Kate Read is thrilled to present After, her first record on Leaf Music set to be released on November 18, 2022. After is the culmination of a pandemic’s worth of time and experimentation directed towards melding the organic with the electronic. After features famous works from Bach, Muhly, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, as well as two newly commissioned works from Canadian composer and professor Andrew Staniland and composer Benton Roark.
Inspiration for After began to form during the pandemic, when, like many artists, Kate Read found herself alone and in need of some solace. She found this solace in two forms. One, perhaps expected, was through the works of Bach and Muhly. The other, however, was through experimenting with electronics. This eventually led to the masterful combination and integration of baroque and electronics heard on After.
Speaking on the power of music to provide solace in times of difficulty and stress, Read comments, “I continued on to spend a lot of time with Nico Muhly’s “Keep in Touch”. Interestingly, in playing this piece I found that my sense of isolation was alleviated, despite Muhly’s words: “Every dimension of the piece accentuates the “in-betweenness” of these two strange voices: …Antony’s (Hegarty) voice, so stately on his own records, is here reduced to abrupt, extemporaneous gestures, mirroring, not alleviating, the viola’s isolation.”
Based in St John’s, Kate’s diverse talents can be heard at festivals such as Sound Symposium and Tuckamore, performing with the Atlantic String Quartet (winners of MusicNL Classical Musicians of the year, 2021) and as principal violist in the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. In demand as a session musician Kate is also the violist of Dark by Five, resident ensemble at Gros Morne Summer Music and the Harbourlight Piano Quartet. Kate is also principal viola with Opera on the Avalon and collaborates with many musicians around town including Duo Concertante, Vernon Regher, Duane Andrews, Benton Roark and Tiber Reardon. Favourite memories of Sound Symposium include playing the ice breaker on the coast guard ship for the Harbour Symphony and an improv session with John Wyre, Bill Brennan and Paul Bendzsa.
Kate Read ~ After
Release Date: November 18, 2022
Physical/Digital Release
MEDIA CONTACT: Andrew Brown | andrew@leaf-music.ca