Category: Album Release

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Leaf Music, Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, Margaret Atwood and the Hannaford Street Silver Band Present: Zombie Blizzard

“Combining the wit of Dorothy Parker with the wisdom of Emily Dickinson, Atwood adds a steely grace and richness all her own. If there is beauty in despair, one may find it here”. (Library Journal, 2020)

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music is excited to release Zombie Blizzard (LM277), an eclectic digital album of concert arias by internationally acclaimed Canadian writer Margaret Atwood and composer Aaron Davis.

In Zombie Blizzard Davis has set to music seven poems from Atwood’s 2020 collection, Dearly. The poems- Zombie, Blizzard, Health Class, Princess Clothing, Shadow, Digging up the Scythians, and Dearly – address themes of love, loss, feminism and …. Zombies! Davis’s musical compositions are sung brilliantly by internationally acclaimed soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, withthe Hannaford Street Silver Band, Toronto’s premier brass ensemble, and Davison piano, George Koller on bass and Mark Mariash on drums. Zombie Blizzard also features recitations by Margaret Atwood of the seven poems.

The new recording gets its launch in Toronto at the Jane Mallett Theatre with all the performers on Sunday, March 3 at 3:00 p.m. with the New Classical FM as the official radio sponsor. For tickets and more information, head to https://tix.to/zombie.

Fredericton-born Measha Brueggergosman-Lee has created many crossover albums and toured extensively with award-winning pianist and composer Aaron Davis, and again blurs the lines between musical genres with Zombie Blizzard, composed for soprano, jazz trio and brass orchestra. The album gives expression to her long-term admiration for and friendship with Margaret Atwood. CBC Music included Zombie Blizzard in their listing of “Canadian albums we can’t wait to hear in 2024.” 

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee holds several honorary doctorates and ambassadorial titles with international charities and is permanent Artist-in-Residence with the Canadian opera company, Opera Atelier. The JUNO award winner has presented innovative programs at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, Washington’s Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Madrid’s Teatro Real as well as at the Schwarzenberg, Edinburgh, Verbier and Bergen Festivals.  She is completing her second year of a master’s degree in theology and released her best-selling memoir Something is Always on Fire in 2018.

Other milestone recordings in 2023-24 include a song cycle by Robert Fleming for the Canadian Art Song Project, a remix album featuring multi-lingual, multi-national hip hop artists, a new work composed for her by Canadian-Dutch composer Jaap Nico Hamburger and MEASHA – Live at Westben. She also was the executive producer and director of Forgotten Coast, a 30-minute television episode broadcast on CBC Gem telling the story of her Black Loyalist heritage through the lens of hip-hop artist Jay Vernon, with orchestrations by Aaron Davis and Edwin Huizinga performed by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Alexander Shelley.

Margaret Atwood, poet 

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays.  Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy.  Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry in a decade, followed in 2022 with Burning Questions, a selection of essays from 2004 to 2021.  Her next collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood was published in March 2023.  Atwood has won numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.  In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.  She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright, and puppeteer.  She lives in Toronto, Canada. 

Aaron Davis, composer  

Aaron Davis is an eclectic composer, arranger and pianist who has worked with many of Canada’s finest musical talents. He was a founder of the world-beat band Manteca, for whom he wrote and played keyboards for twelve years and is a founding member of the Holly Cole Trio with whom he’s been playing, recording, and touring the world since 1986.  

Aaron has co-produced four of Measha Brueggergosman-Lee’s CDs and directed the music of her film Songs of Freedom. He’s also composed film scores for over 120 movies and created orchestral and chamber arrangements for many artists, including the Art of Time Ensemble, Alison Krauss, Natalie MacMaster, The Hannaford Street Silver Band, Jah Mila, Leahy, the Canadian Brass, Kevin Breit, Kuné, Canada’s Global Orchestra, Quartetto Gelato, and the Iseler Singers. Aaron has released three CDs of his own compositions, and is the recipient of two Juno Awards, two Gemini Awards and numerous Genie and Gemini award nominations. 

