Water

by Gwendolyn MacEwen

When you think of it, water is everything. Or rather,
Water ventures into everything and becomes everything.
It has
All tastes and moods imaginable; water is history
And the end of the world is water also.
I have tasted water
From London to Miranshah. In France it tasted
Of Crusaders’ breastplates, swords, and tunnels of rings
On ladies’ fingers.
In the springs of Lebanon water had
No color, and was therefore all colors,
outside of Damascus
It disguised itself as snow and let itself be chopped
And spooned onto the stunned red grapes of summer.

For years I have defended water, even though I am told
there are other drinks.
Water will never lie to you, even when it insinuates itself
Into someone else’s territory. Water has style.

Water has no conscience and no shame; water
thrives on water, is self-quenching.
It often tastes of brine and ammonia, and always
Knows its way back home.

When you want to travel very far, do as the Bedouins do—
Drink to overflowing when you can,
and then
Go sparingly between wells.

The way spring jabs

by Ayesha Chatterjee

The way spring jabs at winter,
each small leaf a soldier, death
unthinkable. When the sickly honeysuckle
thrusts its brown vine into the air
no-one notices. Camouflaged,
it curls like clay, but stays.

Death is everywhere, napkined in snow.
So soft against the ear it must be a mistake.
Still, we carry on, imagination
shrinking with the rain, the coming warmth
a myth to be believed.

In a sort of synchronicity, people open doors
and close them, letting no-one in except themselves,
lifting alter-egos out of boxes tinged

with disappointment. It is just enough to hold on
to what is left as the first spiders skitter over tiles
and set their endless traps, sparkling every now and then with dross.

The Desert

by Gwendolyn MacEwen

Only God lives there in the seductive Nothing
That implodes into pure light. English makes Him
an ugly monosyllable, but Allah breathes
A fiery music from his tongue, ignites the sands,
invents a terrible love that is
The very name of pain.

The desert preserves Him
as the prophets found Him, massive and alone.
They went there, into that awful Zero
to interpret Him.,
for Himself to know, for He said: Help me,
I am the one who is alone, not you. Tell me who I am.

Camels lean into the desert, lost in some thought
so profound it can only be guessed. When
Will God invent man? When
will the great dream end?
My skin crawls with a horrible beauty in this
Nothingness, this Everything—

I fall to my knees in the deep white sand, and my head
implodes into pure light.

Spirit Tree

after Priscila Uppal

by Anna Yin

In Prospect Cemetery,
among poplar, cedar, maple,
I hope you found your tree–
a healing from heaven.

Here, in another city,
I see from my window
a full-grown willow–
ten years ago, it was a tiny twig
dropped in the valley.

Two years ago,
the year you passed, lightning
hit the willow and split her in two.
A year later,
from the open wound,
she grew new branches.

Have I found my spirit tree?
A breeze blows—new green leaves
touch me like a soft hand.

When winter comes,
I collect the fallen leaves,
slim, the shape of lips.
I slip them into books
of your poems.
They cling to one another,
a whispering forest of stories.

Songs of Joy

words from Psalm 126

When the Lord turned our gaze upon Zion, we thought we were dreaming.
Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy.
Fill us with grace, O Lord, like rivers in a dry land.
They who sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy.
Though they went out weeping, carrying the seed-bag, they shall return with songs of joy, carrying
their sheaves.

[There’s a back story to this. There was a composer named James Simon, which by chance are my first two names; he was German-Jewish from Berlin, like my mother. In 1944, at age 64, he was deported to Theresienstadt. There he wrote his last work, a setting of these words, Psalm 126. He was last seen sitting on his suitcase, jotting down music in his notebook, awaiting deportation to Auschwitz.]

Marigold

by A. F. Moritz

The shining of gold, dark
and blinding bright by turns,
the sun falling from blue clouds
into the ocean and noon and dawn,
all unfolded and held up,
carried, offered on motionless
petals, fingers, rays, unchanged
through all the day’s seasons
and the night under spectral
low-watted garden bulbs.

Unchanged, marigold, except you always
are born, flower, last, and decay,
and mummified, brown and stiff, stand
in the snowy mud, shedding seeds.

Mary’s gold, your flower primal
gold above and red gold underneath,
streaked with rust and blood,
earth ochre, stain of red clay,
knife wound, spike and spear thrust,
wrists tightly bound, thorns,
menses, a dripping scalpel line:
the seven sorrows, seven darts
that sum up all cuts
lopping the human parts away
perpetually: the darts that are your seeds,
that grow in, pierce, harrow,
fall from, and are, your heart.

For Aviva, Because I Love Her

by Irving Layton

I saw a spider eating a huge bee
First he ate my limbs
And then he removed my head
Feasting on the quivering jellies of my eyes
And on what passes among bees for ears

And, though dead,
I could feel with each morsel he had
That he enjoyed his repast
And I was glad

Afterwards, he sliced me down the middle
Exposing my insides to the burning midday heat

And slowly, the voluptuous spider feasted
On my jeweled organs,
Abolishing them one by one
Till I was all gone,
All swallowed up,
All except for my love of you

My radiant wings,
These, ah these he did not touch,
But left glinting in the sun.

Burning in this Midnight Dream

by Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer

I dream I wore a skin of X’s across my chest
and down my torso. Granny prints of the midnight world.
Thick lenses moved inside my skull
magnifying but still I could not see.
The X awkwardly signed by my great-grandmother
another burned ink onto my skin for Treaty Six.
X for the five-dollar-a-year allotment,
X stitched for medicine, eye glasses, teeth,
and for school.
X for every sin, X for moments of grace.
The X’s of a long paper chain wrapped this body.

The tattoos beckoned me not to surrender
to wear a grizzly cape
to dance until the sun’s flames and moon beams
created passion inside my womb.
I was earth, burning in this midnight dream.

Bombastic

by George Elliott Clarke

The problem is, I’m bombastic—
drastically bombastic,
due to the minstrelsy, buffoonery,
of being a yellowed, cartoon black,
a secondhand black,
a kind of discard, discounted black,
being really only tan or brown,
a souvenir of Miscegenation.

A signally colossal pygmy! A hunchbacked, Igbo Igor!
Talent worth less than a chigger-plagued pig—
Talent that’s only a figment
of my Pygmalion, gigolo vocab (itself not big)—

Alluding to my obligatory pigment,
my oil-crude, black-ass nib zigzags this white-sheet gig—
my squibs unniggardly, yet niggling—
see my mag-nagging Ego, jag and jig!

Always was I an ignoramus (like Cap’n Queeg)—meagre—
if eager to league as a worthy figure—the “Antigone
of Antigonish,” who ligatures together earthy swigs
of igneous-molten spittle, grammar-beleaguered!

I was less Zelig than Rigoletto: Unambiguous
roared the guffaws, as if lauding Follies Ziegfeld—
dervishes all whirligigs, in trigonal shindigs—
and applause—symphonic Edvard Grieg—contiguous.

What a stigma my Intrigue be! What ig’orant
and brazen Bigotry to vaunt “Negro rigs”
(these foul-spelled, triggering sprigs—
iffy schlock) to spiffy, bewigged, Prufrock-like prigs!

Asleep In Her Arms

by Stephen Morrissey

Isn’t this what I’ve waited for?
To sleep in her arms, return
to the warmth of a woman’s
body, curves and softness
against bone and flesh.
She is the one
I come to life in,
the woman whose
presence returns me to life.
There is no other
like her, the one I love:
the one who is my other half,
the one whose hand I hold,
the one whose company I desire,
the one who makes the moon
white and full.
I think of other men
alone at night; during the day
they search for a woman
to bring them light:
love transforms,
ignites an inner fire,
burns long and bright
in the human heart.
What makes the full moon
white and round
but love;
what makes the trees grow
and the fields green
with life,
only love;
or the river flow,
fish breaking the calm
surface at dusk,
sky red with setting sun
and grass cold
with dew.

Wound Turned To Light

by Andrea Thompson

The light of witnessing existence
makes everything beautiful again –

brings rebirth to those disowned parts of self
those shattered fragments the world has deemed

unworthy – those darkened days and tired nights
of soul-deep weariness become refreshed

through the act of simply
recording what is

what it is to be ourselves, unabashed and
naked, living on this crushed ball of stardust

what it is to be us – hurtling through the universe
bouncing up against each other like ideological pinballs

at a time when the polarity of this planet has sent us all
off on our own diametrical trajectory away from the core

when the weight of interpersonal animosity has become
staggeringly crippling, when the term “respectfully disagree”

is about to become extinct. In this moment I bow down
and thank God for bestowing us with the gift of creativity

for endowing all of us humans a life-giving method of release
to the pressures of simply existing, a way to translate pain

into beauty, a way to open up the valve on it all
and begin to let off steam –

what a gift it is to be given this
moment, to be invited to express

all the colours of this jagged emotional palette
without judgment, to simply say yes

to the raw red of rage, yes
to the yellow of hope, yes

to the bruised-hearted blues, yes
to the unfathomable purple, yes

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
yes and amen to it all.

