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Legacy

BY Glen HallPublished Jul 24, 2009

Things on the chamber ensemble's two-CD 35th anniversary live recording get started with a bang, literally. Alex Pauk's evocative "Magaru" creates an exotic landscape filled with reverberant percussion, string harmonic spider webs and birdsongs courtesy of guest flutist Dianne Aitken. Michael J. Baker's "La Vie de Bohème" features clarinettist Bob Stevenson as a soloist and self-accompanist by means of multi-track recording that creates a sonic schizophrenia — the same voice speaking and answering itself. "Ice" by Marjan Mozetich, slowly unfolds under- girded by repeating piano figures upon which float whispering violin filigrees, eerie flute howls and bold trombone declamations. John Rea's "…wings of silence…" hovers, suspended by shimmering tape pads/textures, while piano, clarinet and other instruments play a kind of hide-and-seek, appearing and disappearing mysteriously. John Abram's "Steiner Shimmy" has an interrupted, jazzy swing, like a drunk stumbling and weaving. Bob Stevenson's "Trace" is jazzier still, with drums and bass propelling the insistent, upward-moving lines. Legacy is an apt title for this retrospective of one of Canada's finest new music groups.
(Artifact)

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