The Hannaford Street Silver Band (www.hssb.ca)

Canada’s award-winning professional brass band was formed in 1983 by a group of professional musicians with a love of brass music and ensemble playing. Since then, Hannaford has been reinvigorating the brass band tradition, to critical and popular acclaim. Its mission is to honour the traditions of this art form while placing it in a contemporary context with a uniquely Canadian point of view. The HSSB has redefined the brass band genre by engaging in innovative creative projects, facilitating more than 40 commissions, and recording thirteen CDs, continually pushing boundaries, and exploring new paths. Since 2020, the band has released several classical music films, including Nine Daies Wonder by Bramwell Tovey with Mark Fewer, and Canadian Trilogy, 3 Films of Music by Canadian Composers that spotlight works commissioned from Kelly-Marie Murphy, Vivian Fung, and Barbara Assiginaak.  

David Pell, Artistic Director 

David Pell has served as Artistic Director of the Hannaford Street Silver Band since 2010 and is a faculty member of the University of Toronto, the Glenn Gould Professional School of the Royal Conservatory of Music, as well as the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He is Principal Trombonist of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and has been a member of the Winnipeg Symphony, the Victoria Symphony, and Orchestra London Canada. He is a member of Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra and performs regularly with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, as well as new music ensembles Continuum and New Music Concerts. He has also performed with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Symphony Nova Scotia, and with the Canadian Brass and Stockholm Chamber Brass. 

David earned a doctorate from the Music and Health Research Collaboratory at the University of Toronto and is an active member of two other treasures of Canadian brass music: the True North Brass Quintet and the Canadian National Brass Project. 

The support of the Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council and Nova Scotia Cultural Investment Fund in the creation and recording of these songs is gratefully acknowledged. Listen to Zombie Blizzard wherever you stream your music: https://leaf-music.lnk.to/lm277.  Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music and Kristan Toczko Present: Rock Echoes

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and virtuoso Canadian harpist Kristan Toczko announce the launch of Rock Echoes (LM283, available February 16). Far from typical harp music – this album fuses the worlds of classical and rock music. Kristan has transcribed some of the most popular songs from her social media channels, bringing the unbridled energy of rock and roll to the harp. Whether it’s a classic Guns N’ Roses riff or the intricate rhythms of Tool, each track showcases Kristan’s brilliant solo transcription and artistry. 

Featured songs include these rock classics:  Sweet Child O’Mine (Guns N’ Roses); Paint It, Black (The Rolling Stones); Love of My Life (Queen); Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd); Nothing Else Matters (Metallica); Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers); Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin); Lateralus (Tool); Hotel California (Eagles); Starlight (Muse); Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana); Good Riddance/Time of Your Life (Greenday).

Kristan Toczko’s innovative videos have been enjoyed by hundreds of millions since she joined TikTok in 2020. Born in Moncton, she received her BMus from McGill University and her master’s at Yale, winning major competitions at both universities. Kristan also won the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Competition and the CBC’s Young Artist award. Kristan discovered the virtual world of performance from her home studio in St. John’s during Covid, when her busy freelance career – playing concerts, travelling, and appearing with major Canadian orchestras and ensembles – came crashing down. She now records a harp-related video a day, including teaching videos and song covers; her arrangement of Nothing Else Matters caught the attention of Metallica, who included her performance in the band’s 40th-anniversary concert in San Francisco.

Kristan says playing the harp is like having an entire orchestra in one instrument. She loves taking her fans’ requests and is up for any challenge of “harpizing” a pop or classical song. She is also a talented graphic designer and was the recording engineer and art director on her new album, which was produced and mastered by Leaf Music’s Jeremy VanSlyke.  

Join Kristan’s fans on TikTok (where she has 2.5 million subscribers), Facebook (281K), YouTube (344K) and Instagram (340K) – @harpistkt. 

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada. 

