(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music announces the distribution of a new digital recording, Defiant Dances (SNS2024) with Atlantic Canada’s only professional orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia under the direction of Holly Mathieson. The orchestra presents a recording of exceptional live performances featuring internationally beloved pianist Sara Davis Buechner and works by four extraordinary women composers. Defiant Dances celebrates the momentous contribution women have made throughout orchestral history and is available for purchase and streaming on all major platforms on May 3.
The album includes Florence Price’sPiano Concerto in One Movement and Louise Farrenc’sOverture No. 1 in E Minor. Two Canadian composers – Alice Ping Yee Ho and Karen Sunabacka – round out the featured works. Sunabacka’s Born by the River (for string orchestra) was originally commissioned by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, inspired by her Métis grandmother, Lenore Clouston (nee Birston).
Alice Ping Yee Ho’s The Phantom Bird of Han won the 2022 Maria Anna Mozart Award and was premiered by Symphony Nova Scotia in March of 2023. Launched in 2016, the Award supports the work of Canadian women composers, providing $10,000 for Symphony Nova Scotia to commission and perform a new symphonic work. The Phantom Bird of Han was featured on the CBC music program In Concert with Paolo Pietropaolo as part of an International Women’s Day broadcast and was heard in the Atlantic provinces on both CBC Music and CBC Radio on The East Coast Music Hour with Bill Roach.
Noted for her musical command, cosmopolitan artistry, and visionary independence, Sara Davis Buechner is one of the most original concert pianists of our time. She has performed in every state and province of North America and commissioned and premiered important contemporary scores by composers such as Michael Brown, John Corigliano, Ray Green, Dick Hyman, Jared Miller, and others. Ms. Buechner has released numerous acclaimed recordings of rare piano music by composers such as Rudolf Friml, Dana Suesse, and Ferruccio Busoni. A dedicated Yamaha Artist, Ms. Buechner also appears as a speaker and performer as a proud transgender woman.
Symphony Nova Scotia is Nova Scotia’s orchestra, championing symphonic music in the province for 40 years. With a home base in Halifax/K’jipuktuk and performances across the province, Symphony Nova Scotia is proud to be a vibrant, vital part of Nova Scotia’s rich cultural community. From sold-out orchestral concerts to free family events, youth and seniors’ activities, and educational partnerships, Symphony Nova Scotia creates unforgettable experiences with truly great music. Visit symphonynovascotia.ca to learn more.
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).
(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and Canadian pianist David Potvin announce the launch of Catharsis (LM274), available April 19 in digital and physical format. Catharsisexpresses an emotional release experience, often of complex, deeply held, or repressed emotions which transform into peace, tranquility, and a shift of perspective. This album’s pieces were selected from David’s tour across Canada, where he performed music exclusively by composers who live and work in Canada: Chris Derksen’sGrowing Forgiveness, Keiko Devaux’sMurmuration, and Jean Coulthard’s13 Preludes for Piano, and Canada Mosaic: The Contented House (arranged for piano by David Potvin), pieces which have never been recorded before.
Derksen’s Growing Forgiveness, an artistic response to the tension she felt in certain relationships during the pandemic has a truly serene ending following the piece’s driving climax. This is followed by Coulthard’s 13 Preludes, imbued with deep emotional expression, and a rising tension which peaks near the end. Then Devaux’s Murmuration is uses pianistic and electronic gestures describe the movement of small birds moving in large flocks. Catharsis concludes the album with a piano arrangement of Coulthard’s Canada Mosaic: The Contented House, a meditative reflection that includes the well-known melody, A la claire fontaine.
Hailed by La Scena Musicale as a rising star, Montreal-based pianist David Potvin (David-potvin.com) is quickly establishing himself as one of Canada’s most exciting contemporary pianists. As winner of the 45th Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, he toured across Canada in the fall of 2022 with a diversely curated program of Canadian repertoire, including the works on the new recording.
David has been featured in solo and chamber recitals across Canada, the United States, and Europe. Recent projects include the world premiere of a new piece by Kalaisan Kalaichelvan at the Banff Arts Centre, the album Breathe In, Breathe Out, featuring music by composer Edward Enman, a recital with violinist Martin Beaver, and a recital in collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre celebrating the works of Quebec composer Jacques Hétu. Other performance awards include prizes at the 2018 Shean and 2017 Stepping Stone competitions.
