an article about a Remembrance Day concert

What are you doing this Remembrance Day? Does it matter? These may seem like silly questions, but I grew up long after both world wars had ended, and I was just a baby during the Vietnam War. "Remembering" is a futile exercise for me. I don't "remember" anything.

I have experienced loss and suffering, however. I have become aware of the deep human need to deal with the confusing, chaotic and destructive elements of our lives by containing them within the relatively safe boundaries of ceremony and ritual. Meditation and reflection are valuable tools that can heal our souls, even if we have no direct experience of terrible events such as war. Enter London Pro Musica's Remembrance Day concert, A War Memorial.

The choir, along with Orchestra London, will be presenting Mozart's Requiem, and two movements from Ralph Vaughn William's Dona Nobis Pacem. Choral arrangements of the poems In Flanders Fields and Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep will also be performed.

What is the most appropriate way to remember the dead? I have always been vaguely dissatisfied with the traditional minute of silence and the sound of a bugle playing Taps and Reveille. I understand the significance of this military music, but I have never felt that the ceremony was enough.

I'm intrigued by Pro Musica's program. Listening to Mozart's Requiem - a mass for the dead - is a fitting choice on a day set aside for the remembrance of fallen soldiers. It is a very moving piece of music that will be familiar to anyone who has seen the film Amadeus.

And Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church is a marvelous setting. Doug Leighton, a member of Pro Musica and a rector at the church, tells me that Bishop Cronyn used to be the garrison church for the military barracks here in London. There are several military displays and memorials from World Wars I and II throughout the sanctuary.

In a touching war story connected with the church, a young World War I artilleryman from Bishop Cronyn, Woodman Leonard, brought back a small statuette of a madonna and child from a demolished church in Europe during one of his leaves.

Leonard was later killed in action at Vimy Ridge, and as he lay dying he turned to his second-in-command and said, "I'm finished. Take over and carry on." A plaque near the front of the sanctuary at Bishop Cronyn is inscribed with those words in memory of Leonard, and the statuette is still housed within the church.

Death and dying, war and destruction - these are never pleasant things to contemplate. If it's a truly meaningful service of remembrance that we are seeking, then an evening spent listening to some of the world's most moving music seems an ideal choice.

November 5, 1998

copyright 1998, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

an article about Brassroots

There are times when I wish I could transcribe an entire conversation word-for-word into this column. I have a limited amount of space to fill each issue, and this time it feels woefully inadequate.

The reason? I recently interviewed veteran percussionist Robert (Bob) Hughes about his upcoming performance with Brassroots, a local brass group. Expecting a pleasant but brief exchange, I was instead treated to an hour-long discourse on Hughes' multi-faceted career, the roots of African music, and speculation as to why percussion is so compelling to audiences.

For the record, Hughes was educated at the University of Toronto, and taught high school music before coming to London to teach percussion at the University of Western Ontario for the better part of three decades.

He officially retired in 1995. Along the way he's also carved out a performance career for himself in an incredibly broad range of styles, from big band, jazz, and orchestral music through to world music and fusion.

When asked why he loves percussion, Hughes said that one of the reasons is the sheer variety of performance styles available to a percussionist. The other reason? The never-ending challenge of "being able to play steadily."

Those rare moments when everything clicks and the musician finds his or her groove are like nirvana for Hughes.

The idea for Saturday night's concert - African Safari - was conceived a year ago when Brassroots conductor Bram Gregson decided to feature more of the fantastic talent available in this city.

Hughes, a specialist in African music who studied in Ghana in 1989 and 1993, and is currently writing some world music teaching materials for high school musicians, was approached by Gregson to program a concert of African music.

After realizing that it might be too difficult to acquire enough scores or arrangements to fill an entire evening, the decision was made to include New World music with African roots - effectively tracing the journey of African music through to the Americas.

The program features a North African sword dance, "talking drum" music, African bell music, West African funeral dances, and High Life (the pop music of Ghana), as well as New World examples of dances such as the cha cha, tango and samba, with a little bit of Duke Ellington and improvisation mixed in at the end.

Hughes is also bringing along several other guest musicians: percussionists Alfredo Caxaj, Rob Inch, Rob Larose and Greg Mainprize, guitarists Steve Litman and Oliver Whitehead and pianist Steve Holowitz.

All are keenly interested in world, jazz, and Latin music, and several are members of Caxaj's salsa band Herentia Latina. Caxaj himself is the director of Sunfest 99, a co-sponsor of this concert.

Many of the arrangements have been written by local composer Jeff Christmas, and Brassroots trumpeter Paul Stephenson will be a featured soloist.

I was most fascinated by Hughes' descriptions of the African music, and Saturday night's audience will get a taste of his passion for teaching. Hughes plans to do a little bit of show-and-tell during the first half of the program, describing how the percussion instruments are constructed, and pointing out what to listen for in the African music.

April 8, 1999

copyright 1999, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

an article about the films of Joyce Wieland

As I talk to University of Western Ontario film professor Michael Zryd over the phone in preparation for this article, I find myself remembering my own days as a film student a decade ago.

And as Zyrd and I talk about Canadian artist Joyce Wieland's film retrospective - which kicks off its cross-Canada tour at the London Regional Art and Historical Museums this month - I find myself wishing that I'd been able to see these films as a student.

When I was in school there was a lot of lip-service paid to feminist theory, especially to the idea that women have a unique and valuable story to tell about the realm of the "personal" - the intimate day-to-day domestic activities that, in the past, have tended to make up much of women's lives.

