[my_calendar id=”my-calendar”]

interdisciplinary performance installation merging dance, music and olfaction, 2024. [gallery columns="2" ids="2922,2920,2924,2926" orderby="rand"] [embed]https://vimeo.com/urbanvessel/othernations?share=copy[/embed] Creators: Carla Bengtson, in collaboration with choreographer Darion Smith, composer Juliet Palmer, and perfumer Dannielle Sergent Presenter: Oregon Contemporary, Portland Biennial, April-August, 2024 Through multi-sensory creative forms Other Nations enacts the voicing, sensing, signifying life worlds of other creatures while shining a light on our own animal-related modes of being. We are particularly intrigued by ways of seeing, sounding, hearing, moving and smelling that slip the perceiver and the perceived between visibility and invisibility. In the bigger picture, we are curious to see whether we can learn to navigate through the...

09 June, 2024

3 songs for voice & piano [4’]; words Eleni Zisimatos; 2024. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Premiere: Alex Samaras, baritone, with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024    Strange the sun behind Strange glass It amounts to mirrors, tricks The business Of You. Quiet in the field Everything quiet Beneath     Memories of something Deep under the white Like a frozen fur Detached from a body   The memory of a body     Forward, onward Straight ahead Like a horse Like a sad story Like a heart transplant Like a bomb Forward to the very last The casket of judgement And there Is — Eleni Zisimatos, from Nearly Terminal (2019) ...

21 March, 2024

voice & piano [2’]; words Corrado Paina; 2024. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Premiere: Rebecca Cuddy, mezzo-soprano with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024    MAGNA MORS How can you be doubtful and let life lock the door to freedom Let death in She is beautiful standing there with that dress no wife will ever wear She has chosen you and you linger? — Corrado Paina ...

21 March, 2024

voice & piano [2’]; words Keith Garebian; 2024. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Premiere: Rebecca Cuddy, mezzo-soprano with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024  Siamanto's Grief Grief is a homeless dog slavering over a meatless bone. Grief invades the darkness of ditches where the homeless huddle. Grief is April rain spitting on skinned corpses, spring of somnolent ashes. Grief is a sky of falling stars smashing church steeples. Spits on justice after the piling of bones in seizures of autumn. Your grief was ecstasy in blazes of poetry lighting up a lowering sky.   — Keith...

21 March, 2024

voice & piano [2’]; words Antonia Facciponte; 2024. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Premiere: Rebecca Cuddy, mezzo-soprano with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024    Overture Understanding Standing under a bridge, you are blind, eyelids sutured over iris by the smooth, starless underbelly of infrastructure that protects perception from possibility, cages mischievous magpies of creativity in mud. An unknown lunar voice gleams like lamplight. Listen for the moon's monthly melody serenading sheen 'cross a cobblestone road: its beam will beckon your vision's transgression— climb atop the bridge to yowl aubades that jailbreak into an upside-down verse of understanding.   — Antonia Facciponte, To Make a Bridge  ...

21 March, 2024

interdisciplinary performance installation merging dance, music and olfaction, 2020. http://www.vimeo.com/358887962 https://vimeo.com/496946212 Every Word Was Once An Animal merges art, science, dance, music, and olfaction. An ongoing collaboration between visual artist Carla Bengtson, composer Juliet Palmer, choreographer Darion Smith and video artist and ceramicist Jessie Rose Vala. Every Word was Once an Animal explores the overlapping forces of nature and culture between humans, animals, and language. The interdisciplinary exhibition blends Bengtson’s playful investigations into the lifeworlds of nonhuman animals with choreographer Darion Smith’s interest in embodied language, composer Juliet Palmer’s investigations into the material possibilities and constraints of human and nonhuman utterance, and artist Jessie...

31 January, 2024

mezzo-soprano & piano [4’]; words Armand Garnet Ruffo; 2023. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/A-Wise-Man-Once-Told-Me.mp3"][/audio] A Wise Man Once Told Me for Wilfred Peltier by Armand Garnet Ruffo, Treaty# (Wolsak & Wyn)   When the knock comes to your door you will not be there to answer it. We have been undressing too long it is time to put our clothes back on. You take the water that is still and the water that flows and all the things in the water bring them back here within you where they belong. You take the land and the rocks, and the trees and all those animals and the insects who live in...