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music and Luminous Voices Present: Fire-Flowers

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and Calgary’s Luminous Voices announce their new album Fire-Flowers, exploring themes of loss, grief, and hope. The album’s centrepiece is Brahms’ beloved Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) in a special collaborative arrangement for two pianos. The Requiem was first composed as a “cantata of grief,” likely inspired by the death of his Brahms’ mother in 1865 and dear friend Robert Schumann in 1856. Two new works by Canadian/American composer Zachary Wadsworth (also a chorister on the album) round out the recording; Battle-Flags, inspired by Walt Whitman’s Civil War experiences, and a setting of E. Pauline Johnson’s Fire-Flowers, a poem of optimism and renewal. The evocative purple flowers, often referred to as “fireweed” in North America, are the first signs of life after a wildfire, a beautiful, symbolic sign of hope emerging from tragedy.

Fire-Flowers was commissioned by Luminous Voices and premiered in November 2021 with the same musicians involved in this recording. Battle-Flags was commissioned by the Choral Arts Society of Washington and premiered in 2015. The recording was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, donor Patricia Grindlay and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Luminous Voices, Calgary’s professional chamber choir, was founded in 2012 by conductor and Artistic Director Timothy Shantz. Luminous Voices comprises some of the best ensemble singers in the Calgary area, collaborating with singers and musicians across North America.  The ensemble’s debut release with Leaf Music, Sea Dreams, was nominated for Classical Album of the Year – Vocal/Choral at the 2021 JUNO awards.  The group also received an exciting feature in the United States, with NPR offering a national story about the group’s innovative and COVID-friendly “car choir” performances presented at the height of the pandemic.

Featured soloists Laura Brandt (soprano), Jonathon Adams (baritone), Cheryl Emery-Karapita (piano), and Leanne Regehr (piano) collaborated to bring these pieces to life. The recording sessions took place in Calgary, at the Bella Concert Hall, Mount Royal University. In June of 2023. The recording sessions were produced by Jeremy Van Slyke, engineered by Zana Warner, and in-house audio editing by Haruka Nagata.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.  

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music and Jaap Nico Hamburger Present: Tzimtzum

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and composer Jaap Nico Hamburger are releasing Tzimtzum on November 17, 2023. The new recording presents eight of Hamburger’s pieces, recorded in Montreal and Wolfville, NS between 2021 and 2023.

Jaap Nico Hamburger (jaaphamburger.com) is a Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer and Composer in Residence at Montreal’s Mécénat Musica. His compositions include commissions from orchestras and chamber ensembles, and his works have been performed and recorded in Canada, The Netherlands and Israel. He was commissioned by the United Nations and the Government of the Netherlands to compose a new concerto for harp and orchestra that was premiered for the 75th anniversary of the International Court of Justice. His second chamber symphony, Children’s War Diaries, was nominated for the Dutch National Composer’s Award and the 2022 JUNO award for Best Classical Composition. In addition, he contributed work to the 2023 JUNO-nominated Best Classical Album. Hamburger’s first opera, Ariella, was recently premiered during a three-city tour in Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City.

The eight tracks feature a stellar group of musicians, including Ensemble ArtChoral (under the direction of Matthias Maute who also conducts Orchestre Classique de Montreal and Ensemble Caprice); Alex Strauss, violin; Victor Fournell-Blain, viola; cellists Yegor Dyachkov and Juan Sebastian Delgado; pianists Ilya Poletaev, Janelle Fung, Michael McMahon, and Philip Chiu, Lara Deutsch, flute; and soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee.

The album is being released three weeks ahead of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. The title track, Tzimtzum, (or “contraction”), refers to a term used in Kabbalah to explain 17th century mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria’s doctrine that God began the process of creation by contracting his Ohr Ein Sof (infinite light) so that new creative light could beam. This echoes the theories of Sir Roger Penrose, the 2020 Nobel Prize winner in physics, who claims the universe goes through cycles of death and rebirth and has experienced multiple Big Bangs.

Hamburger, initially trained as a concert pianist, worked in many countries as a cardiologist before moving to Montreal and turning his full attention to composition. “After all my travels around the world, I wanted to express in my music the universality of people, not just that we are all similar, but that we are actually all one, made from the same energy,” he said. Tzimtzum was premiered at Montreal’s Festival Classica’s Lux Aeterna concert in the spring of 2023, and is scored for bells, vocal ensemble/soloists, harp, and cello.