[The title is inspired by Georges Braque, “Art is a wound turned into light”.]

v

by Amatoritsero Ede

this hung morning
the immobile weser
is sluggish with memories
of dead water
on the niger river delta
in nigeria

after shell shat shocked
oil impurities into it

till choked full of poisoned fish and algae
the creek reeks of dead fish and people

like the ogoni nine

a hung boat nation unable to swim
pollution and politics

and thus was strung short
and hung from killer nooses

the vertical nine were long dead
long before the long drop

by the life-stained hands
of abacha’s henchmen hangmen hitlerites

nine necks cracked
life’s spine popped
broken

nine lives shelled
the niger delta
shell-shocked into haunted silence

stifled wailing along waterways
and among mangrove swamp and fauna

muffled wailing
unlike the silence on the weser

a portentous silence
the quiet of still graves
sunk real deep

To the Poet

by George Elliott Clarke (from “Red”, 2011)

Poet! Damn you if you crave public love!
People clap raucously, then fickle, stop.
Fools don scholars’ tassels, bray their critiques,
While crowds’ hoorays chill—or scald—your marrow.
Best to stand Caesar-calm, statue-austere:
It’s majesty, yes, to dwell defiant,
Castled in your own soul, free and aloof!
Perfect your flowers, distill their dream liqueurs,
But ignore all praise of your past confections.
Judge for yourself your vineyard’s heady wine:
Your strict taste dictates its vintage sweetness!
Do you want joy? Let the pack bay and howl:
Let them snarl and spit on your altar’s flames
And breathe your temple’s triumphant perfumes!

Set me as a seal

from Song of Songs 8:6-7

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm:
for love is strong as death.

Many waters cannot quench love,
nor can the rivers drown it.
If you gave all your wealth for love,
love would turn you down.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm:
for love is strong as death.

Phoenix (IV)

by Bänoo Zan

With locks of fire
and eyes of ice,

uttering eloquent silence,

disrobing me
of my habit,

Life
put a dagger
in my hands.

With lips labouring in love
and heart beating hate,

wrinkles young as yesterday
beauty old as news
and charisma alluring as pain–

stopping me–
out of the three–
with euphoric wisdom,

Life
put hemlock
in my hands.

With a face of stone
and hands of water,

her womb blossoming
and her breasts flowing,

her body aroused
and her spirit asleep,

Life
put Death
in my hands.

With a dagger in his heart
and hemlock on his lips,

philosophy in his groin
and passion in his brain,

silencing eloquent speech
with celestial song,

Death
put Life
in my hands.

For E. J. P.

by Leonard Cohen

I once believed a single line
in a Chinese poem could change
forever how blossoms fell
and that the moon itself climbed on
the grief of concise weeping men
to journey over cups of wine
I thought invasions were begun for crows
to pick at a skeleton
dynasties sown and spent
to serve the language of a fine lament
I thought governors ended their lives
as sweetly drunken monks
telling time by rain and candles
instructed by an insect’s pilgrimage
across the page—all this
so one might send an exile’s perfect letter
to an ancient hometown friend

I chose a lonely country
broke from love
scorned the fraternity of war
I polished my tongue against the pumice moon
floated my soul in cherry wine
a perfumed barge for the lords of memory
to languish on to drink to whisper out
their store of strength
as if beyond the mist along the shore
their girls their power still obeyed
like clocks wound for a thousand years
I waited until my tongue was sore

Brown petals wind like fire around my poems
I aimed them at the stars but
like rainbows they were bent
before they sawed the world in half
Who can trace the canyoned paths
cattle have carved out of time
wandering from meadowlands to feasts
Layer after layer of autumn leaves
are swept away
Something forgets us perfectly

And then a second dream

by Luciano Iacobelli

beached on my lawn where at night I cool my feet
(the small patch of grass miraculously stretched into a playing field)
was a decomposing whale
a stranded sublimity
an exiled size
a deleted portion of the sea’s magnitude
a proportion decommissioned by the universe
an evacuation of all the blessings ever bestowed on the animal
exited the blowhole
a swarm of fireflies

had I know the water would creep this far inland
I would have moved to higher ground
avoided the putrefaction
the meat and blubber decaying into cracked icons and baptismal font
broken pews and organ pipes

and one of the eyes was an altar strewn with ashes and playing chips
scattered decks with disintegrating suits
evidence of a game terminated long ago
a smell of loss in the air weighing down the atmosphere
a failed and final gamble

After the Love at Victoria Street

by Boyd Warren Chubbs

There’s a warm hand upon my head
This land and sea have given a hand to spread upon my head tonight
and I go down to the water to rock and sing of plentiful and certain things:
the rapid malt of spring and brooks;
trees that shook themselves furious;
curious phantoms upon the rain path;
lain passages of bone and earth;
birth of sundogs and lavender;
fogs more delicate than breath;
sweat from laughter and the spark and fire;
a beautiful liar tender among thieves;
sleeves of light climbing the berry hills;
sills handsome with paint and lace;
a trace of raw sienna in the swimming tickle;
a brace of storms, sermons upon the walking, talking trees, and all around, the fossil barrens, cairns above home; the purple-grey stone staring; foam with its clothes, rolling the near shore
and a door thinning where, in a mesh of voice and strings, love goes.

Prelude

by Astrid Brunner

she sees the roses wither
and fall petal by petal
into the ashes of her heart.

let us be friends
says mary magdalene.

she hears the stars whisper
and fall arrow by arrow
into the ashes of her heart.

let us be friends
says mary magdalene.

she feels the blood chant
and fall tear by tear
into the ashes of her heart.

let us be friends
says mary magdalene.

she knows the phoenix sleep
and fall red by gold by blue
into the ashes of her heart.

let us be friends
says mary magdalene.

she unfolds her hair
and waits patience by patience by patience
over the ashes of her heart.

let us be friends
says mary magdalene.

Minuet I

by Astrid Brunner

and although i want to go out into the snowstorm
to stand there naked
and to shout my love for you
into the white howling wind

i too can write a letter
with this and that
in it.

and although i want to go out into the snowstorm
to stand there naked
and to fly into your arms
through the white howling wind

i too can write a letter
with this and that
in it.

and although i want to ride into the snowstorm
to shake my mane there naked
and to ride into your body
laughing on horseback
at the white howling wind

i too can write a letter
with this and that
in it.

and although i want to ride into the snowstorm
to melt my body naked into yours
from the ice
i have turned into
mighty water
with the heat of my love

should the ice return to the snowstorm
to your eyes
to my naked body

i too can write a letter
with this and that
and a saint or two
in it.

Last Paddle

by Richard Sanger

Supper done and the August sun
about to go, the two of you
subtract yourselves from kitchen,
from dishes and grandchildren,
to take the blue canoe
out for one last paddle
round our summer sites,
these swimming rocks and heron swamps
north of Pointe-au-Baril.
There’s a lurch and a curse
as you embark, old antagonists
always ready to go
another round, to skirmish
as the canoe wobbles,
to spar over ancient foibles
or a loon that’s just popped up,
then laugh it off like drops
off a duck’s back, splish-splash,
resuming your old truce
with gentle, rhythmic strokes
and the laughter I hear echo
over the glowing water
as I stand and watch you go–
the two of you in silhouette
in the blue canoe, now black,
just an outline that merges into
the dark islands, their ragged skyline
of wind-tormented pines,
and re-emerges, as the sun
consumes itself behind,
yellow and orange and blazing red,
and the two of you paddle on,
paddle out towards the open,
the great big Georgian Bay—there,
there’s no troublesome strip
of earth to get in the way,
no horizon left to hold you back,
no more pain, or sorrow,
no ego, it’s all washed away
in mist, in this grey-white glow
the lake climbs right into the sky,
as I stand and watch you go,
your canoe just a speck
in the silver distance,
the whirls from your paddles
undoing, unspooling like thoughts,
or sentences trailing off
on the lake’s metallic surface
little galaxies that spin
and expend themselves
and vanish into the dark,
in which, having stood and watched
you subtract yourselves from us,
I see nothing but you gone–
you are the darkness you’ve left
and the evening’s first faint star.

Moon

by Choucri Paul Zemokhol

Moon, moon,
your soft steps in the velvet of night
circle my house,
you smile at me as I look out my window.

Moon, moon,
who knew me when I was young,
masquerading for me each night,
your veil slipping off so that I could see your honest face.

Moon, moon,
I am a crumb in the palm of your hand.
I feel your icy breath,
give me one last kiss.

Moon, moon,
I am coming to my last turns around your satin gown,
one tug upon your hem
and my bones dissolve.

Moon, moon,
I offer you my hand,
let us move through these nights like two old friends,
not knowing who conjured who.

