Noteworthy

The TSO is committed to supporting the next generation of talented Canadian composers through various education and community-oriented initiatives. Prime amongst these initiatives is our yearly collaboration with Canadian Music Centre to deliver a comprehensive orchestral career development session for early-career Canadian composers. These uniquely intimate sessions offer composers an opportunity to hear their works rehearsed in a professional orchestral setting, under the tutelage of professional composers and access to the TSO’s organizational resources. Participants receive incisive feedback from a range of expertise within the TSO’s artistic leadership, including: Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, Composer Advisor Emilie LeBel, and Affiliate Composer Alison Yun-Fei Jiang. 

For a behind the scenes look at this year’s cohort Alison Yun-Fei Jiang joins us to talk about what she’s looking for when assessing submissions for the program: 

This year’s four participants have written a 5-minute work for orchestra which they will get to hear performed and workshopped with a live orchestra. The performance will be conducted by TSO Resident Conductor Trevor Wilson, on Saturday May 11, at Roy Thomson Hall. Ahead of this occasion, we wanted to share a short reflection about the work from the composers themselves!

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Benjamin Gabbay, He/Him,
Toronto ON

The Garden of Earthly Delights (2023) is a tone poem for symphony orchestra based on the triptych of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516). The narrative arc of the tone poem is derived from the composer’s interpretation of the triptych—namely, a journey from the creation of the Biblical Garden of Eden to the Fall of Man through overindulgence in the pleasures of the material world, to the resulting self-damnation of mankind. Thee work loosely takes the form of a theme and variations, where an initial musical idea — a rising lydian scale rooted in a whole-tone collection [0,2], representing the divine, virginal creation — becomes increasingly distorted until ultimately being transfigured into its “antithesis,” a descending chromatic scale. The transformation of the theme through the work’s many disparate, juxtaposed musical styles reflects the gamut of fantastical characters and situations depicted in Bosch’s painting.

Del Aram

Jasmine Hourahine, She/Her,
Oakville ON

“Del Aram” is a Persian phrase meaning “peaceful heart.” This title (as chosen by my grandparents) as well as the music is meant to reflect the changing of seasons from winter to spring, melting snow, sprouting leaves, and the warmth of sunlight.

The Bacchae Overture (Adapted for ballet by Cara Nicol and Aidan Taylor)

Aidan Taylor, He/Him, 
Toronto ON 

The overture to The Bacchae prefaces a ballet adaptation of the ancient play by Euripides. Knowing of his mortal origins, Pentheus, the king of Thebes, refuses to worship Dionysus, but the god intends to introduce his cult to the city and punish Pentheus for his disbelief. Upon his arrival in Thebes, Dionysus reveals he has driven the women of the city mad and that they are holding rites and dances in a nearby forest. Dionysus shows himself to Pentheus, and after the attempted arrest and torture of Dionysus (resulting in terrible earthquakes), the god convinces him to dress as a woman to observe the bacchic rites. He lures Pentheus to the forest and enchants his followers to believe Pentheus is a lion. The bacchantes, among them Pentheus’s mother Agave, tear him limb from limb in. Agave parades the head of her son through the city, believing it is the head of a prize lion, but when Dionysus lifts the enchantment she is grieved and horrified. The drama ends with Agave’s father Cadmus remarking that the way Dionysus punished his mortal relations was just but excessive.

Intermezzo at Harry's Beach

Chris Byman, He/Him,
Winnipeg MB 

“Coming back from cottage country during the last dregs of summer, I stopped off at a peaceful and tiny (almost private) beach that was located at the end of a road that flows into the Winnipeg River, near Lac Du Bonnet, Manitoba. I spent a good 30 minutes just sitting on a bench listening to birds, waves, winds, reeds, and still, deep breaths with only my racing thoughts to keep me company. As I looked out at the water, to my left was a tall tree growing out of the sand. Nailed to the poplar, high up in its lofty branches, was a wooden sign with milled letters, painted sky blue: "Harry's Beach". This piece is inspired by the electronic music genre of vaporwave - a musical practice of taking a sample, really slowing it down, and creating something new. Inspired also by Ludwig van Beethoven's thoughts in his Heiligenstadt Testament and the final lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby ("So we beat on, boats against the current"), I set out to create a work meditating on our individual perseverance and need to accept and even go so far as love our respective fates - a feeling I felt in silence while enjoying a summer's afternoon watching waves come ashore. The musical sample used here (slowed down and doubled over multiple times, and rhythmically manipulated with constant, driving eighth notes) was a few of the first measures from Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major "Eroica".

Click here to learn more about the submission process and eligibility for our Orchestral Composition Reading & Career-Development Sessions