The other intimate smaller form works on the album are guided by moments from the composer’s life: a blue dress in a painting; a piece for two pianos recalling a rhythm and blues band from his youth; poems by a German-Jewish expressionist woman writer who fled the Nazis; and the largest scale work, Concerto Antico, a “reawakening of 18th-century dance returned to life in the 21st,” according to Dr. Charles Barber’s liner notes. Concerto Antico was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and is dedicated to the memory of Maestro Boris Brott (1944-2022); Souvenirs Fugaces for solo piano was also supported by the Canada Council.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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Leaf Music and Choeur Louisbourg Choir Present: Tapisserie canadienne aux couleurs d’Acadie

LM291 Cover

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and Moncton choir Choeur Louisbourg announce the release of Tapisserie Canadienne aux couleurs d’Acadie on November 17, 2023. The new recording, in a digital only version, reflects the choir’s commitment to promote contemporary music, particularly the music of the Acadian and Francophone communities from across New Brunswick.

The recording features fourteen tracks which mostly draw from authors or composers that have a strong tie to Acadie, featuring three new works by composers Rachel C. Léger, Carl Philippe Gionet and Richard Gibson. Many of the pieces have never been recorded and use literary works by writers like Herménégilde Chiasson, the late Raymond Guy LeBlanc and Emma Hache, set to music by Frédéric Chiasson, Richard Gibson, Jean-Francois Mallet, Mathieu Lussier and Aaron Jensen. Compositions by Jeff Enns and Timothy Corlis, as well as arrangements of traditional pieces by Sean Dagher and Donald Patriquin complete the program. Tapisserie Canadienne aux couleurs d’Acadie was recorded in Memramcook, New Brunswick, in March of 2023.

This recording pays tribute to singing and oral traditions, as Acadian poet Herménégilde Chiasson notes: “Following the deportation of the Acadians in 1755, music was becoming an impossible luxury, if only to obtain instruments, let alone find a suitable venue to perform. What remained was the voice, this instrument that everyone carries with them, and which can be amplified to give that presence and magnitude of which this recording is a magnificent example.”

The album features guest musicians Carl Philippe Gionet (piano); Lucia Rodriguez (violin); Marie-Andrée Gaudet (violin); Robin Streb (viola) and Emily Kennedy (cello).

Choeur Louisbourg (choeurlouisbourgchoir.ca) began in 2006, serving at the choir-in-residence of the Sackville Festival of early Music until 2014. The twenty-voice SATB ensemble released their first CD in 2018, Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France, on the ATMA Classique label. In 2020, the choir was invited to take part in Against the Grain Theatre’s Messiah Complex project, in collaboration with the Toronto Symphony and over a dozen choirs and Indigenous soloists from across Canada, receiving critical acclaim from the BBC, France Musique and the New York Times, among others. While performing repertoire from the Renaissance and Baroque periods since its founding, the ensemble attaches great importance to new music, having commissioned works from both emerging and established composers.

Artistic Director Monique Richard is a full professor in the Music Department of the Université de Moncton. She’s also Music Director of the Beauséjour Choir and the Faubourg du Mascaret Intergenerational Choir. An adjudicator and clinician at many music festivals in the Atlantic region, Quebec, and France, she holds choral singing and Acadie very close to her heart. She has conducted for the Indian River Festival and the Lameque International Baroque Music Festival.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

The choir acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of New Brunswick.

~


(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music et le chœur Choeur Louisbourg de Moncton annoncent la sortie de Tapisserie Canadienne aux couleurs d’Acadie le 17 novembre 2023. Le nouvel enregistrement, disponible uniquement en version numérique, reflète l’engagement du chœur à vouloir promouvoir la musique contemporaine, particulièrement celle des communautés acadiennes et francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick. 

Les quatorze pistes de l’album mettent principalement en valeur des oeuvres d’auteurs ou de compositeurs qui entretiennent un lien fort avec l’Acadie, dont trois nouvelles compositions de Rachel C. Léger, Carl Philippe Gionet et Richard Gibson.

