The Happenstancers to Present FUTURE PASTORALE, Featuring Claude Vivier's OJIKAWA

The Happenstancers will present FUTURE PASTORALE, featuring Claude Vivier's enigmatic and neglected OJIKAWA.

Featuring soprano Hillary Jean Young, percussionist Louis Pino, and clarinetist Brad Cherwin,The Happenstancers bring their latest programme FUTURE PASTORALE to Toronto on February 24th at 7:30 pm, at Redeemer Lutheran Church (1691 Bloor Street West).

In FUTURE PASTORALE The Happenstancers create a path connecting the past and future. Using Claude Vivier's rarely-performed and enigmatic Ojikawa as a foundation, The Happenstancers construct an evening of both acoustic and electronic performances that explore the imagined pastoral expanses of antiquity and the endless digital landscapes of tomorrow.

Framing Vivier's work with spoken-word recitations and collaboratively-composed works by Cherwin, Pino, and Young, FUTURE PASTORALE challenges the expectations of Vivier's forward-thinking and experimental trio. Recasting the work as nostalgic and historical, The Happenstancers envision expansive new possibilities for the chamber music recital, blending theatre, improvision, and lighting to evoke a future that is equal parts celestial and computerised.

Written in 1968, Claude Vivier's Ojikawa is the first of his works to utilize his now iconic intuitive-imagined language to draw the listener into a distant world. Vivier blends this language with texts from The Song of Ascents (Psalm 131), creating an alien religiosity that is distinctly his own. 

Due to the difficulties of the vocal writing, the work's premiere featured an ondes martenot (an electronic instrument) replacing the soprano. The work has been rarely performed since this premiere. Seeking to reintroduce this work to the Canadian public, and inspired by the presence of electronics in the work's history, The Happenstancers blend the acoustic and electronic in their concert-length expansion of the piece.

Artists and personnel for FUTURE PASTORALE include — Hillary Jean Young, soprano and electronics; Brad Cherwin, clarinets and electronics; Louis Pino, percussion, electronics, and sound design; Billy Wong, lighting design; and Hoi Tong Keung, production manager.

Tickets on sale

HERE (via eventbrite)

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