Composer Juliet Palmer talks about her new orchestral work fire break, dedicated to forests past and future. Commissioned and premiered by the Hamilton Philharmonic with conductor Gemma New.

Transcript:

“At the end of 2019 there were raging forest fires in many parts of the world. At that point there were huge fires in Australia, in the Amazon… We had fires on the west coast of North America. And it happened that I had also been on an artistic residency with a wonderful visual artist Carla Bengtson.  She’s American and this was in Oregon — the summer of 2019. And we were at research place called Andrews Forest, which is running a 200 year long residency for artists and scientists. We were really lucky to be there to work on another project called Every Word was Once an Animal. I was  really struck interacting with these trees: they’re huge ancient douglas firs. And just the the richness of the forest.

Solid Gold
soprano + 1 1 1 1 / 1 1 1 / pf perc / str [15′] 2013.

Commissioner: Orchestra Wellington
Funder: Creative New Zealand
Premiere: soprano Madeleine Pierard with Orchestra Wellington and conductor Marc Taddei, The Opera House, Wellington, September 8, 2013.
Program note:

Solid Gold riffs on mainstream culture’s obsession with the Number One Hit. Challenging the straitjacket of copyright law, I take as my starting point the titles of over 30 years of number one pop songs. Cracking open this shared archive of pop memory, I hope to unearth the heart of the love song. Collaging selected titles into new and original lyrics, my creative quest echoes the sentiment of British-American band Foreigner’s 1984 hit “I want to to know what love is”. In this maelstrom of romantic yearning, what does love mean? And who exactly is the singer? Is (s)he “Venus, Jezebel, Lady Madonna — Lola, Nikita, Sylvia’s Mother”? Or is gender itself in question? Fernando? Pinnochio? Nelson Mandela?

Bout
bcl/bsax, egtr, pf, perc, vn, db [9′] 2010.

Commissioner: CONTACT Contemporary Music & The Six Team League Project.
Funder: Ontario Arts Council
Premiere: CONTACT, ECM/Bradyworks, St. Crispin’s Ensemble, Motion Ensemble, Negative Zed, Toronto, Montréal, Edmonton, Fredericton, Vancouver, May 15, 2010.
Program note:

Bout is inspired by the sport of women’s boxing. In an interview with Canadian boxing pioneer Savoy “Kapow” Howe, I was struck by her detailed demonstration of the inner monologue of a fighter. Melodic and rhythmic material from her words insinuate themselves into the piece, along with referee’s whistles, counts and bells, training routines and the dogged persistence of the fighter.

Bout: A round at fighting; a contest, match, trial of strength, physical or intellectual.

drift, drop
fl, cl, ob, bsn, tpt, trb, 2 perc, pno, vc + db [16′] 2006.

Commissioner: New Music Concerts
Funder: Ontario Arts Council
Premiere: New Music Concerts with soloists Robert Aitken (flutes) and James Avery (piano)

Program note:

drift, drop grew out of the folksong Down by Sally’s Garden as sung by Leo Spenser in Lakefield, Ontario in 1957. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Lakefield, and I certainly wasn’t there in 1957, but I have a small distintegrating volume of Canadian folksongs on the top of my piano. A lot of rambling and roving takes place in this song, and I kept finding myself singing it as I rode my bike through Toronto’s laneways. This song, which long ago drifted over from Ireland, guided me through the labyrinth of composing.

Drift — to float along, to deviate; something driven.
Drop — to fall, to collapse; a precipitous shift.

vn & pno [11′] 2019.

Commissioner: Sara Watkins

Funder: The Toronto Arts Council

Recording: 11 Frames  (Rattle Records D093 2019) with Sara Watkins piano & Andrew Beer violin

Program note:

small excesses is the name of the I Ching hexagram no. 62: “flying birds leave behind their sound.”

The composition was initially inspired by Catalonian photographer Xavi Bou’s images of birds in flight. Bou’s innovative technique, “chronophotography”, combines sequential photographs of birds’ flight paths, revealing dramatic drawings in the sky. Hundreds of moments of incrementally changing gestures result in a curving sweep across space. In composing this duo I was intrigued by the gestures that a violinist and pianist make to draw sound from their instruments. How does sound take flight? I kept coming back to the title and wondering, what is excessive? What is small? How do those two seemingly contradictory thoughts go together? Am I going too far, or not far enough? And finally, I returned to my childhood, drifting off to sleep as I listened to my father, a fighter pilot, roaring overhead in flight training drills — raucous sound scrawling across the night sky.