De nombreuses pièces n’ont jamais été enregistrées et sont inspirées des œuvres littéraires d’Herménégilde Chiasson, feu Raymond Guy LeBlanc et Emma Hache, mises en musique par Frédéric Chiasson, Richard Gibson, Jean-Francois Mallet, Mathieu Lussier et Aaron Jensen. Des compositions de Jeff Enns et Timothy Corlis, ainsi que des arrangements de pièces traditionnelles par Sean Dagher et Donald Patriquin, complètent le programme. Tapisserie Canadienne aux couleurs d’Acadie a été enregistré à Memramcook, au Nouveau-Brunswick, en mars 2023.

Cet enregistrement rend hommage aux traditions de chants et orales, comme le souligne le poète acadien Herménégilde Chiasson : « Après la Déportation des Acadiens en 1755, la musique devenait un luxe impossible, ne serait-ce que pour obtenir des instruments, sans parler de trouver un lieu approprié pour se produire. Ce qui restait, c’était la voix, cet instrument que chacun porte en lui et qui peut être amplifié pour donner cette présence et cette grandeur dont cet enregistrement est un magnifique exemple. »

L’album met en vedette les musiciens invités Carl Philippe Gionet (piano), Lucia Rodriguez (violon), Marie-Andrée Gaudet (violon), Robin Streb (alto) et Emily Kennedy (violoncelle).

Le Chœur Louisbourg (choeurlouisbourgchoir.ca) a été créé en 2006, servant de chœur en résidence au Festival de musique ancienne de Sackville jusqu’en 2014. L’ensemble vocal SATB de vingt voix a sorti son premier CD en 2018, Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de Franc, sous le label ATMA Classique. En 2020, le chœur a été invité à participer au projet Messiah Complex d’Against the Grain Theatre, en collaboration avec le Toronto Symphony et plus d’une douzaine de chœurs et de solistes autochtones du Canada, recevant des éloges de la BBC, de France Musique et du New York Times, entre autres. Tout en interprétant un répertoire de la Renaissance et du Baroque depuis sa création, l’ensemble accorde une grande importance à la musique nouvelle, ayant commandé des œuvres à des compositeurs émergents et établis.

La directrice artistique, Monique Richard, est professeure titulaire au Département de musique de l’Université de Moncton. Elle est également directrice musicale du chœur Beauséjour et du chœur intergénérationnel Faubourg du Mascaret. Juge et clinicienne dans de nombreux festivals de musique de la région atlantique, du Québec et de la France, elle porte le chant choral et l’Acadie très près de son cœur. Elle a dirigé pour le Indian River Festival et le Festival international de musique baroque de Lamèque.

Leaf Music est un label d’enregistrement indépendant basé à Halifax, en Nouvelle-Écosse, produisant et distribuant des enregistrements de musique classique de haute qualité par des artistes et compositeurs du Canada. Notre catalogue croissant de musique solo, orchestrale et de chambre est distribué par Naxos of America aux principaux détaillants de musique du monde, aux fournisseurs de téléchargement et aux services de streaming les plus importants. Leaf propose également des services professionnels de production audio et vidéo, des services de post-production et une distribution et une promotion intégrées de la musique au Canada.

Le chœur remercie le Conseil des arts du Canada et du gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick pour leur soutien.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please, contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell)

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Leaf Music and Adam Zinatelli Present: Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and trumpeter Adam Zinatelli are delighted to announce their forthcoming album Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky, recorded in the Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall, University of Calgary, earlier in 2023. The recording consists entirely of premiere recordings of new works, some of which have not yet even had their first concert performance. All the music explores the composers’ inspiration in writing for the trumpet as a solo instrument, with its unsurpassed vast and varied expressive range.

Adam Zinatelli is Principal Trumpet of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and has performed as guest Principal Trumpet with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Les Violons du Roy. He studied at the Glenn Gould School with Andrew McDandless and the Cleveland Institute of Music with Michael Sachs. Adam is a Yamaha Artist.