David maintains a private piano studio where he teaches in both of Canada’s official languages and is a member of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s prestigious college of examiners. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Toronto, where he studied with acclaimed pedagogue Marietta Orlov and won the DMA recital competition. Born in Billtown, Nova Scotia, David will tour with Debut Atlantic in the fall of 2024 (debutatlantic.ca).
Catharsis was recorded at Domaine Forget de Charlevoix and produced by Haruka Nagata. The album is dedicated to the memory of Marietta Orlov (1932-2020).
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).
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, through they come from the ends of the earth!
– Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West (1889)
(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and Canadian Baroque ensemble Infusion Baroque announce the launch ofEast is East (LM276), available March 15 in both digital and physical copies. East is East is a transcultural collaboration drawing on both ancient and contemporary inspiration from the East and the West. Offering a fresh approach to music on Baroque instruments and historical performance practice, this new recording is sure to delight fans of early music and Hindustani, Turkish and Persian traditions. Joining the quartet ensemble are guest musicians Amir Amiri (santur and composer), Vidita Kanniks (vocals), Thibault Bertin-Maghit (double bass), Hamin Honari (tombak and daf), Hank Knox (harpsichord), and Shawn Mativetsky (tabla).
Infusion Baroque (infusionbaroque.com) draws new audiences to early music through a truly captivating concert experience, deftly combining seasoned musicianship with storytelling elements. Playing music of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries on historical instruments, the four women of Infusion Baroque enthrall audiences across North America with their creative and interactive programming. Founded in 2013, Infusion Baroque won the Grand Prize and Audience Prize at the Early Music America’s Baroque Performance Competition in 2014. Since then, they have performed extensively in North America with series such as the Montreal Baroque Festival, Ottawa Chamberfest, Stratford Summer Music, Early Music Now (Milwaukee), San Francisco Early Music Society, Indianapolis Early Music, Houston Early Music, and the Gotham Early Music Scene in New York City.
Their performances have been described as “dynamic and alive” (Early Music America) with “polish, energy, and finely honed style … merrily breaking established traditions” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Their research and creative programs focus not only on important figures of the past, but also relatively unknown composers and musicians. They have released three albums with the Leaf Music; their second album, Kreüsser, features world-premiere recordings of Georg Anton Kreüsser’s Op. 10 quintets and was nominated for a Prix Opus Album of the Year. Since 2017, one of their main initiatives has been The Virtuosa Project, a series of concerts, lectures, videos, and recordings highlighting historical female musicians. Their third album, Virtuosa, consisted of works composed or performed by women from the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries, and reached over 500K streams within the first six months of release.
The album was recorded in April of 2023 at Studios Piccolo in Montreal, produced by Jeremy Van Slyke with recording by Veronica Galicia Lopez and editing and mixing by Nathan Cann.
We acknowledge the support of FACTOR and the Canada Council for the Arts with 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. 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).
“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.
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).
(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).
(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music announces the distribution from Montreal’s acclaimed VB8 vocal ensemble. This recording are all being released on December 1.
VB8 (vocesboreales.org) has recorded its first CD, Winter Magic: A 21st Century Christmas (Magie d’hiver).Founded in 2006 and now under the leadership of Artistic Director Andrew Gray, Voces Boreales chamber choir has carved out an enviable position in the classical music world. In 2019, they created a new vocal octet, VB8, who’ve collaborated with artists like Quatuor Bozzini, BradyWorks and Karen Young. Their first album of songs for the festive season features almost all works written in the last 35 years, apart from two traditional French carols. The disc starts and ends with a favourite composer of the group, Arvo Part, and includes three Canadian composers: Elizabeth Ekholm, Louis Desjarlais and Benjamin Sigerson. The deliberate omission (for the most part) of traditional Christmas carols allows for year-round listening, yet is perfect for holiday traditions, a perfect backdrop to tree trimming or basking in the quietude of a Christmas morning.
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).