Namesake

words by Giovanna Riccio

I can still see the oak floor
the teacher unrolling my r’s
clipping my name—Joan.

Joan? I don’t know if that blunt
one-syllable turned my head,
but everywhere English flattened Italian,
and when my father snipped
my impractical long hair, I looked away,
pretended those orphaned ringlets
belonged to someone else.

Blonde, blue-eyed goddesses
who never ate garlic filled the temples
of the Golden Book Encyclopedia,
the face of Ancient Rome
belonged to our teacher now,
but blinded statues in pictures, old sun
threaded in the cracks of fallen ruins
were calling me.

Later, my fingers clutched
the boarding pass, I remember the airplane
lifting me to a warm unknowing sleep,
sudden morning opening onto old stone,
July heat rusting on palm trees, wind cupped
in the umbrella pines and everywhere taxis.

I rode
back into my dusty body, into Rome’s
dusky fall echoing in the stone,

From the Italian stone
my numbed blood flowed naturally,
I heard my name calling from
the balcony, Giovanna
our old house-bound language, free
in the rowdy streets, songs we hummed
sottovoce singing at the top of their voices.

I rested, leaning
on the smoky marble’s mineral veins.

Impossible stone flowed
everywhere that summer,
familiar figures I had never seen before
gestured to me from the rooftops
and because I could accept the gesture
the blunt sounds softened,
my tongue, my bones, grew more porous
and the child I had locked away
flowed out of the hardness into my voice
and gave me my name.

NB: Passage, Movement 1 (Roam) begins at 00:04:23; Movement 2 (Barcarolle) at 00:15:40; Movement 3 (Burble) at 00:19:08

Program Note: Passage (2023), for solo piano, by James Rolfe

Passage was originally written for Halifax pianist Barbara Pritchard. The premiere was delayed first by the pandemic, and then by an injury which prevented Barbara from playing the piece. Halifax pianist Joseph Dowell premiered it in Dartmouth in November 2023.

The piece is in three movements: Roam, Barcarolle, and Burble. These are loosely programmatic names; a barcarolle is a boating song sung by a gondolier in a gently rocking 6/8 metre. The title, Passage, refers to the passing of time, both in musical terms, and over a longer span, in this case as the thirty-year lapse between my first solo piano work (also originally written for for Barbara) and this one. Beyond this, I think of a piece of music as navigating a journey, be it brief or epic; a passage is also a kind of birth or rebirth, travelling through waters smooth or rough, from the known into the unknown, or from youth to old age to whatever lies beyond.

Passage was created with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts.

NB: Movement 1 at 00:00:01; Movement 2 at 00:07:31; Movement 3 at 00:12:08; Movement 4 at 00:14:38

Program Note: Four Alibis

Four Alibis (2020) is the story of five notes, the lower half of a D major scale—sunny, innocent, and open. Over four movements, this snippet falls and rises across the piano’s seven octaves, in long notes and short, fast and slow, loud and soft, moving contrapuntally at different speeds or keys, like currents in a swirling river. Shadowy flattened minor-key versions lurk up from the depths and assume control; figures flit lightly past and dissolve into thin air. In some ways, this piece is a tribute to Beethoven and Schubert, to their ability at the keyboard to conjure up something out of nothing, weaving shaggy dog stories and eccentric loping dances out of the most unassuming yarn. It’s also a portrait of and tribute to my friend and colleague, Simon Docking, to whom it is dedicated. Four Alibis was written with the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.

Program note for O Greenest Branch by James Rolfe

The song cycle O Greenest Branch was requested by Halifax’s Vocalypse as a companion piece to their production of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum (ca. 1151). The beauty and devotion of Hildegard’s music are still fresh today; yet at the very time and place of its creation, mobs were murdering Jews in the name of Christianity. I have tried to grasp this jarring dissonance by setting Ephraim of Bonn’s mediaeval Hebrew lament mourning his fellow Jews—victims of Crusader massacres which occurred during Hildegard’s lifetime—and a 20th-century lament by Chaim Nachman Bialik alongside two texts of Hildegard.

This piece opened a door for me to deal creatively with my family’s history. I am descended from Rhineland Jews who lived through periodic exile and violence from the First Crusade in 1096 through to the Holocaust. I hope that what is personal for me will also connect to listeners of our time and place. We all live in the shadow of genocide, whether it took place far away and long ago, or in the here and now, in Canada.

O Greenest Branch was finished in 2019, with the assistance of a grant from The Canada Council for the Arts; this marks its pandemic-postponed premiere. My thanks to Janice Jackson for asking for the work and presenting it; to Jennifer Bain for talking Hildegard; to the wonderful performers for giving of their hearts, souls, and skills; and to you, the audience, for listening—I have missed you all!

Lyrics for O Greenest Branch (translations by James Rolfe)

Hildegard von Bingen (Germany, 1098 – 1179): Viridissima virga (O greenest branch) (1)

O greenest branch
Ave!
Whose buds burst forth from the breath of holy prayers
Now the time has come for all your branches to blossom
Ave!
The sun’s warmth draws forth from you the fragrance of balsam
The heavens drop their dew upon the grass, and all the earth rejoices
Her womb brings forth wheat, and the birds of heaven nest in her.
Ave!

Ephraim of Bonn (Germany, 1132 – 1200): Lament for the Massacre at Blois

Woe is me if I speak and betray my creator.
Woe is me if I do not speak, if I do not pour out my anxious heart.
Woe is me, all my good days are behind me,
all my friends and dear ones are far, far away.
To whom can you compare me, who has suffered like me,
is there a people, of all the peoples, that has been broken for its sins like me?
Your wrath has swept over my soul, I writhe in pain.

I am stoned, I am struck down and crucified.
I am burnt, my neck is snapped in shame.
I am beheaded and trampled for my guilt.
I am strangled and choked by my enemy.
I am beaten, my body is scourged.
I am killed, I am at the mercy of a lion.
I am crushed as if in an oil press, my blood is squeezed out.
I am hanged, despised, exiled in pain.
I am stamped on, ruined, left to despair.
My blood is shed, my skin turned inside out, my house burnt down.
I am pursued, knocked down by my opponent.
I am raped, I am damned by my enemy.
I am driven into hiding and led into captivity.

Hildegard von Bingen: O rubor sanguinis (O redness of blood) (1)

O redness of blood
flowing from on high
touched by divinity,
you are a flower
that the serpent’s icy breath
never harmed.

Chaim Nachman Bialik (Russia / Palestine, 1873 – 1934): On the Slaughter

O Heaven, beg mercy for me!
If there’s a God in you, and a path to that God–
which I’ve not found–
then pray for me!
My heart’s dead, no prayer on my lips;
My strength long gone, my hopes faded.
How much more, how much longer, how much more?

You, hangman! Here’s my neck—get up, slaughter me!
Behead me like a dog! Yours is the mighty arm and axe,
and all the world my scaffold—and we, we are so small!
My blood is fair game—hack my skull,
and the blood of murder, of babies and old men,
will soak your clothes
and stain them forever and ever.

And if there be justice, let it come now!
But if justice comes after I have been
wiped out from beneath heaven–
May its throne be cast down forever!
May heaven rot in eternal evil!
And you, murderers, wallow in your bloodbath,
May you be cleansed by it.

And cursed be the man who cries: revenge!
Such a revenge—revenge for the blood of a small child–
Satan has not yet dreamed up.
Let their blood pierce the abyss!
Let their blood seep down
to the depths of darkness, and wash away
the rotten foundations of the earth.

Hildegard von Bingen: O rubor sanguinis (O redness of blood) (2)

O redness of blood
flowing from on high
touched by divinity,
you are a flower
that the serpent’s icy breath
never harmed.

Hildegard von Bingen: Viridissima virga (O greenest branch) (2)

O greenest branch
Ave!
Whose buds burst forth from the breath of holy prayers
Now the time has come for all your branches to blossom
Ave!
The sun’s warmth draws forth from you the fragrance of balsam
The heavens drop their dew upon the grass, and all the earth rejoices
Her womb brings forth wheat, and the birds of heaven nest in her.
Ave!

Combined with Jewish prayer:

Sh’ma yisraeil, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad [Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, God is one.]

Excerpts from archival premiere recording: #13 (“Inward, into the light”) and #16 (“Friday Night”)

Program Note: I Think We Are Angels, a song cycle of 16 songs

words by Else Lasker-Schüler (Germany – Israel, 1869 – 1945); music by James Rolfe

Else Lasker-Schüler was a Jewish-German poet active in the early decades of the 20th century. She was associated with the Blue Rider group of expressionist artists (a group for which she coined the name), including such painters as Kandinsky, Klee, Franz Marc, and Lyonel Feininger. Lasker-Schüler created a body of poetry which dealt with romantic and sensual love, as well as with spirituality and Judaism. Only weeks after being awarded Germany’s highest literary prize in 1933, she was accosted by Nazi thugs in the streets of Berlin. She immediately fled, at first to Switzerland, and finally to Jerusalem, where she died in 1945. Her life was difficult. She had little sense of how to handle money, and often lived in dire poverty. Her beloved son became estranged from her, and then died before he was 30. Her two marriages ended in divorce, and she ended her days lonely and impoverished.

