May 29th

Delights of my life / In the Mirror of this night

Eric Chenaux Trio + A duo by Mark Ellestad, performed by Margaret Gay and Laura Reid

Lantern Church

1401 10 Ave SE

Doors 7PM, Show 8PM

For our 40th anniversary season finale we’ve curated a concert featuring two creators working at the iconoclastic outer edges of knowable form, both of whom might be accurately described as ‘virtuosically one-of-a-kind’.

Eric Chenaux creates music of the perspectival variety - subtly working upon the listener’s senses to make strange that which initially sounds simple or familiar. Drawn in by his floating croon, the listener quickly finds themselves suspended, deliciously uncertain of how a straightforward song of longing could send them through a process of quantum collapse. This fierce and mysterious experimental approach, crafted over decades, has earned Chenaux unlikely accolades in popular music criticism and listenership. Following the release of his 2022 album Say Laura, The Guardian wrote “the Canadian songwriter has one of the all-time great singing voices in popular music, an intensely romantic Chet Baker-ish instrument that seems to float with piercing direction, like a paper aeroplane thrown hard through mist,” while Uncut describes his songcraft “as delicate and lovely as a rare orchid”. Meanwhile Record Collector praises the album’s “sublime alien balladry” - a term which adequately seems to identify this Chenaux-specific genre.

The 2024 release Delights Of My Life opens a new chapter for the singer/guitarist and formally introduces the Eric Chenaux Trio with Toronto-based musicians Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ and Phillipe Melanson on electronic percussion. Driver is a longtime collaborator, appearing on several of Chenaux’s solo albums (even embedded into the very title of the 2010 masterpiece Warm Weather With Ryan Driver). Melanson has a long list of involvements that include Bernice, Joseph Shabason, and U.S Girls, and a recent release with his Impossible Burger project on Chenaux’s own experimental label Rat-drifting, but this marks the first fulsome involvement between the two as players on a recording.

At New Works we are thrilled to be presenting the full band for this special Western Canada premiere of music from Delights of My Life.

Calgarian Mark Ellestad, who many Calgarian musicians may know primarily as a recording engineer, Hardanger fiddle enthusiast, and for his wonderfully skilled musical offspring, Kris and Laura Ellestad, has been experiencing a slow-burning international renaissance of attentive listeners in recent years. Mark and his compositions are closely connected to a group of aesthetically distinct Canadian experimental composers who studied under Rudolf Komorous at the University of Victoria during a particularly rich period of creative exchange between the mid-1970s and 80s. These include Martin Arnold (who co-founded Rat-drifting Records with Eric Chenaux), Jon Abram, Linda Catlin Smith, Allison Cameron, Stephen Parkinson, Christopher Butterfield, Owen Underhill, and others. While each of these composers creates distinct work, there is an ‘aesthetic of the wonderful’, a reverence for meaningful experimental pathways and willingness to break conventional form that threads them together.

In 2022 acclaimed UK contemporary classical label Another Timbre released, ‘Discreet Angel,’ a newly-recorded compilation of works written by Ellestad between 1988 and 1994. This remarkably-still collection features three composed works performed by Chilean guitarist Christian Alvéar and UK ensemble Apartment House (Mira Benjamin and Anton Lukoszevieze ), and one Hardanger piece performed by Ellestad himself. Of the works Ellestad states, ‘I was deeply interested then—and remain so—in what is possible in music when it is pared down,’ says the composer, “when things that may sound familiar, in some ways, become transformed by the underlying intensity of a form that holds them together in unfamiliar ways. The works on Discreet Angel, the new CD, deal with balances between restriction in gesture and colour and flowing strangeness of form.”

For this concert we’ve selected the violin and cello duo In the Mirror of this Night, to be performed by Calgary violinist Laura Reid and Toronto cellist Margaret Gay.

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Eric Chenaux

Eric Chenaux is a Canadian guitarist, songwriter, singer and sound sculptor. He has released seven solo albums of experimental song on the Montréal-based imprint Constellation, charting an adventurous and uncompromising path through avant-folk, out-jazz and pop composition, increasingly rooted in a unique and elemental juxtaposition of fried, frazzled, semi-improvised guitar and smooth, clear tenor balladry. He has been called “a musician like no other” by Tiny Mix Tapes; his solo albums praised by The Quietus as “stunningly beautiful, genuinely inimitable, whose reputation will only grow with time.” Gracing the cover of The Wire magazine in 2017, the feature article declared: “Chenaux succeeds in generating an astonishing array of timbres. A singer and songwriter possessed of angelic sweetness and clarity accompanying himself with largely improvised, visceral guitar textures that seem intent on undermining and obscuring his own songs. It’s the need to communicate tussling with the urge to obfuscate; lucidity versus opacity; form against chaos.”

