival in Niagara Falls. I will continue to serve in my role as vice-chair of the concert band division and will also take some shifts adjudicating.
That same week, I will host a virtual panel discussion as part of the Dialogues International Music Research Congress, about the work of MusicFest Canada’s Repertoire Equity Committee in revising the concert band syllabus to be more inclusive. The panel will feature my committee co-chair, Dr. Mark Hopkins, as well as musicologist Dr. Michelle Boyd, and young scholars (and band nerds) Ikjyot Bharaj and Vanessa Ng.