The poems in this song cycle are arranged more or less in the chronological order of their writing, beginning with “The end of the world”, about the death of God. Love follows: passionate love (2, 3, 5), clear calm love (4, 6, 7, 10), innocent playful love (8, 9), love tinged with melancholy (11). “Evensong” (12), with its frustrated longing for God, marks a turning point. Now we have broken love (13) and loneliness (“My Blue Piano”, 14). Death approaches (“I Know”, 15), and we end with a timeless Jewish Shabbat (“Friday Night”, 16). The arc of songs describes a journey: from the youthful celebration of physical, sensual love, we travel through loneliness and a yearning for God, arriving finally at an acceptance of suffering and death. The journey mirrors that of the poet’s life, but it also rings true as a life journey for many of us.

I Think We Are Angels was co-commissioned by Michael and Sonja Koerner and Stanley H. Witkin for Soundstreams Canada (Lawrence Cherney, Artistic Director). The German texts have been translated into English by the composer.

Lyrics

I Think We Are Angels: Selected Poems by Else Lasker-Schüler

1 The End Of The World

There is a weeping in the world
as if the Good Lord had died.
His leaden shadow swoons
and overflows His dismal grave.

Come, let’s hide close together…
Life lies in every heart
as if in a coffin.

O! Let’s kiss deeply–
a longing knocks at the world
of which we must surely die.

2 Shulamite

O, at your sweet mouth I learned
too much of bliss!
Already I feel Gabriel’s lips
burning on my heart.
Oh, how your life beckons me!
And I am undone
with blossoming sorrow,
and drift in space,
in time,
in eternity,
and my soul glows in the evening colours
of Jerusalem.

3 Sensual Passion

Your wicked mouth is my death chamber.
Its sweet narcotic fragrance
sends all my virtues to sleep.
My senses reel, I drink from its well
and sink limply into its depths,
stealing glimpses into hell.

My body glows hot beneath your breath.
It trembles like a young rose
kissed by warm May showers.
–I follow you into a wilderness of sin
and pluck fire lilies by the roadside
–even if I may never find my way home again.

4 Love

Rustling through our sleep,
a fine breeze, silk,
like blossoms trembling
over us.
And I am carried homeward
on your breath
through enchanted fairytales
and buried sagas.

And my crooked smile plays
across the depths of your features
and worlds
nestle with us.

Rustling through our sleep
a fine breeze, silk,
the age-old dream
blesses us both.

5 When You Come

Let’s hide day in the chalice of night,
we who long for the night.
Our bodies are golden stars
that long to kiss and kiss.

Do you smell the roses sleeping
on the dark grass?
So will our night be–
our golden bodies long to kiss.

I keep falling from night to night.
All heaven flowers thick with sparkling love.
Our bodies long to kiss and kiss.

6, 7 I Think We Are Angels

When we gaze at each other,
Our eyes blossom.

And we are amazed
At the miracles we create.
And all is sweetness.

We are circled by stars
And fly out of this world.

I think we are angels.

8 Oh, Your Hands

Oh, your hands
are my children.
All my toys
lay in their hollows.

I always play soldiers
with your fingers, little riders,
till they fall down.

How I do love them,
your boyish hands, the two of them.

9 Giselheer As A Boy

From my eyelash hangs a star
it’s so bright
how shall I sleep–

I’d like to play with you.
–I have no homeland–
Let’s play King and Prince.

10 Night Secret

I have chosen you
among all these stars.

And I wake—a flower listening
among the humming leaves.

Our lips long to make honey,
our shimmering nights flourish.

From the holy spark of your body
my heart sets its heavens alight.

All my dreams hang from your gold.
I have chosen you among all these stars.

11 I Love You

I love you
and find you
even though the day grows dark.

All my life long
until now
I have wandered searching.

I love you!
I love you!
I love you!

Your lips are opening…
the world is deaf,
the world is blind

even the clouds
and the leaves–
Only we—made
of golden dust–
exist!

12 Evensong

Onto a young rosebush
falls a soft rain from heaven
and the world grows ever more abundant.

O my God, my only God,
I thirst and cry out for you
among all your blessings.

Angels sing from on high:
“Today is God’s name day,
He who knows all that shall come to pass.”

And I can’t understand them,
I, who beneath their roof
keep waking in sorrow.

13 Inward, Into the Light

I always think of death.
Nobody loved me.

I wish I were a quiet picture
on an altar, and all in me were extinguished.

This dreamy coloured sunset
stains my raw eyes with tears.

And who knows where to turn
when everywhere is you.

You are my secret home,
and I want nothing more.

How I long to blossom
into your heart’s blue skies–

I lay down nothing but soft paths
around your pulsing house.

14 My Blue Piano

At home I have a blue piano
but cannot play a single note.

It stands in the dark of the cellar door,
ever since the world went rotten.

Four hands of the stars play
–the moon’s wife sang in her boat–
Now the rats dance and clatter.

Its keyboard is shattered–
I cry for the dead blue thing.

O dear angel, I eat such bitter bread—
please, for me, while I still live—
though it be forbidden—
please open Heaven’s door.

15 I Know

I know that soon I must die,
Yet all the trees are radiant
After the longed-for kiss of July–

My dreams have faded–
Never before have I drawn such gloomy endings
In my books of rhyme.

You pick a flower to greet me–
I loved it already in the bud.
Yet I know that soon I must die.

My breath hangs over God’s river–
Softly I set my foot
On the path to my eternal home.

16 Friday Night

The candles burn on Friday night,
Their flames rise up to heaven.
God sees even the smallest light.

I fold my hands in the evening hour
And hear the same thing from all Jewish lips
as we kneel on Friday evening before the flame:
Have mercy, dear Father, and soften their hearts.
My body and soul shall fast on.

Program Notes: Clinical Notes of the Bipolar Therapist (2017; words by Steven Heighton, music by James Rolfe)

Clinical Notes of the Bipolar Therapist sets to music three poems from Steven Heighton’s 2016 book The Waking Comes Late: “Coronach, Post-Kandahar”; “Clinical Notes of the Bipolar Therapist”; and “Humanitarian War Fugue”. The poems look through different lenses at Canadian Forces veterans returning from the Afghan war. I was drawn to them for their vivid portrayal of the traumas suffered by returning soldiers and those close to them. The poems address the men’s struggles with overwhelming emotions and stress, and in particular the difficulties that they face in a society that values masculine self-control and strength—a dilemma which becomes unbearably intense when those men must transition from violence to peace. The poems themselves reference musical elements, notably the coronach (a Scottish pipe tune mourning the dead) and the fugue, which are reflected in the music itself.

The connection of this concert to the 150th anniversary of Confederation offers a wonderfully apt context in which to acknowledge the contributions of soldiers to our country, as well as to give voice to the pain they experience at war and at home.

Clinical Notes of the Bipolar Therapist was commissioned by Continuum Contemporary Music with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council. My thanks to them, to Ryan Scott (Artistic Director, Continuum) and to Steven Heighton.

The poems: (© 2016 by Steven Heighton)

Lyrics

CORONACH, POST-KANDAHAR
1
The damaged individual is invited to seek treatment, albeit at some future date
Lance-corporal, here— this comfort song, or (if prayer is the protocol you prefer) this prayer.
When you visit the clinic we’ll cook up a cure for your sadness and panic.
Meanwhile pills, meanwhile prayer.
Even to an atheist God’s the Omega of a shotgun’s business end.
2
The patient, still on a waiting list, suffers a major coronary, for which he is promptly treated
His ribcage we cracked and his heart we drew clear like a red, writhing newborn pulled from the rubble.
They said that in public his punchlining brilliance disguised desperation.
Take this, if you’re manic— come visit the clinic— we’ve an opening early next March.
Even to an atheist God’s the cold ordnance of a twelve-gauge applied to the heart.
3
In which an appointment, of kinds, is finally found for our patient
At the wake (closed casket)
the piper was drunk
but managed a coronach.