As Zryd speaks, I begin to visualize Wieland's films in my mind, and all of a sudden I realize that Wieland's work may be the perfect example of one of feminist theory's pet subjects: the intersection of the "personal" and the "political."

Wieland was a prolific artist in a variety of media, creating paintings, drawings, mixed-media constructions, and quilts as well as films, over the course of her career.

Before her death last year at the age of 66, she had left a permanent mark on the Canadian and feminist art worlds. She was noted for being the first living female Canadian artist to receive solo exhibitions at both the National Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1983.

She began making short films in the early 1960s while living with then-husband Michael Snow in New York City.

Zyrd, who contributed an article to the book The Films of Joyce Wieland, which is accompanying the retrospective, emphasizes that most of Wieland's films - which can best be described as experimental - are quite intentionally humorous. They also exhibit incredible variety in their subject matter, encompassing comedy, personal meditations, formal/structuralist studies, and documentaries, as well as one narrative film.

Most of the works being shown at the LRAHM on three consecutive Thursdays beginning October 7 are quite short - eleven minutes or less in length - and all are being shown in the format intended by the artist, i.e. on filmstrip, not video.

Examples of Wieland's other artwork from the LRAHM's permanent collection will also be on display.

Personal and political (even patriotic) combine most poetically in 1968-69's Reason Over Passion, a combination "landscape film" (shot from Wieland's own cross-Canada journey by car and train) and documentary of Pierre Elliot Trudeau at a Liberal convention. The result is an unforgettably complex nationalistic statement that will leave the viewers pondering their own relationship to Canada.

October 7, 1999

copyright 1999, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

an article about Orff's Carmina Burana

I fell in love with Carmina Burana the first time I heard it rehearsed: I was the nanny for a little boy who was singing in the children's choir which accompanies the performance, and as I sat backstage during the dress rehearsal listening to the great thumping timpani and crashing cymbals, I wished it would never end.

This was the last story I wrote for Scene Magazine, and it was a fitting end to my time with them. My very first story had been a review of a Gerald Fagan performance, and over the years I had become very fond of interviewing Gerry. It seemed appropriate that he should be there to witness the end of this chapter of my life.

In the article I tried to convey my deep love for Orff's creation, and to this day I'm not sure that I succeeded. I put the music on just now as I have been writing this introduction, and I sobbed just as I have always sobbed. Perhaps there are some things we can't say with words...

Fate is against me in health and virtue,
driven on and weighed down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate strikes down the strong man,
everyone weep with me!

So ends the opening chorus of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, subtitled "Secular songs for soloists and choir accompanied by instruments and magical pictures."

You'd recognize the music if you heard it - it's been sampled in television commercials for years. I first heard it in a movie trailer for Mel Gibson's Hamlet. It's probably my favorite choral work of all time.

The London Fanshawe Symphonic Chorus is peforming Carmina Burana along with Poulenc's Gloria on November 12, and I wish the entire world could be sitting in the audience.

I want people to fall in love with this music - to have their hearts ripped out of their chests and beaten to a bloody pulp before being stuffed back in again. I want to see helpless concert-goers stumble out of Centennial Hall into the night, dazed and exhilarated. I defy anyone to remain unmoved by the primal passion of Carmina Burana. If that sounds like a tall order, I can't think of any other music that comes closer to filling the bill.

The title, Carmina Burana, is Latin for "songs of Bueren." It refers to the Abbey of Benediktbeuren, where the 13th-century manuscript which inspired Orff to create his 1936 masterpiece was once believed to have originated.

The medieval poetry is written in Latin and High Middle German, and tells tales of loving and yearning, drinking and yearning, and loving some more. The entire work is book-ended by the Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World) lament quoted at the beginning of this column.

Orff's music for Carmina Burana was written with an emphasis on percussion and rhythm. Coupled with the pleasing melodies, the music is an excellent introduction to modern classical music for the novice listener.

Special attention should be paid to the text, as the words are beautiful - at times even downright bawdy and erotic. The thunderous opening movement gives way to gentle springtime, and the baritone soloist (Claude Soulodre in this performance) plaintively expresses his awakening desire. Fast-paced dancing and merriment follow, before the action shifts to the tavern for lusty drinking songs.

In the main section of the work (Cours D'Amour: Court of Love), the baritone and the soprano (Leslie Fagan) meet - the man lustful and insistent, the maiden shy and reticent. In a moment of exquisite beauty the soprano finally surrenders - and the lush chorus of Blanziflor et Helena hails the mystery of a blossoming woman on the cusp of maturity, before Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi is reprised and the wheel of fate is sent spinning again.

I asked Gerald Fagan if he remembered the first time the force and majesty of Carmina Burana really moved him. He admitted it wasn't until he conducted the work himself. His then-19-year-old daughter Leslie was the soprano soloist for that performance, and in her last aria she was required to sing a sustained high B into a high D and then a descending scale. "And the way she did it," says Fagan, "the way she held the notes and so on - to show complete control - was really thrilling for me."

Each time he conducts Carmina Burana, Fagan looks forward the ending - the triple punch of the soprano's last solo, the Blanziflor et Helena chorus and the reprised Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi. "I mean, if you're sitting there and you don't think you got your 18 bucks' worth [after that]," says Fagan, "I think you should go to a movie the next night, you know?

"In those moments it's like great theatre, or it's like watching a great movie, or it's like anything. If it works, it's fabulous."

November 4, 1999

copyright 1999, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow