(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) – Leaf Music announces the release of Blackwood Sketches a new music video featuring acclaimed violist Kate Read. The video will premiere on YouTube on October 18, 2024.
Blackwood Sketches was originally featured on Kate Read’s debut album, After, a project that blends Baroque repertoire with experimental electronics, offering a stirring mix of antiquity and modernity.
Composed by Andrew Staniland Blackwood Sketches for viola and electronics, the composition won the 2024 ECMA Classical Composition of the Year earlier last May. Staniland drew inspiration from David Blackwood’s Fire Down on the Labrador print series, particularly the work Black Ice, which depicts a powerful scene of an iceberg, a lifeboat fleeing a burning ship, and a submerged whale beneath distant stars. Staniland translates these elements into a series of musical vignettes, where low strings and synth tones conjure the presence of the whale, and eerie sounds imitate creaking ice and wood. Additionally, score markings such as dolce – preciously small amongst the vastness, reflect humanity’s smallness against nature’s overwhelming scale.
The music video is directed by Cecil Johnson, produced by Jeremy VanSlyke, animation by Anna Shepard, and editing by Halley Hellmich and Cassie Mann. We are grateful to FACTOR (The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings), the Government of Canada, and Canada’s Private Radio Broadcasters for supporting this project. We are also grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts NL, who supported the sound recording of Andrew Staniland’s Blackwood Sketches.
Kate Read, based in St. John’s, NL, is a versatile performer known for her work with the Atlantic String Quartet, winners of MusicNL’s Classical Musicians of the Year award (2021), and as principal violist with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. A sought-after session musician, her collaborations extend to a wide variety of artists, and she can regularly be heard at festivals such as Tuckamore and Sound Symposium.
Her first album, After, was released by Leaf Music and was nominated for ECMA and MusicNL awards. She is planning a new album with her experimental duo, Loopstitch, with Michelle LaCour. The duo won the 2024 Gerry Porter Award for improvisation at the Sound Symposium this summer.
Previously, Kate was a member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London for six years, performing regularly with renowned ensembles such as the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Philharmonia, and the London Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated educator, she has served as a Sessional Professor of Viola at Memorial University of Newfoundland since 2015. Kate actively participates in educational outreach programs with the Atlantic String Quartet, performing in public schools, senior homes, and a sensory-friendly concert series.
