Turning Point Ensemble to Open Season With DISCOVERIES & REDISCOVERIES
The Vancouver ensemble presents newly commissioned works by Snejana Pislari and Taylor Brook alongside pieces by Jón Leifs, John Burke, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Gabriel.
Turning Point Ensemble will open its 2026/27 season with Discoveries & Rediscoveries on October 17, 2026, at 7:30pm and October 18, 2026, at 2:30pm at The Annex (823 Seymour St). The concert brings together two world premieres written for TPE, rarely heard works by Icelandic composer Jón Leifs and the late Canadian composer John Burke, and music by some of today's most compelling compositional voices.
The program comprises six works: Remove the Springs (2025, World Premiere) by Moldovan composer Snejana Pislari; Psychography (2026, World Premiere) by Vancouver composer Taylor Brook; Quintetto, Op. 50 (1960) by Jón Leifs; Remember your Power (1998) by John Burke, featuring TPE pianist Jane Hayes; Aequilibria (2014) by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir; and Ninaivanjali (2011) by Quebec composer Gabriel Dharmoo.
“Turning Point Ensemble has always been about discovering and rediscovering,” says Owen Underhill, Artistic Director. “We strive to unearth music from the past hundred years that is crying out to be heard again live, and to build new repertoire for the future. Opening the season with works that span more than six decades, including two brand-new pieces written for us, captures the heart of our mission.”
Both written for TPE, Pislari's Remove the Springs and Brook's Psychography will receive their World Premieres. Pislari takes her title from American theatre director Robert Wilson's call to “remove the springs [from the sofa of the opera].” Embracing that same freedom from constraint, she fuses romantic melodic idioms with repetition and rhythmic drive. Brook's piece uses psychography – the ability to write unconsciously, often framed as channeling a spiritual force – as an entry point to explore intuition, belief and perception as musical and aesthetic phenomena.
Jón Leifs is now heralded as “the most important and original composer of Icelandic music in the twentieth century,” yet his music remains rarely performed. His Quintetto, Op. 50 offers Vancouver audiences a chance to hear this extraordinary voice live. TPE also brings back Remember your Power, composed for Jane Hayes in 1998 by John Burke (1951–2020), one of the finest Canadian composers of his generation.
Rounding out the program, Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Aequilibria immerses listeners in her mesmerizing, layered sound world, while Gabriel Dharmoo's Ninaivanjali draws on the melodies, rhythms and drones of South Indian Carnatic music.
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