CLINICAL NOTES OF THE BIPOLAR THERAPIST
1
The Calvados by lamplight is an oily gold, a liquor pressed from bullion. Taste the essence of Norman summers—the fruit-sweetening sun, salt-bearing breezes of the English Channel, flotillas of cloud cooling the coastline. Proustian autumns, mellow and rich; the windless weeks of the apple harvest. Your snifter, brimming with brandy, exhales the scent of ancient orchards.
2
With your patient you are driving a dog-sled over a frozen sea under a sky trembling with a red aurora, blood pouring down a dark face. Your patient yells and whips the team onward. A bitch is whelping as she runs, dropping raw, mouse-sized pups onto the ice. The other dogs scoop them up and swallow them without breaking pace. You hurtle north toward that sky and, you are certain, open water.
3
The drink’s mission is to italicize the effect of several dozen tranquillizers while masking their aftertaste. You arrange the Celestanox (7.5 mg) on the edge of your desk, in neat formation, like a cycle of birth control pills. This really ought to do it. You chase them with another full snifter and taste again those schoolboy summers at Grand-papa’s orchard near St-Valentin.
4
The ones coming back from the war are the worst. You listen and prescribe—rest cure, work cure, drugs. You’d rather not prescribe them but you must. Even dust degrades to finer dust. We find you slumped at your desk in a pool of your own fluids and we revive you, pump your stomach, and your body survives. Bodies are made to, minds not so much. The ones that come back from the war, etcetera. Even dust falls to finer dust.
5
Your patient grew up in northern Quebec, son of a white trapper and Inuit mother. At twenty, Pete saw the war as a way out. And so it was. Up there everyone knew how to use a shotgun, he said, because of the fucking bears, though he never had to kill one. He did waste a guy in Panjwai with his C7 and it wasn’t like online. Wasn’t even a man—wouldn’t a man over there have a beard?
“Yes, I fear so.” Doctor, feel but don’t overfeel.
6
Above all, don’t get too involved! You can care but you must not love! Up north, when a big tide went out, they could crawl and then walk under the ice and it was alcohol blue and they could hear the sea in the far off and Sorels treading above. Pete kept coming back to that, curled like a glove in his chair. Many came home like him, but not all kept shotguns ready. When the tide returns, man, you gotta move fast!
Doctor, I order you not to love.

HUMANITARIAN WAR FUGUE
We killed with the best of intentions. The goals that we died for were sound. The notions we killed for were sterling, our motives the sort that one mentions, frankly, with pride.
Quit scrupling, quibbling, lying down and lay this down: Bad guys by the graveful we gunned down so girls, little girls by the classful, could go to school. Girls, too, busing to school, we slew so girls could go to school unharmed, in error we slew them, with better intentions, bad eggs however we harmed to win hearts, warm cockles, gain guts and livers and limbs and minds with decent intentions, good eggs we even armed (only good eggs armed)—the rest we smashed, truncated, atomized until the doves among us buckled, seldom seeing dead men un-dismantled, while heads of this and that kept touting, hawking our cause like crack, our crystal intentions, motives one mentions especially when aim is less than exact and friendlies get fried . . .
With downsized intentions we killed and we strafed and we mortared and missiled and mined, sniped too, droned too, till we wilted to haunts in OSI wards, nightly wading tarns and tar-ponds incarnadine, and they dosed and discharged and forsook us, but on we kept killing with credible reasons in a lush neural loop of gibbering visions from hovering gunships, maniacally hooting, culling the groundlings with motives forgotten to a playlist of metal eternally cycling . . .
Of course, looking back, you would like to reboot and start over, but there is no over— this spraying and shredding forever recursive— this Gatling drum always ample with ammo— and papa and papa our weapons keep bleating— a ceaseless returning and endless rehearsing— you’re killing with the best of with the best of them killing with the best of with the best of them, killing,

Against Nature: synopsis

Des Esseintes, a jaded, wealthy aristocrat, disenchanted with his life of urban debauchery, decides to seclude himself in a country estate, far from the society and temptations of Paris. Apart from an elderly couple as servants, he cuts himself off absolutely from society. He recreates nature within his chateau, sparing no expense or artifice to improve upon the original. An aquarium is constructed, complete with mechanical fish and the deck of a ship. He devours not only books but entire literatures—Roman and Greek and French classics—only to reject almost every author except his beloved Baudelaire. A living tortoise is encrusted with jewels, the better to match his sumptuous oriental rugs, only to have the tortoise die, whereupon he has it thrown out. A greenhouse is set up with the rarest, most expensive flowers, but they too fade and die. And so it goes with paintings, with music, with a contortionist-prostitute: all fail to satisfy him before he loses interest.

As he experiments, Des Esseintes experiences flashbacks to his youth: his days at Catholic boarding school, his youthful excesses. Meanwhile, his rich diet, odd hours, lack of society, and staying indoors for months on end cause his health to decline rapidly. His doctor prescribes fresh air, exercise, and a healthy diet, but this advice is ignored. He sets out instead on a journey to England, but doesn’t make it out of France before he retreats to his home. At last he becomes so ill that his doctor tells him he must give up his chateau in favour of Paris or face certain death. At this, he relents, and reluctantly leaves the countryside to return to Paris.

Against Nature is the story of a man who is prepared to sacrifice his health in his quest for the most beautiful, the finest, the most intense aesthetic experiences. He catalogues each sensory pleasure, and rejects anything that falls short of his standards. Setting himself apart and against society, and against the compromises necessary to live this life, he fails in his experiment—fails badly, but heroic ally.

Excerpts from reviews

Rolfe’s score is an accomplishment: spare, ominous and atmospheric. It’s sung with clarity and sustained feeling by Dobson in the lead role (The Master), who finds the necessary electric mania in his eyes. – Martha Schabas, The Globe and Mail, 6 May 2016

Rolfe’s score was both sensitive to the needs of the singer while creating a beautiful sonority in the trio … there were moments where they blended so well with the singers that it was hard to tell which instrument onstage was actually producing the pitch. The effect was mesmerizing. Bravi tutti. – Greg Finney, Scmopera. 13 May 2016

Program note: Kadosh / Sanctus /Holy (2019) for choir and violoncello by James Rolfe

When Ivars Taurins suggested I write a piece to fill one of the missing sections of Lotti’s Mass, I was stumped. I felt that the Mass texts had grown heavy and dusty over millennia of indoor use. Beyond that, I am more drawn to spirituality than to formal religion. Looking more closely, though, I was attracted to the Sanctus, which begins “Holy, holy, holy”. Its text is taken from the Kedusha, a central part of the Jewish Shabbat service, beginning “Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh”–a magical incantation, one often echoed in literature, notably in Allen Ginsberg’s poem Footnote to Howl. To me, spirituality is about seeing and praising the holiness of creation—in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us—as if that creation were new again, arousing feelings of awe, wonder, joy, gratitude, oneness. I have tried to make music which embodies this: the word kadosh is quietly savoured, caressed, and shared by all the singers in intimate close harmonies; the rest of the music flows from this word. The Hebrew text is sung first; then the Latin text is added next to it, and finally the English. Distinct languages and religions are placed next to each other, in harmony, united in praising the divine.

Program Notes: Winter Songs (2017, music by James Rolfe, words by Archibald Lampman (1861 – 1899) and Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

Winter Songs explores Christmas from the perspective of having grown up in an atheist home in suburban Ottawa in the 1960s. For me, Christmas was winter, new snow, skiing, presents, no school, playing all day indoors and out, eating, and singing. Some of my earliest and fondest musical memories are of Christmas carols, such as Silent Night and Away in a Manger, which can still bring tears to my eyes. Carols celebrate childhood, as well as rebirth, hope, renewal, and especially peace. They express our profound collective yearning to live in peace and harmony with ourselves and our fellow creatures. These themes connect to pre-Christian celebrations of winter solstice and the new year which have since become associated with the Christmas season—themes which I aim to evoke in this work.

This ten-minute work includes a brass band of 20 brass instruments (a mix of trumpets, cornets, horns, euphoniums, trombones, and tubas) and two percussionists, as well as a large mixed choir. The words consist of two poems (see texts below) by Ottawa poet Archibald Lampman (1861-1899) and one by American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892). The Lampman poems speak eloquently to the wonder, peace, and beauty of winter in Ottawa, while Whitman invokes the bursting life force that lies latent beneath ice and snow.

Winter Songs was commissioned by the Hannaford Street Silver Band with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council. My thanks to them and to David Pell (Artistic Director, HSSB).

After Mist (Archibald Lampman)

Last night there was a mist. Pallid and chill
The yellow moon-blue clove the thickening sky,
And all night long a gradual wind crept by,
And froze the fog, and with minutest skill
Fringed it and forked it, adding bead to bead,
In spears, and feathery tufts, and delicate hems
Round windward trunks, and all the topmost stems,
And every bush, and every golden weed;
And now upon the meadows silvered through
And forests frosted to their farthest pines–
A last faint gleam upon the misty blue–
The magic of the morning falls and shines,
A creamy splendour on a dim white world,
Broidered with violet, crystalled and impearled.

Winter Uplands (Archibald Lampman)

The frost that stings like fire upon my cheek,
The loneliness of this forsaken ground,
The long white drift upon whose powdered peak
I sit in the great silence as one bound;
The rippled sheet of snow where the wind blew
Across the open fields for miles ahead;
The far-off city towered and roofed in blue
A tender line upon the western red;
The stars that singly, then in flocks appear,
Like jets of silver from the violet dome,
So wonderful, so many and so near,
And then the golden moon to light me home–
The crunching snowshoes and the stinging air,
And silence, frost, and beauty everywhere.