Though based in France for the past decade, Chenaux was a key figure in Toronto’s fertile indie and avant/improv music scenes throughout the 1990s and 2000s, releasing a first solo album of instrumental improv guitar in 1999 and co-founding the experimental music label Rat-drifting in 2001, which documents a dynamic cross-section of iconoclastic Toronto experimental music projects, including several ensembles in which Chenaux also figured as a member: The Draperies, The Reveries, The Guayaveras, The Marmots, Allison Cameron Band, Drumheller and Nightjars. Previously he was a core member of the cult Toronto postpunk/ math-rock group Phleg Camp and the related duo Lifelikeweeds.

Chenaux’s first album as a singer-songwriter was Dull Lights, released on Constellation in 2006, and an acclaimed, highly original solo discography has unfolded since then: Sloppy Ground (2008); Warm Weather With Ryan Driver (2010); Guitar & Voice (2012); Skullsplitter (2015); Slowly Paradise (2018) and Say Laura (2022). He has featured on a range of collaborative records issued by other labels through this same span, including Okraïna, Avatar, Grapefruit and Three:four. He has performed and recorded with countless artists, including Ryan Driver, Sandro Perri, Eloïse Decazes, Michelle McAdorey, Nick Fraser, Martin Arnold, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, Pauline Oliveros, John Oswald, Michael Snow, Brodie West, Han Bennink, Christine Abdelnour, Michael Moore, Josephine Foster, Martin Tetrault, Wilbert De Joode, Gareth Davis, Jacob Wren, Norberto Lobo, Nathaniel Mann and many more. Chenaux also composes for film and contemporary dance, including a long-standing association with conceptual filmmaker Eric Cazdyn for his solo music, and in recurring collaboration with multi-media and sound installation artist Marla Hlady.

Eric Chenaux lives at Le Pouget in the commune of Condat-sur-Ganaveix in central France.

Mark Ellestad

From an interview with Simon Reynell of Another Timbre:

I guess not many people will have heard of you, so can you tell us about your background in music?

When I was 8 years old, my school was offering music lessons to any student who was interested. I wanted to learn piano, like my older brother. But the piano classes were filled so I was placed with a violin teacher, which was a major disappointment. During the coming years, though, I got the opportunities to play in school orchestras and eventually in quite a good youth orchestra.

Along with the violin training there were basic lessons offered in music theory from a local music conservatory. For a number of reasons, the theory lessons were more destructive than useful, which had some long-term consequences in arriving at a basic fluency in western classical music theory.

I had a natural love for music. My years with the Calgary Youth Orchestra revealed the excitement and beauty in orchestral music and it was a great place to develop friendships.

I decided to pursue music as a career, but as a composer not a performer. I had met my future wife in youth orchestra. She was accepted into a medical program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. I followed her there and did an undergraduate degree in music theory and composition. This is where the difficulties with standard western classical music theory began to generate some roadblocks.

My wife was offered an internship in Victoria, British Columbia, and so we went there in 1980 and I finished up my BMus at the University of Victoria. We returned to Calgary during 1981 but I had a longing to return to UVic to complete a Masters degree in music. It was a life-changing period for me. This is where I had the opportunity to study with Rudolf Komorous and it is where I met some wonderful young composers who became close friends.

Studying at UVic broke open entirely new ways of thinking about music theory and composition. Much of what I had understood music to be, at that point, was shown to be marginal. With the sharing and the friendships and the mutual curiosities and the support, it was like an explosion of wonder and possibility. I completed my MMus at UVic in 1984.

Yes, that generation of composers who passed through the music department of the University of Victoria around that time is really special. But carry on….

My wife and I had decided to make Victoria our home. Our two children were born during my time in the MMus program and we loved the city. Rudolf Komorous asked if I would write a woodwind quintet to be performed at the Victoria International Festival of Music in 1986. "No Moon, No Flowers" is the result of that commission. A chamber work for diverse instruments called “Dangling from the Wall” was written for the Dream Ensemble (in Victoria) and premiered at Open Space Gallery.

But my father became quite ill in 1985, and we moved back to Calgary in 1986 to help out in any way we could. There was a home for sale just a few blocks away from my parents, so we bought it and settled there. I built a little studio in the back yard and that was where I wrote all of my subsequent pieces.

So tell about the three pieces on the CD? When were they written?

The three works on the CD were written between 1988 and 1994. It is a long time ago and there were many factors that played in to these pieces becoming somewhat hidden for a couple of decades. In 1994 I had some CDs manufactured that represented some of my work at the time. Most of the discs were mailed out to various people and institutions internationally with the hope of generating some interest in the music. And I distributed many others to local musicians. Thanks to my good friends at the time, each piece had at least one or two live performances in Canada. I had studio recordings of a few pieces, but the violin and cello duo “In the Mirror of this Night” was something I only had a good live performance of. And it was the duo that I felt an urge to get a good studio recording of before it was too late. But that proved to be a more difficult journey than I had expected.