The recording features a stellar group of musicians, including timpanist Alexander Cohen, fellow trumpeters Aaron Hodgson and Miranda Cairns and pianist Akiko Tominaga. Composers include Gabriel Dharmoo, Tobin Stokes, Jeffrey Ryan, Eric Nathan, David John Lang, Claude Lapalme, Dorothy Chang, and Karen Donnelly. Chang’s All that glitters was commissioned specifically for the recording and possible through funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. Funding for the project was also provided by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

The recording features many styles of music for trumpet, including virtuosic writing in Tarantella dell’Ubriaco by Claude Lapalme, a “romp” showcasing the cornet at its agile and articulate best. Other pieces were written during COVID lockdowns, including Karen Donnelly’s Fanfare for the Backyard Birdfeeder (2020), utilizing the trumpet to imitate birds.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

 

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews, please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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Leaf Music and Gillian Smith Present: En Route

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Canadian violinist, Gillian Smith is releasing her latest recording, En Route. The album features five new works for solo violin by Canadian composers Carmen Braden, Amy Brandon, Derek Charke, Corie Rose Soumah and Hsiu-Ping Patrick Wu. It will be released in a digital version on November 3 on the Leaf Music label. A free release concert will be held on Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 p.m. at the new Joseph Strug Concert Hall, Dalhousie Arts Centre.  

The concept for these pieces was the idea of voices: voices being heard for the first time; voices being heard in new ways and voices interacting in new ways. Each of the composers approached this concept in a unique way and featured the violin in a particular light. Two pieces ask the performer to vocalize in addition to playing the violin. For example, in Tree Talk, Carmen Braden asks the performer to converse with their violin, in fact with the tree whose wood became the violin. Corie Rose Soumah asks the performer to vocalize to add sound colours to the music. 

The title track, EN ROUTE, was composed by Hsiu-Ping Patrick Wu, who says the piece is about his Taiwanese heritage and his journey to Canada: “It’s a piece about my nostalgia, homecoming, resilience and determination.” The piece quotes Nova Scotian folk songs and a variation of the traditional Taiwanese hit song, Bang-Chun Feng. Patrick also created the artwork used on the cover of the digital booklet; an acrylic painting titled EN ROUTE.

Amy Brandon’s Dualisms shows the contrasting voices of the violin – one timbral and one more traditional, intended to give a feeling of unease or disorientation. Nebula Variations by Derek Charke is a large-scale improvisation in four movements, a work that plays on space and time, fantasia, counterpoint and virtuosity.

Gillian Smith is an enthusiastic advocate for new music, releasing her debut solo album, Into the Stone on Leaf Music in 2019. The album was nominated for the 2020 Classical Recording of the Year by the ECMA and was described by The WholeNote’s David Olds as “a stunning debut album by a rising star.” She’s also recorded with members of the Acadia New Music Society on the Centrediscs label and performed on Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars, chamber music by Carmen Braden (Centrediscs, 2019). That album was nominated for the 2020 ECMA for Classical Recording of the Year.

Gillian’s solo and chamber music recordings have been broadcast on radio on stations across Canada and in the U.S. and the U.K., and she performs in recital and as a chamber musician in series and festivals such as Open Waters, Shattering the Silence, Musique Royale, Music Room Chamber Players, and others. To learn more, please visit www.gilliansmithviolin.com.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. We are also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts in the presentation of this project.

 

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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Leaf Music and Luminos Ensemble Present: In the Crystalline Vault of Heaven

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) PEI’s professional choral ensemble, Luminos Ensemble has released its latest recording, In the Crystalline Vault of Heaven. The 16-member group, under the artistic direction of Dr. Margot Rejskind recorded the album of music by Atlantic Canadian composers at St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church, Sturgeon, PEI, in May of 2022. It will be released in physical and digital versions on October 27 on the Leaf Music label.  

The album features a stellar lineup of all-Atlantic Canadian composers: Atlantic String Machine’s Adam Hill, EKR (Evan) Hammell, Emily Doolittle, Terry Pratt, Derek Charke, Peter Togni, Kathleen Allan and David Buley. 