Unseen Buds (Walt Whitman)

Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,
Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,
Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn,
Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;
Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,
(On earth and in the sea—the universe—the stars there in the heavens,)
Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,
And waiting ever more, forever more behind.

Premiered in 2016 by Da Capo Chamber Choir, conducted by Leonard Enns.

Librettist: Morris Panych

Commissioner: Tapestry Opera (Artistic Director Michael Hidetoshi Mori), with Canadian Stage and Vancouver Opera

Premiere: April 2018, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto, ON; May 2018, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, BC

Performers: 11 voices (3 sopranos, 2 mezzi, 2 tenors, 3 baritones, 1 bass), 12 players (piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, percussion, keyboard, accordion (optional), 2 violins, viola, violoncello, bass)

Duration: 110 minutes (2 acts)

Synopsis 

The Overcoat (based on the Gogol story of the same name) traces the rise and fall of the bumbling Akakiy Akakievich. At work, his colleagues mock him cruelly, and at the hovel he calls home, his landlady is lecherous and maternal by turn. Winter is approaching, and his old overcoat is threadbare and tattered, so Akakiy saves every last kopeck to commission a new coat from his neighbour, a drunken mercurial tailor. The coat turns out to be so fabulous that Akakiy makes a sensation at work. His boss admires him, his colleagues toast him, and he’s invited to a glamourous party, where he flirts, dances, gets very drunk, and staggers off. He gets lost in a bad part of town and is robbed of his coat. Back home, he hallucinates; a doctor is summoned, who sees no hope of recovery. Akakiy finishes his days in an insane asylum.

Press excerpt

This is it, everyone. The Overcoat is without question a part of the operatic canon of the 21st century. It has all the moving parts of a show that entertains, and it has that perfect triumvirate – text, music, and production – that will stand up to future generations of critics, the way Mozart’s or Verdi’s work does today … I don’t think I’ve been to an opera in Canada – a world premiere, at that – with a more obviously enthusiastic audience response; the show was punctuated with laughter and spontaneous applause. Indeed, The Overcoat is so beautifully crafted from the inside out, that it seemed no piece of the puzzle – no phrase, no piece of design, no performer onstage – could be removed without the show losing its magic. – Jenna Simeonov, Globe and Mail, March 31, 2018

Pirate Song tells the true story of two 18th-century female pirates, Mary Read of England and Ann Bonny of Ireland. To go to sea, they disguised themselves as men, and mixed business with pleasure by becoming lovers in 1720 while aboard a pirate ship captained by Calico Jack Rackham. When attacked by the British crown later that year in Jamaica, the two women put up a fierce fight (unlike their male comrades who cowered in the hold), but were captured. Pirate Song begins at their trial: the judge finds pirates Mary Read and Ann Bonny guilty, and asks if they have anything to say in their defence. Mary tells of her brutal pirate mother; Ann tells of abuse and abandonment by her lover Calico Jack Rackham, and how she found solace in Mary. The judge sentences both women to hang. They respond with a desperate duet in which they “plead the belly”, claiming to be pregnant, which under English common law would postpone their hanging. Their request is granted, though their fate is merely suspended, as they are doomed to hang after their babies are born.

Pirate Song was commissioned by Janice Isabel Jackson, who premiered it in Halifax in 2017.

Welcome to this 21^st century version of Don Juan. Our protagonist is now a woman, Donna, owner of a sex club, who pursues men and women alike. Accompanied by her faithful and long-suffering assistant Sam, she defends herself against Matt, an aggressive spurned lover (by murdering him), beds the innocent newlyweds Otto and Anna, and romances Matt’s young daughter Lola—all before the first intermission. The second half finds Donna on the run by night, still playing havoc with Otto and Anna, and frustrating Sam’s romantic pursuit of Otto. Matt’s ghost appears and tells Lola that Donna doesn’t love her, how Donna murdered him, and that they must seek vengeance together. Matt (in the form of a taxi driver) takes Donna and Sam to a lakeside beach party, which becomes a place of reckoning for Donna, as her past victims confront her. Defying them, she dives into the lake, whereupon Lola dives in after her and pulls her under. They both drown.

The Canadian Opera Company commissioned us in 2006 to create Swoon, a kind of contemporary version of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Following its success, we were drawn to Don Giovanni, and had the notion to change the hero into a woman. This really changed the story, aligning it more with contemporary and transgressive ideas about gender roles and sexual orientation. We also thought it important that the justice meted out against Donna is not about adultery, but about her cruelty and mockery of the people around her. It helps us to care for these people, in spite of their foibles; they carry the emotional weight of the opera. Crush took five years to write: two for the libretto, three to compose. We worked closely together on the storyline, with thoughtful dramaturgy by Guillaume Bernardi and Brendan Healy.

Crush was commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company, under the late Richard Bradshaw. It received a workshop production in August 2015 the Theatre Department of The Banff Centre, mounted by Against the Grain Theatre and director Joel Ivany in partnership with the COC.

Fanfare for Two Trumpets was commissioned and written in 2015 on the occasion of the installation of William Robins as President of Victoria University of the University of Toronto.

Blast Off (for two trumpets) was commissioned and written in 2015 on the occasion of the installation of William Robins as President of Victoria University of the University of Toronto.

Brand New Music looks at the 1972 Stylistics’ song You Make Me Feel Brand New from three separate angles. For each movement, I cut the song into one-bar sections and re-ordered them randomly, creating skeletons which I fleshed out in three styles. The original song was played at school dances when I was young and very shy. I still associate it with unfulfilled yearning and melancholy, although there is a good deal of playfulness mixed into these versions. The work is dedicated to my partners in the Collide collaboration, media artist Jason Baerg and scientist/artist Erin Fortier, as well as to Continuum Contemporary Music, with whom I share a happy collaboration of many years.

Europa was a Phoenician princess who was seduced and borne off to Crete by Zeus. There she bore him three sons, who became the founding fathers of Europe. It’s telling that European civilization, which has been a mixed blessing for the rest of the world, was founded upon what could be seen as a kidnapping and rape. This piece explores the conflicted feelings of Europa—whose enslavement to Zeus brings her exhilaration, violation, and humiliation—and those of her former lover Hiram, who has searched all his life for her, and for whom their reunion brings ecstasy, frustration, and death.

Europa was commissioned by the Toronto Masque Theatre (Larry Beckwith, Artistic Director), with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. My thanks go to the funders, for funding; to Larry, for asking; to all the cast and production team, for being excellent collaborators; and to Steven Heighton, for providing such eloquent and heartfelt words.

Europa was recorded on the 2017 disc, Breathe, featuring Suzie Leblanc and David Fallis.

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The song cycle has a vital place in Western music, but there are surprisingly few contemporary Canadian examples of the form. Moths (2013) continues my collaboration with author André Alexis, with whom I have talked of writing song cycles since we began to work together. He conjured up a cycle of six songs tracing the journey of a sleeper through night and dreams, from darkness to light, from the visceral to the ethereal.

Moths was commissioned by Canadian Art Song Project (Lawrence Wiliford and Steven Philcox, co-artistic directors) with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

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To say “as if”. To unfold a universe, one parallel to our own, just as alive, or more so. Two little words mapping some unmapped place. A longing for something that could be, or could have been, wishful or wistful or whimsical. As If, a piece dreamed up, an invisible journey, seeking its own level, at times flowing like water, then doubling back, remembering itself, echoing.

As If was commissioned by Aventa Ensemble (Bill Linwood, conductor) with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts.

Fresh Face was commissioned by Soundstreams Canada on the occasion of their 30^th anniversary. It is dedicated to R. Murray Schafer, who suggested the musical theme (S-C-H-A-F-E-R) on which the words and music are built.

Open Road marks my fifth collaboration with the American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892). I respond keenly to Whitman’s very personal vision, a fusion of the spiritual and the physical, and his strongly rhythmic language, echoing the cadences of the King James Bible. In Open Road, Whitman creates his own Adam, before the fall: life-embracing, open-hearted, on an epic journey, rejoicing in the earthly paradise he finds around him.

Whitman’s long lines and purple passages are a challenge to set and to sing. The soloists deliver the more personal, incantatory lines, with the choir responding, shading, interfering, echoing. The essential relationships in the poem—those between man and woman, between the individual and the collective, and between our dual masculine and feminine natures—are embodied by the male and female soloists, in combination with the ensemble. These forces, with their rich compositional possibilities, connect back to the oratorio tradition, one beloved in English Canada since Whitman’s days.

Open Road was commissioned by Soundstreams Canada (Lawrence Cherney, Artistic Director).