“In the Mirror of This Night” was written in 1988, shortly after my father had died. It was written for a concert devoted to my music at the Open Space Gallery in Victoria. The wind quintet was the other work on the program.

“Discreet Angel” was written in 1990, shortly after my mother had suddenly passed away. It was created as the audio part of an installation that I collaborated on with a professor of architecture at the University of Calgary.

There were several other works written between 1990 and 1994. In June of 1994, I started an on-location audio recording business with a friend. The CD of my works was created in the backyard studio which also became the editing/mastering studio in the business for many years to follow.

It was also in 1994 that a new world broke open for me in music. I was watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Winter Games that were hosted in Lillehammer, Norway, and heard, for the first time, the Hardanger fiddle. I became obsessed with trying to find one and eventually one became available for sale on a news group. I bought it and tried to learn it as best as I could in isolation from others who were performers. This opened up a whole new world of wonder for me. And it eventually allowed new paths to open up and brought many wonderful friends. The traditional music for Hardanger fiddle is some of the world’s most amazing music. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it made a deep impression on me, which continues to this day. “Sigrid” was made during that time in 1994. It is its own thing, but a few works that followed had some experiments with folk music fragments.

By the end of the 1990s, many life issues began to create doubt and deference. I put composing into the background to protect it, in a way. And I focused my musical energies on the recording business, believing that it wouldn’t be long before I would be writing again. And just like that, years go by.

So how is it coming back to these pieces 25 or 30 years on, and hearing new realisations of some of them? To my ears they still sound remarkably contemporary, but for you do they belong very much to the past?

It’s a great gift to have been offered these new recordings of “In the Mirror of this Night” and “Discreet Angel”. The musicians have approached their interpretations with restraint, patience, stillness and a willingness to bring flexibility to time and repetition. I love what they have done; I love their sound worlds; I love the virtuosity that they each bring to restraint. And I feel settled that they have hit the essence of what the music is. I am grateful to each of them; and I am grateful that this music has found a home on Another Timbre.

As to the music sounding contemporary this many years later, I can say that that is something I have never really considered. I have heard the old recordings many times and have enjoyed the journeys that they have offered me. In some ways they have become a little like family and it hasn’t occurred to me to wonder where they belong within the scope of new music. Maybe it’s something like a good pair of shoes; they offer comfort and support and can open up opportunities to travel a little. They’re just good friends, that’s all.

Laura Reid

Violinist Laura Reid is a versatile and active member of Calgary's music and arts community. Having established a place in Calgary's Classical scene and with eight years playing as a member of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and countless performances and collaborative work with small ensembles in the city, she left her tenured position with the CPO in 2016 to pursue a wider range of artistic opportunities. She was appointed Artistic Director of Kensington Sinfonia in 2018, leading and programming the 9-piece string ensemble for both their main series of chamber music and their series at Village Brewery that pairs the ensemble with a non-Classical featured artist.

Her musical efforts continue to explore and expand beyond standard Classical repertoire: she is heard regularly at experimental/improv series Bug Incision, has a performance/ recording project Osmanthus with electronic musician Kris Sujata (Valiska), and performs as violinist and vocalist with harp-pop project Hermitess. Laura can be heard as part of many recorded projects: film scores Empyrean and Circle of Steel, albums by Cam Penner, AM Static, Emily Triggs, Rachel Fannan, Ethan Cole, Jesse and the Dandelions.

Not confined to performance pursuits, Laura hosted the weekly radio show Unprocessed on CJSW 90.9 FM (winner of the National Community Radio Association’s award for Best Classical Programming in 2018) for four years until January 2020, a project she started with pianist/composer Mark Limacher, and she was a part of the City of Calgary public art project cREative realm, producing a six-part podcast fantasy audio tour in 2017. She enjoys working with young musicians, having worked with students at Amici String Program, University of Calgary, Western Canada High School, and Mount Royal University.

MarGaret Gay

Toronto-based cellist Margaret Gay leads a very active freelance career performing on both modern and period instruments. She performs regularly with the Toronto Symphony, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Opera Atelier, Esprit Orchestra, the Eybler Quartet (www.eyblerquartet.com), and Ensemble Polaris, a group exploring the traditional music of various Nordic countries. She is artistic and managing director of The Gallery Players of Niagara, an organization based in the Niagara Region that presents chamber music, and has also spent considerable time exploring new music. She was for many years a member of Modern Quartet, a string quartet dedicated to the performance of new works, the Burdocks, a foursome specializing in works of the 20th century, and Critical Band. Her ongoing string quartet work is with the Eybler Quartet, a group dedicated to exploring the works of the first century and a half of the string quartet, with a healthy attention to lesser-known composers such as their namesake, Joseph Leopold Edler von Eybler.