Getting the Song Out….
Women on the Verge (WOV), in their ongoing commitment to promoting Canadian composers, has created the podcast, “Getting the Song Out” to explore repertoire for voice and piano written by female and female-identified Canadian classical composers. This podcast creates a forum to share information and observations, develop knowledge and understanding of music and text, and provide the audience with an opportunity to learn about and reflect on situations and issues that have confronted women for a lifetime.
Each interview explores the background information, experience, and current work of the featured composer. In addition, we include discussions about the poetic and musical aspects of the composer’s work highlighting specific songs and their context, their commission process, and the composers’ thoughts about diversity in music and art. Coupling our discussion with musical selections from existing recordings we engage the audience in a broad and dynamic listening experience.
Ep. 1 Leslie Uyeda
Leslie Uyeda’s music is performed throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe. A lifetime working with Canada’s greatest singers as collaborative pianist, coach and conductor has led to exhilarating and gorgeously written music for voice. She has been coach/pianist/conductor/chorus director with all of Canada’s major opera companies, as well as the Banff Centre, the Chautauqua Institute of Music NY and including Vancouver Opera where she conducted several main stage productions. She has also conducted her own operas Game Misconduct and When the Sun Comes Out, Canada’s first lesbian opera, performed in Vancouver and Toronto in 2014. Leslie remains busy with commissions during this time of Covid-19. www.leslieuyeda.com
Ep. 3 Katerina Gimon
Named as one of Canada's ‘hot 30 classical musicians under 30’ by the Canadian Broadcasting Company; composer, improviser, and vocalist Katerina Gimon's uniquely dynamic, poignant, and eclectic compositional style is rapidly gaining her a reputation as one of the most distinctive emerging voices in contemporary Canadian composition and beyond. Katerina’s music has been described as “sheer radiance” (Campbell River Mirror), “imbued…with human emotion” (San Diego Story), and capable of taking listeners on a “fascinating journey of textural discovery” (Ludwig Van). Her music draws inspiration from myriad of influences — from Eastern European folk music to indie rock, as well as from her roots as a songwriter — and has been performed across Canada, the United States (notably, at Carnegie Hall), Europe, and Asia. www.katerinagimon.com
Ep. 2 Cecilia Livingston
Canadian composer Cecilia Livingston specializes in music for voice. She is composer in-residence at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where her work is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and builds on her 2015-17 Fellowship at The American Opera Project in New York. She is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at King's College London.
Winner of the 2018 Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes for female opera creators in Canada, the Canadian Music Centre’s Toronto Emerging Composer Award, and a finalist in the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prizes, her music has been heard at Nuit Blanche, the 21C Festival, World Choir Games, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Soundstreams, Fashion Art Toronto, Tapestry Opera, and with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Kingston Symphony, and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Her current projects include the opera Terror & Erebus for Opera 5 and TorQ Percussion Quartet, as well as new work for Glyndebourne and a song cycle with Orange Prize winning poet Anne Michaels for Women on the Verge. www.cecilialivingston.com
Ep. 4 Emilie LeBel
Canadian composer Emilie Cecilia LeBel specializes in concert music composition, the creation of mixed works that employ digital technologies, and intermedia concert works. Described as “writing music that reflects her intelligence and audaciousness” (Sir Andrew Davis); “restrained and beautifully coherent from beginning to end” (barczablog); and “impressively subtle and sensuous” (ConcertoNet), her work inhabits sonic worlds that are primarily concerned with textural landscapes, resonance, and variances in colour. Emilie recently returned home to Canada after teaching at the University of Montana for three years. She is based in Edmonton Alberta, where she is Assistant Professor at MacEwan University; and frequently returns home to Toronto for her position as Affiliate Composer with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Emilie completed a Doctorate in Composition at the University of Toronto in 2013, under the guidance of Gary Kulesha and Robin Elliott. www.emilielebel.ca
Ep. 5 Vivian Fung
JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers.”
Highlights of Fung’s 2019–2020 season include the UK premiere of Birdsong, performed by violinist Midori at Kings Place in London, world premiere performances of a new trumpet concerto with trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden and the Erie Philharmonic, performances of Dust Devils by The Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by Peter Oundjian, Fanfare with the Florida Orchestra, Aqua by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal under conductor James Gaffigan, Earworms with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra led by Bramwell Tovey, Pizzicato with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra led by Miguel Harth-Bedoya. Fung will also write new works commissioned by Standing Wave Ensemble in Vancouver and L’arc Trio in San Francisco.
With a deep interest in exploring different cultures, Fung traveled to Cambodia in 2019 to connect with her roots and collect research for a new opera. She traveled to Southwest China in 2012 to study minority music and cultures, and has also explored North Vietnam, Spain, and Bali. www.vivianfung.ca
Ep. 6 and 7 Matthew Fava
Matthew Fava is a musician and arts administrator. As Director of Ontario Region at the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) he has developed education, residency and mentorship programs. In 2016 he worked with Rose Bolton to launch EQ, a program for women in electronic music. He is also a founding organizer of the Toronto Creative Music Lab, a peer-mentored workshop for early career musicians and composers. He is currently involved in an ongoing inter-generational interview series for artists, and livestream productions of concert events.
Matthew has volunteered and worked in the community radio sector in Toronto and helped to coordinate special broadcast events celebrating local hip hop, dub poetry, calypso, and more. Matthew currently volunteers on the boards of the Music Gallery and Contact Contemporary Music, and helps to organize the annual Intersection Festival. Matthew plays violin and bass in the psychedelic spacerock band Moonwood which has been featured in events curated by Burn Down the Capital, Long Winter, Wavelength, and Weird Canada. Matthew was a fellow of the 2016 Cultural Leaders Lab jointly administered by the Toronto Arts Council and the Banff Centre. www.cmccanada.org