The evocative title track, In the Crystalline Vault of Heaven, was composed by Nova Scotian Derek Charke. “We wanted an album that reflected the diversity and breadth of choral music being written on the east coast,” said director Margot Rejskind. “We’re showcasing composers like Adam, Emily and Evan, who all wrote these new works for us.” 

Luminos Ensemble is a Charlottetown-based professional choir of trained vocal soloists that formed in 2017. The group received a nomination from the East Coast Music Awards in the inaugural Best Choral Recording of the Year category in 2023 for their single, I am an Island That Dreams by David Buley. They thank the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this project. To learn more, please visit LuminosEnsemble.com. 

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. We are also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

 

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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SHHH!! Ensemble and Leaf Music Present “An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene” 

SHHH!!… a powerful utterance designed to draw attention forward… creating space and awareness… opening ears to something important.  

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene presents a radical catalogue of our created world’s sounds as a continuous multimovement work for piano, percussion, and fixed electronics. Composed by Frank Horvat for Ottawa’s innovative SHHH!! Ensemble, this work illustrates the current state of pollution and destruction by employing over 150 different audio samples indicative of the climate crisis. The musical score augments and interacts with this soundscape, using a broad range of percussion instruments and piano. The “Holocene” is the current geological epoch, which began approximately 9,700 years before the Common Era (BCE), following the Last Glacial Period.  

 An Auditory Survey was conceptualized during two week-long creative retreats at Port William Sound in Mountain Grove, Ontario. Nestled in an unassuming cabin and adjacent studio, the musicians worked with composer Frank Horvat, each track the result of extensive experimentation and an uncompromising search to create something compelling and real: “As nature lovers and artists we are conscious of humanity’s impact on the environment, and until this project we had been searching for a way to effect meaningful reflection on this issue that we care so deeply about. Collaborating with Frank and working on An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene has been a powerful way for us to consider our shared responsibilities and explore our place on Earth,” the Ensemble said. 

Percussionist Zac Pulak and pianist Edana Higham comprise the SHHH!! Ensemble, a duo carving a space for themselves as electrifying performers of new music. With a keen ear for experimentation and exploration, SHHH!! has been deemed “truly virtuosic and intense” by Toronto’s Confluence Concerts and “a beautiful discovery” following their debut with the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec. Formed in 2017, SHHH!! Ensemble began developing their signature “avant-accessible” style through residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Canadian Music Centre. Since then, SHHH!! has continued to develop innovative repertoire for their ensemble commissioning and premiering new works by Kelly-Marie Murphy, John Beckwith, Jocelyn Morlock, Monica Pearce, Harry Stafylakis, and Noora Nakhaei, among others.  They are also artistic director of the Ottawa New Music Creators. 

SHHH!! Ensemble’s creativity and vitality were especially notable through the pandemic, with one critic commenting, “This virtuoso duo are so agile and inventive… I doubt anything short of a geological cataclysm will shut them down” (The WholeNote). Major highlights in 2020–2022 include the duo’s acceptance into the prestigious Evolution: Classical career development residency at the Banff Centre, a National Arts Centre #CanadaPerforms concert, the world premiere of JUNO-winning composer Jocelyn Morlock’s Spirit Gradient with the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival in Newfoundland, and a nationally broadcast recital on the CBC Music program In Concert.   

SHHH!! Ensemble’s debut album Meanwhile (Analekta) was released to critical acclaim, reaching top positions on Apple Music and Spotify playlists, and nominated for 2023 Classical Recording of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards. The title track Meanwhile, by composer John Beckwith, was the first piece written for SHHH!!.  

Frank Horvat is “one of the most inventive songwriters to come out of the contemporary scene in Canada” (The WholeNote). As a pianist and multigenre composer “he has made the tricky musical leap that allows him to pursue a niche of his own” (Edmonton Journal). Frank explores a wide array of themes in his music, from love to the environment, mental health, and social justice issues. His works have been featured on over twenty albums on ATMA Classique, Really Records, and Centrediscs. With composition premieres on four continents, his music has been showcased internationally in theatre, feature films, and on radio/TV networks, including BBC Radio 3, Bravo, CBC, CBS, Discovery, HBO, and Vice, and featured in publications such Gramophone, The Strad, BBC Music Magazine, Toronto Star, and Vancouver Sun.  Frank’s 2021 album Music for Self-Isolation was listed in the “Top 5 Classical Albums of the Year” by CBC Classical, and his other 2021 album, Project Dovetail, was included in CBC Music’s “Must-Hear Fall Albums.”  Frank has been a panelist at the Classical:NEXT conference speaking on the topic of “artivism” and was featured in Chris Gunness’s UK Classical Magazine podcast.   