Song of the Open Road  by Walt Whitman, edited by James Rolfe

AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune–I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.

You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me;
I think whoever I see must be happy.

From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.

Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.
Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze me;
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d, it would not astonish me.

Allons! after the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!
Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues,
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Journeyers with their bearded and well-grain’d manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Allons! the road is before us!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Mon enfant! I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Program Note: Two Hopeful Songs (2010) music by James Rolfe; words by Dennis Lee

Two Hopeful Songs (2010) were commissioned by Toronto’s Viva Youth Singers (Carol Ratzlaff, Artistic Director), and written to poems by Dennis Lee.

Song lyrics

The Moon (from Garbage Delight, 1977)

I see the moon

And the moon sees me

And nobody sees

As secretly

Unless there’s a kid

In Kalamazoo,

Or Mexico,

Or Timbuktu,

Who looks in the sky

At the end of the day,
And she thinks of me

In a friendly way —

‘Cause we both lie still

And we watch the moon;

And we haven’t met yet,

But we might do, soon.

Dopey (from Yesno, 2007)

Squeaks from the sisyphus chorus.

Hums from the crunch.

Dopey & grumpy & doc, just

truckin’ along —

here come chorale;

mind to the

grindstone, ear to the plough.

Hi-

hoein along with a song:

What home but here? Whose grubby hands but ours?

Lullaby was commissioned and premiered in 2011 by Lady Cove Women’s Choir of St. John’s, Newfoundland (Kellie Walsh, Artistic Director), with the kind assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts.

If I had to choose desert island words, The Song of Solomon would make the list: it is evergreen, sexy, and tasty to sing. Garden takes the form of a brief dialogue between the genders. Men and women weave in and out, saucy and vivid, first wooing each other, then singing together. Garden was commissioned by Tafelmusik Choir (Ivars Taurins, artistic director) in celebration of its 30th anniversary in 2012. I dedicate this new work to a wonderful choir whose singing I have known and loved for many years.

Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vine flourish,
if the blossoms have opened and the pomegranate bud forth. There will I give you my love.

Program Note: Hope (2011) Music by James Rolfe, words by Emily Dickinson.

Hope was commissioned by North Toronto Collegiate Institute (Carol Ratzlaff, Head of Music Department) on the occasion of their 100^th anniversary.

Poems (by Emily Dickinson)

1

Hope is a strange invention

A Patent of the heart

In unremitting action

Yet never wearing out

Of whose electric Adjunct

Not anything is known

Though its unique Momentum

Inebriate our own.

2

Musicians wrestle everywhere

All day, among the crowded air

I hear the silver strife.

And, waking long before the morn,

Such transport breaks up the town

I think it that “New Life”!

It is not bird, it has no nest,

Nor “Band” in brass and scarlet drest,

Nor Tamborin, nor Man;

It is not Hymn from pulpit read,

The “Morning Stars” the Treble led

On Time’s first Afternoon!

Some say, it is “the Spheres” at play!

Some say, that bright Majority

Of vanished Dames and Men!

Some think it service in the place

Where we, with late celestial face,

Please God, shall Ascertain!

3

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

As an Anglo-Canadian composer writing a tango, I’m skating on thin ice. How can my stolid northern soul find its way into the very particular poetry, singing, rhythm, and soul of this dance? This tango is an imaginary journey, as I clutch my own peculiar musical baggage, and Federico García Lorca guides me. His incandescent ghazal lends both spark and structure, leading me through the dance.

always, always: garden of my agony,
your body always elusive,
the blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth already my tomb, empty of light.

Program Note: Joyce Songs (2009) by James Rolfe

words by James Joyce; for soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone, and piano; duration ca. 15 minutes. The songs may be performed individually or in any combination, in any suitable order. Joyce Songs were commissioned by The Aldeburgh Connection (Stephen Ralls, Artistic Director) with the assistance of The Ontario Arts Council.

Song Texts

A Flower Given to My Daughter

Frail the white rose and frail are

Her hands that gave

Whose soul is sere and paler

Than time’s wan wave.

Rosefrail and fair– yet frailest

A wonder wild

In gentle eyes thou veilest,

My blueveined child.

I

Strings in the earth and air

Make music sweet;

Strings by the river where

The willows meet.

There’s music along the river

For Love wanders there,

Pale flowers on his mantle,

Dark leaves on his hair.

All softly playing,

With head to the music bent,

And fingers straying

Upon an instrument.

XI

Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,

Bid adieu to girlish days,

Happy Love is come to woo

Thee and woo thy girlish ways — –

The zone that doth become thee fair,

The snood upon thy yellow hair,

When thou hast heard his name upon

The bugles of the cherubim

Begin thou softly to unzone

Thy girlish bosom unto him

And softly to undo the snood

That is the sign of maidenhood.

XVI

O cool is the valley now

And there, love, will we go

For many a choir is singing now

Where Love did sometime go.

And hear you not the thrushes calling,

Calling us away?

O cool and pleasant is the valley

And there, love, will we stay.

XX

In the dark pine-wood

I would we lay,

In deep cool shadow

At noon of day.

How sweet to lie there,

Sweet to kiss,

Where the great pine-forest

Enaisled is!

Thy kiss descending

Sweeter were

With a soft tumult

Of thy hair.

O unto the pine-wood

At noon of day

Come with me now,

Sweet love, away.

XXVIII

Gentle lady, do not sing

Sad songs about the end of love;

Lay aside sadness and sing

How love that passes is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep

Of lovers that are dead, and how

In the grave all love shall sleep:

Love is aweary now.

XXXV

All day I hear the noise of waters

Making moan,

Sad as the sea-bird is when, going

Forth alone,

He hears the winds cry to the water’s

Monotone.

The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing

Where I go.

I hear the noise of many waters

Far below.

All day, all night, I hear them flowing

To and fro.

XXXVI

I hear an army charging upon the land,

And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:

Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,

Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle-name:

I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.

They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,

Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:

They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.

My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?

My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

Writing for unpitched percussion means getting by without pitch, harmony, and melody—which only leaves the good stuff: rhythm, colour, and unbounded energy. I began with two tiny ideas, one from “Why This Kolaveri Di”, a viral Bollywood music and dance video from 2012, the other from Queen’s immortal “We Will Rock You”. They dance together, with a little help from the Balinese Gamelan piece “Liar Samas”. I was fortunate to collaborate on this piece with the choreographer Jacob Niedzwiecki, whose input helped to shape it, as did that of TorQ Percussion Quartet, who commissioned it. Why You was written with the assistance of a Toronto Arts Council Grant to Music Creators.

Librettist: Paul Bentley
Commissioner: Queen of Puddings Music Theatre Company (Co-artistic Directors John Hess and Daírine Ní Mheadhra)
Premiere: 25 February – 1 March 2009, Enwave Theatre, Toronto, Ontario
Performers: 5 voices (soprano, mezzo, fado singer (contralto), baritone, bass baritone), 5 players (clarinet/bass clarinet, guitar, piano, violin, bass/bass guitar)
Duration: 85 minutes (11 scenes, one optional intermission)

Synopsis

Pedro Carmona, a young surgeon and son of a prominent Portuguese general, has escaped military service in Angola in 1968 by fleeing to Toronto with his upper-class wife Constanza. In order to survive, he has taken two jobs while he retrains to qualify as a doctor.

The opera begins as Constanza—sick of poverty, loneliness, and winter—explodes in frustration. She humiliates Pedro by threatening to get a job herself. Pedro storms out, and ends up at a Fado club, where he meets the Fadista Inês. He becomes a regular at the club, and love grows between him and Inês. In Lisbon, Pedro’s anxious parents haven’t heard from him for months. A telegram from the dictator Salazar informs them of Pedro’s desertion, ordering him to be captured and shot.

Pedro can resist Inês no longer: he goes to her apartment, and they consummate their love. Constanza, who has taken a job as a cleaner, discovers Pedro’s photograph in Inês’s dressing room, and confronts him. Inês arrives and tells them that she is carrying Pedro’s child. Constanza is crushed and begs for Pedro to come back, but he refuses, moving in with Inês instead. Summoned by Constanza, Pedro’s parents confront him, accuse him of harming the family’s name, and order him to return to his wife; again he refuses. Alone with his son, General Carmona tries some gentler persuasion, but to no avail. His wife decides that the only honourable solution is for the General to kill Inês; when he hesitates, she takes his gun, goes to the nightclub, and shoots Inês.

Constanza is appalled by the murder. The General hears from Pedro, who discovered Inês’s body while on duty at the morgue, and asks to meet his parents and wife at the cathedral, in order to repent his sins before them and before God. He does so, but then he takes the General’s gun and forces the others to drink Inês’s blood, a vessel of which he has saved from the morgue. He unveils her dead body, and forces the others to sing her praises. He shoots himself, whereupon Inês sings a final farewell.

