Soundstreams’ Inventive Season Opener Letters To God Asks Big Questions With Sublime Music

By Hye Won Cecilia Lee on October 25, 2024

The search for ways to understand the world must be one of the most enduring human curiosities. We’ve constructed so many different ideas, hoping to explain to ourselves — what is this all about? We look for oppositions and relations, and those who are patient, observe. High and low. Lateral and vertical. Creation and annihilation.

For the opening of the 24/25 season, Soundstreams brought us a night of oppositions. The return of the Fujii Trio from Japan to Canada was welcomed by the Soundstreams Choir 21 and the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, and the familiar duo: Ryan Scott and Greg Oh. The juxtaposition between the most immediate instrument for the human body, the voice, and the very next musical instrument, body percussion, followed by — likely a stick or stone in a hand in play — may seem small, but the differences are infinite.

From the ambitious and rich program for the evening, three works stood out. First on the program, R. Murray Schafer’s Seventeen Haiku — one of his best works, if not the best — explores nature through a strictly restricted form of haiku. Within the confinement of 5-7-5 syllables, a thought may unfold through the space between each syllable, then annihilates itself — back to silence. A fragile balance to maintain, especially with the musical and physical difficulty that Schafer’s music demands: the microtones, the unspoken ‘asks’ in the graphic notations — this work requires the whole body to continuously be aware.

Soundstreams Choir 21, under the direction of David Fallis, used all means available to create a true immersion this evening, and it was wildly successful. Utilizing the space by entering and disappearing in multiple directions, singing from the front, centre, and back, from the high point of the balcony, and from the backstage — where only the shadows and refraction may enter, and the sound travelled throughout the space, as the body of the choir — both the individuals, sections, and as the whole singular group, created and annihilated. The choir, through impressive technical mastery of the work and their absolute commitment as a group, literally flowed through time and space — a real murmuration.

Even if one did not understand Japanese, or knew the haiku, the transmission was so clear at points that one could not remain in wonder, but to conjure something from their memories of nature — the winds, cicadas, the passage of time — whether it be from dawn to day, or dusk to night. Since haiku is to evoke, not prescribe, the audience travelled in their own minds, though we may never find out where one went, perhaps even to oneself, as memories can be so powerful through lack of details, as much as theycan push us into a sphere where all the details are hyper-vivid.

The biggest contrast to the Seventeen Haiku was Haruka Fujii’s arrangement of Vivier’s Pulau Dewata. “I wanted a simple piece: monochrome, a short piece above all full of joy, alternating single melodies — ‘intervalized’ — and complementary melodies in the Balinese style. It is a child’s music…” (Vivier)

Vivier did not specify instrumentation in this work, leaving it in infinite possibilities, and Haruka’s arrangement for the percussion quartet (piano is a percussive instrument, isn’t it?) showed not only her great artistic understanding of soundscape, but of all four performers’ virtuosity in technicality, musical ingenuity, and mastery of ensemble playing. Haruka and Rika Fujii, Ryan Scott and Greg Oh played through many instruments — every additional object adding sophistication, but also complication; and consequently, a chance for a mishap. As this piece is largely built on unison passages with long chains of super complex and definitive rhythms, at the speed that Vivier asks, it turns itself into a really difficult gaba-gaba, a hybrid of folk dance and game, where all parties in the game focus on maintaining and building the communal rhythmic drive.

The relentless energy, bursting from bar 1 with absolute unison, accentuated by dramatic pause and unfurling for the next 11 minutes, is exhilarating. The group’s evolution for this piece since their first performance in 2013 is commendable, especially when experienced live and close — we do not go to live performances for sound only, we go to live the events, where the clattering of metals and synched crashing produces sounds that is beyond the capability of speakers.

Centering these two gigantic works was ‘Letters to God’. The CCOC, under Teri Dunn’s direction, brought everything that fascinated the adults from the original book: charm, fascination, a sense of daring, and compassion. Touching up on all issues that adults find difficult for children: death, fairness, cognition of differences, all these things are set with much compassion by the composer, Akira Miyoshi; however, the music was not easy — much non-diatonic writing, oblique melodies, and Japanese diction, but these challenges were met with smiles and confidence by the CCOC singers. From memory. Impressive. This fascinating work was presented with innocence, serious dedication — the special dedication that only children can bring, and artistic finesse, accompanied by top-notch marimba playing.

Final Thoughts

It is difficult to find an opportunity to see such intricate and expensive works live. I am not certain if such a program could even be mounted in smaller cities, simply due to lack of resources, whether it be finances, talents, and interests. So we became reliant on the next available option: recordings.

Recording, as it gives us certain freedom, also comes with an invisible, fatal limitation for the musical art form: the destruction of time flow and spatial awareness. Even with the most sophisticated sound system, it is built to recreate reality. How many stems can you create on the recording console, and how many speakers can you actually fit in in one place? How do we override the unchangeable acoustic space where these sounds are to be played back? After all, even the best headphones are limited to left to right: stereo, one sound source per ear. And the world is infinitely more complicated.

When we experience other people, especially in small groups where we can comprehend each face and body, their gestures and characters, we are drawn to observe and interact — whether that be active, passive, or complete avoidance. In art forms such as the choir, we are not only drawn to the sound they make, but of their embodiment of sound, amplified by the nature of the synched group. Mass games and gymnastics still remain as one of the most powerful tools in creating a communal experience — the opening of 2008 Beijing Olympics still sends shivers down the spine for many.

Simply stunning opening for Soundstreams’ 24/25 season.

Link To Original Article:
https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2024/10/25/review-soundstreams-inventive-season-opener-letters-god-asks-big-questions-sublime-music/