Born in Ottawa, and a University of Toronto graduate under Christos Hatzis, Frank lives and composes by the lake in Toronto with his wife, who is also his manager. Frank is a Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer and the inaugural recipient of the Kathleen McMorrow Music Award for contemporary composition.   

Recorded at Domaine Forget de Charlevoix, An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene will be released on October 20, 2023, on all platforms. SHHH!! Ensemble thanks the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of this project.  

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. We are also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.  

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music and ICOT Present: “Recurrence”

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and ICOT (formerly known as The Iranian Canadian Composers of Toronto) are delighted to announce their forthcoming album Recurrence, recorded in May at Humbercrest United Church in Toronto.

Recurrence had its genesis at the beginning of the pandemic, when the notion of repetition assumed a novel and unsettling meaning for many people. The album explores the idea of repetition through different iterations in the natural and artificial worlds. In five new, far-reaching compositions, the concept of repetition and its consequences are teased apart in myriad ways through the unique lens of each composer; some took to ecology, some to politics, and one was inspired by the late fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. The result is five exceptional artistic works, each unique in its aesthetic and sonic exploration into the vortex of repetition. Shahi’s Eroded imagines musically the cycle of coastal erosion, while Kayan Emami has created a musical reflection of a young Iranian boy and his boat in Kian in Rainbows, (also paying homage to recently deceased composer, Jocelyn Morlock). Maziar Heidari’s piece, Arrays, alludes to the beauty and potential in mathematics and music of recurrence. 

Speaking about the album, ICOT executive director and composer Saman Shahi says, “Recurrence is one of ICOT’s most ambitious projects in scale and concept. Some of Canada’s best and brightest composers and performers are paired with a powerful core concept: how much of our human experience is shaped by patterns, cycles, and routines. Humans find meaning, comfort, dread, fear, and expression in repetition be it in our memories, our daily lives, the politics we witness, the traumas we face, or the nature we behold; this is what this album is trying to investigate and probe.” 

Recurrence features the compositions of renowned composers Maziar Heidari (also a conductor), Saman Shahi (also a pianist), Keyan Emami, Jordan Nobles, and Nicole Lizée and will be available everywhere on October 13. The project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and FACTOR. 

The recording features a stellar group of Canada’s finest musicians, including the New Orford String Quartet (Jonathan Crow (violin), Andrew Wan (violin), Sharon Wei (viola) and Brian Charles Manker (cello); Scott Peterson (double/electric bass); Leslie Allt (flute); Peter Stoll (clarinet); Beverly Johnson and Ryan Scott (percussion). 

ICOT (icot.ca) is a non-profit arts organization founded in 2011 by five Toronto-based composers and musicians with the mission of creating new works that bridge Canadian and Iranian culture through music and art. ICOT’s current members are Saman Shahi (executive director), Keyan Emami (artistic director), and Maziar Heidari (music director). ICOT has produced two operas, two ballets, twelve orchestral works, dozens of chambers and vocal works, and three calls for scores that allowed ICOT to collaborate with over twenty composers from eight different countries. ICOT’s music has been performed by Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, Symphony on the Bay, Soundstreams, and Ton Beau String Quartet and they’ve taken part in Toronto Symphony’s 2022 Open House, Tirgan Festival, 2017 Ottawa Chamberfest, and Hamilton Philharmonic’s 2014 “What Next” Festival. ICOT’s first commercial recording, Persian Piano Night, was released in 2018 by Pardis Records.  

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. We are also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.  

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For media only: 

Icot.ca 

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt, peggy@leaf-music.ca  (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).