Press excerpts

Rolfe’s writing for his five-player ensemble is transparent enough that I could distinguish virtually all of the sung English at Sunday’s opening performance. Rolfe also gives the listener plenty to hold onto throughout the piece, through repetitions of material that familiarize the ear with the music and give extra dimension to the drama. Rolfe cleverly uses fuguing to illustrate the desire of each of these singers that Pedro quit fooling around. The whole score was put together at that level of skill and economy. 

– Robert Everett-Green, Toronto Globe and Mail, 24 February 2009

The Story of Inês de Castro

In 14^th-century Portugal, the heir to the throne, Prince Pedro, is married to Constanza. He falls in love with one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, Inês de Castro, who is from Galicia, in Spain. She becomes his mistress, and they have three children. The court is scandalized; but above all, the king fears Inês will increase Spanish influence on the Portuguese throne. He orders Inês to be killed—according to legend, in front of her children, while Pedro is away hunting. Pedro is beside himself with grief and rage, and wages war against his father. After a number of years, his father passes on, and Pedro becomes king. His first act is to arrest Inês’s killers, torture them, and bite their hearts (just as they had bitten his own heart). He then has Inês taken from her grave, dressed in royal robes, and—seating her on the queen’s throne—he orders his courtiers to kiss her bony hand. He has an elaborate tomb built for them at Alcobaça, which remains there to this day, inscribed “Death will never part us / Until the end of the world”.

The true story of Inês de Castro is a national epic in Portugal, and the anniversary of the death of the writer who immortalized it, Camões (who died June 10, 1580), is now Portugal’s national holiday.

A note on the opera Inês

The Queen of Puddings first heard Fado in 2001, at a Mariza concert in Toronto. When they approached me about writing an opera involving Fado, I began a fascinating journey into that music, of which I knew almost nothing, in spite of the large Portuguese presence in Toronto. My ears were opened: Fado is very operatic, with its dramatic, heart-grabbing singers and stories. And I was delighted to get acquainted with Inês de Castro, a beautiful and passionate story ready-made for opera, as well as the Portuguese language, which is practically music itself, rolling like the waves of the ocean. These influences flowed into my own music to make an opera which is married to both countries, just as the Portuguese in Canada have created a new world from the roots of an ancient one.

One of opera’s great pleasures is working with great people. Early on, Joe Blackmore, Ricardo Sternberg, and Manuela Marujo (all of The University of Toronto) were very helpful in illuminating Portuguese history, literature, and culture. My librettist Paul Bentley threw himself into the fray with gusto, and bore with me patiently through many drafts and changes while I grappled with the music. The director Jennifer Tarver provided crucial insights in the later stages. And the co-directors of The Queen of Puddings, John Hess and Daírine Ní Mheadhra, offered steadfast faith and encouragement from beginning to end. To all of you, my heartfelt thanks!

Commissioner: Toronto Masque Theatre (Artistic Director Larry Beckwith) with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts
Premiere: 25 – 28 April 2007, Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, Ontario
Performers: 5 voices (3 sopranos, mezzo, baritone), 7 early instruments A415 (recorder, oboe, lute/theorbo, harpsichord/organ, violin, viola, cello). May also be performed on early or modern instruments at A440.
Duration: 35 minutes (6 scenes)

Aeneas and Dido is featured on the 2017 disc Breathe.

Program note

Both Purcell’s and Virgil’s versions of Dido and Aeneas feature an Aeneas who is a man of action. He is what he does, in contrast to Dido, who is what she feels. Aeneas and Dido tries to imagine Aeneas’s interior life. What drives Aeneas to choose an uncertain quest for a new homeland over Dido’s offer of love and country? His heart has been turned to ashes by witnessing the violence visited upon his Troy. Dido’s heart still aches from her husband’s death, yet she plucks up the courage to confess her love to Aeneas, making his rejection unbearably painful. Immersed as they are in their own suffering, they cannot grasp each other’s.

Press excerpts

And then there’s the score. Rolfe’s music is so easy to enjoy, it’s like the musical version of being articulate. It’s not at all spare or simplistic. In fact it often seems to skate towards dissonance and discord, but in a way that compels rather than challenges. There’s a visceral intelligence that pulls you along. And you’ll wonder how such insanely modern sounds are being pulled out of period instruments.

Aeneas and Dido is an impressive follow-up to Rolfe’s justly praised mini-opera Swoon, a class-comedy set in Rosedale that debuted at the Canadian Opera Company a few months ago. Another work, raW, recently won the Jules Leger Prize for New Chamber Music. Someone has to commission this guy to do a full-length work.

– Gord McLaughlin, Toronto Eye Weekly, 27 April 2007

Librettist: Anna Chatterton
Commissioner: Canadian Opera Company (Richard Bradshaw, Artistic Director) with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts
Premiere: 6 – 9 December 2006, Imperial Oil Opera Theatre, Toronto, Ontario
Performers: 4 voices (2 sopranos, tenor, baritone), 13 players (flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, percussion, 2 violins, viola, cello, bass)
Duration: 45 minutes

Librettist: Camyar Chai
Commissioner: Tapestry New Opera (Artistic Director Wayne Strongman) and the Manhattan School of Music Opera School (Gordon Ostrovsky, director), with the assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts
Premiere: 6 April 2005, Manhattan School of Music, New York, NY
Other productions: Tapestry: school tour, New York, April 2005; school tour, Toronto, spring 2006; Rideau Hall, Ottawa, April 2006; school tour, Sault Ste. Marie and region, spring 2006. Pacific Opera Victoria: school tour, Victoria and Vancouver Island, 2007.
Performers: 5 voices (2 sopranos, mezzo, tenor, baritone) with an optional part for children’s chorus, and 3 instruments (percussion, electric bass, and keyboard)
Duration: 33 minutes (5 scenes)

Synopsis

At lunchtime, Miriam, the new kid at school, is taken in hand by friendly Keisha. They meet Elijah, a loner who eats sushi for lunch. He clutches his kite, which he dreams will fly one day, and carry him away from school. Keisha scoffs, but Miriam believes him. The school bully, Big Billy Brett, with his sidekick Nikki, mocks Elijah. He abuses Elijah’s kite and steals his lunch. When Billy finds out what sushi is, he is revolted, and delivers an enormous burp. Miriam isn’t impressed and lets Billy know it. They trade insults and Miriam easily trumps him. When an enraged Billy attacks her, she fells him with a neat martial arts move. Billy retreats, issuing threats, and Miriam is suddenly a school hero.

Now Miriam is hanging out with Nikki. They sing about how cool girls love to go shopping. But when Miriam speaks to Keisha and Elijah, Nikki scolds her. Elijah accuses Miriam of selling out her friends, which provokes Miriam to wreck Elijah’s kite. Now Miriam is shunned by all the kids for going too far. But Keisha is able to reassemble the kite, making it better than ever. Elijah approaches Miriam to make peace with her; when he sees his new kite, he is in awe. Suddenly, Big Billy enters, bent on revenge, but he stops short when he sees the new kite. They all work together to launch Elijah and his kite, including Billy, whose enormous burp provides the necessary lift-off power. They celebrate together as the lunch bell rings.

Librettist: André Alexis
Commissioner: Toronto Masque Theatre (Artistic Director Larry Beckwith) with the assistance of The Laidlaw Foundation and the Ontario Arts Council
Premiere: 13 – 14 May 2004, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto, Ontario
Other productions: May 2011, Enwave Theatre, Toronto, Ontario
Performers: 8 voices (3 sopranos, alto, 2 tenors, baritone, bass) and 9 early instruments A415 (2 recorders, 2 violins, 2 viola da gambas, harpsichord/chamber organ, theorbo/baroque guitar, cello). May also be performed on early or modern instruments at A440.
Duration: 35 minutes

Synopsis

Seeking his wife Eurydice in the underworld, Orpheus implores Hades to let him bring her back to life. Hades gives in reluctantly, on condition that Orpheus not look back at Eurydice while she is being led back to earth. The reunited couple begin their journey back. Hades praises the peacefulness of the underworld over the turbulence of life on earth, but is upbraided by his wife Proserpine, who sympathizes with the living.

The couple sing a love duet while they journey toward light, past the tortured souls of the underworld. They meet a shepherd and his flock who perished when the shepherd, dreaming of his girlfriend, walked off a cliff, followed by his sheep. The shepherd recognizes and praises Orpheus, then tells him his story, which his sheep mock bitterly. As the couple take their leave of the shepherd, the opera ends with a hopeful chorus.

Press excerpts

[Orpheus and Eurydice] is one of the most beautiful new operas to be written recently, delivering inventive instrumentations and rhythms for recitatives while bowing to gorgeous tonal echoes of centuries past in arias and choruses. Rolfe’s final chorus and the duet between Eurydice and Orpheus deserve to be heard again and again.

– John Terauds, The Toronto Star, 14 May 2004

Program Note