More Rivers

As humans, we are oblivious to this minimalism, but with every stream of water that flows through our precious rivers, the river as we know it, the life within it and around it, changes so imperceptibly. Erosion, nutrients and oxygen that surge through every whoosh of water has a huge impact that alters the landscape around it and our ability to sustain life on this planet.

What is so wonderful about music is that it’s always in flux, too. Interpretations change and new perspectives of familiar themes can become an exciting adventure in sound. This is why I was excited about working with composer Frank Horvat on this new 65-minute set of solo piano pieces, MORE RIVERS. We were creating an ode to the work of Ann Southam, our struggling environment, and the ever-changing landscape of contemporary composition for which I as a performer relish my unique role.

This project has its roots in my friendship with Canadian composer Ann Southam, who was my collaborator for over 30 years. Our creative relationship and a mutual love for art and the environment spawned seven albums. Her original Rivers cycle was released by Centrediscs in 2005. Southam gave me the score in 1981. It’s minimalist, iterative and lyrical. As a performer, I re-envisioned Rivers in many tempos, reflecting roaring rivers and gentle brooks. As an interpreter of contemporary music, I consider the importance of reading the score to be about more than correct notes and good tone. Imagination and risk-taking are crucial in making multi-faceted and exciting performances that delve deeply into the composer’s psyche and intentions.

I believe that Rivers is Southam’s masterpiece, written in her prime and showcasing her mastery. I love performing these pieces more than any other of her works. I never tire of the changing patterns and the spontaneous and improvisatory mood of the music. There’s a fluid and unpredictable counterpoint to the music, reflecting the rushing cascades, luxuriant eddies, and meditative stillness in the music, which alternates between large kinetic strokes and delicately detailed duets.

This joy in performance, and the critical and public success of Rivers added to my desire to create MORE RIVERS with Frank Horvat, who’s coincidentally from my hometown of Ottawa. Southam (b.1937) and Horvat (b.1974) were born 37 years apart — meaning MORE RIVERS was sure to have a new language, a new perspective, and new way to speak to new generations.

“Horvat’s minimalist style is attractive, bright-coloured and poppy. Also surprising… Although not a full blooded minimalist, his music is…unmistakable,” The WholeNote said of Frank’s 2019 Centrediscs album, What Goes Around.

One of my projects with Southam resulted in an album where proceeds went to the David Suzuki Foundation (“…music has a way of cutting through barriers to penetrate straight to our heart” – David Suzuki). Horvat’s career has followed this same lineage; proceeds his second album went to the World Wildlife Fund. That album included his hour-long piece, Earth Hour, released back in 2010, the year Southam passed away. There’s a passing of the torch here that I’m honored to witness and interpret. Today we must focus on nature before we lose it all. Water in its many forms is crucial for life and music can help us realize the power of rivers on our planet.

As an interpreter, I’ve struggled with the goal to transmit the ideas of composers rather than use their works as a vehicle for self-expression. In classical music we rely on “performance practices.” In the 20th/21st centuries we rely on input from living composers or recorded performances. On many occasions it becomes a solo adventure that helps interpreters become co-creators. It’s not our job to duplicate other performances but to ascertain the composers’ intentions, while instilling performances with our own imagination and spontaneity.

I’ve recorded so many albums because having these testaments of contemporary music is so vital as contributions to the world’s music. As I retire from my duties at York University, this large impactful project will be a new challenge to which I can lend my interpretation and artistic skills.

Working with Frank Horvat to create this hour-long set of pieces allows for future concert opportunities, including room to add some of Southam’s original Rivers on the program.

Just as Southam’s works inspired Horvat’s generation of composers, I hope that both their works can inspire the up-and-coming generations. We need these younger creators more than ever to innovate classical music and to use their voices to speak for dramatic environmental change and preservation.

Horvat has long been involved in utilizing his compositional voice to bring about environmental awareness for well over a decade. With each year that passes, this becomes even more important to him. Many of Horvat’s previous album releases have been of a political nature as he utilizes his music to express his feelings about important issues in our world. As a pianist, he has done many tours himself on these issues, including his “Green Keys Tour,” showcasing sustainability in over 60 North American cities in collaboration with the Bullfrog Power and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which brought in a whole new non-concert going audience and garnered over 100 media clippings.

Through my work with Frank and his connections, I have engaged with the environmental community, especially with such organizations as Watersheds Canada, The River Foundation, and the WWF.

I live with great respect for the pioneers of minimalist music — Glass, Reich, etc. They have achieved so much with their concert/film music and reached such a large, diverse audience. Minimalism, as popular culture thinks of it, has sounded and been created the same way for decades. With the great minimalist composers now into their 80s, I believe we need to push forward and re-define what the sound of minimalism means in the 21st century. After Southam’s passing, Canada was left without a prominent minimalist to spearhead this evolution. I believe Horvat’s music has that ability to create a new niche.

As minimalist music doesn’t get programmed often in concerts in Canada, I believe that the prominence of this new album will get these works performed at university and other new music festivals, allowing Canadians to hear minimalism by Canadians. There is a large portion of audiences who attend orchestral soundtrack concerts (minimalist music) and buy soundtrack recordings, yet they don’t get the chance to hear Canadian minimalists.

— Christina Petrowska Quilico