09 January, 2024

mezzo-soprano & piano [6’]; words George Elliott Clarke; 2023. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Free-Young.mp3"][/audio]   Austin C. Clarke's “When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks” (1971): Subtext I. Navigating the archipelago of rainbow lips and neon-lustrous nylons, plus islands of pepper in the Caesar, the reefs of lime in the Cuba libre, and dodging the chiseled, Aztec, bas-relief of Cruelty ebon Shebas profile— their chatter always as indecipherable as Papal Latin swished suave I into the Pilot Tavern— me garbed as for Tiger's Coconut Grove (at Kensington Market), but now stepping off Bloor into Yorkville (5th Avenue gone Greenwich Village), under...

09 January, 2024

mezzo-soprano & piano [5’]; words Yeshim Ternar; 2023. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Istanbul.mp3"][/audio] From The Book and the Veil: Escape from an Istanbul Harem, by Yeshim Ternar (Montréal: Véhicule Press, 1994) VII. Now, I, Yeshim, who’s fled every office chaise, From East to West, have sauntered East many times: A Turkish-born writer, Montréalaise, I hear, in Mont-Royal, Istanbul’s chimes,   And recall instantly that Turks love the buttercup, Narcissus, dandelions, and camomile All sprouting wildly in Istanbul, all non-stop, All along the Bosphorus, whose waters rile   Houses lizarding hazardous banks, so mad floods Wash out foundations.  But the fixed standard Of Beauty in Istanbul is unpredictable...

09 January, 2024

mezzo-soprano & piano [3’]; words Giovanna Riccio; 2023. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Barbie-Sounds-Out-1.mp3"][/audio] Barbie Sounds Out Giovanna Riccio from Plastic's Republic 1 babes play babes say ba ba Ba rrr b e be a ba be be be a bo db y be a bar bar Bar bie i.e. bare ly a bod y be be no body 2 Barbie breast bar barbarian nipples nipples be a no-no ra-ra- ra no bra no brainer know no nipples on breasts now know breasts bear no nipples, know how busty Barbie be no B-cup cupcake Barbie bar-hops big-breasted in bed or bar nipple less nip nip nipples? yes! pin-up Barbie...

09 January, 2024

mezzo-soprano & piano [3’]; words Mansour Noorbakhsh; 2023. Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023. https://vimeo.com/903080740 Oh, Rain! Mansour Noorbakhsh from Vital Signs Oh, Rain! I would continue my rain dance in the rain. I would pray within my prayer. I would wish within my wishes. I would stop running in zigzags. I would drop and rise, and rise and drop. I wish I could live as a shared wish. I wish I could share my wishes. I would see with my lips. I would speak with my eyes. I would fall as a raindrop and burn to the end as a burned brand. I would breathe the love I...

09 January, 2024

baritone & piano [4’]; words Richard Sanger, 2021. Performers: Alex Samaras and Gregory Oh Video: Juliet Palmer   Skating with Jane (on Grenadier Pond) by Richard Sanger Skates and toddlers piled in with hockey stick, we galumph sled down slope to see how thick the ice is, take a step and test our weight. Our boys can hardly walk, let alone skate, but the pond is a dare we can't resist, an equation we'll prove only like this: black, hard, smooth as mica. You lace up fast and race off to carve scratch after white scratch in this high-gloss tabletop. I undo boots, buckle up kiddie skates, rearrange toques, mitts, try to warm with words their frozen hands, then send them out onto the bright expanse we've got all to ourselves— this...

21 December, 2023

mezzo-soprano & piano [4’]; words Wilhelm Müller, trans Palmer; 2006, arranged 2010. Wilhelm Müller's poem Gefrorne Tränen is probably best known in its setting by Schubert in Winterreise from 1827. I first wove this new version into the interdisciplinary performance work, Flotsam & Jetsam, inspired by my grandmother who played piano for the silent movies (and loved to play Schubert). Later it surfaced in the song cycle Province of Impossible in a new arrangement for voice and shamisen. This is the recording featured here. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/02-Frozen-Tears.mp3"][/audio] Voice: Christine Duncan Shamisen: Aki Takhashi Recording: CBC Live at Sound Symposium, 2010   Frozen tears are falling from my cheeks, But I don’t even notice...

21 December, 2023

mezzo-soprano & piano [10’]; words Simin Behbahani; 2017, arranged 2023. Commissioned by Instruments of Happiness & funded by the Toronto Arts Council Arranged for piano and voice, 2023 Poem: Simin Behbahani سیمین خلیلی Original English translation: Farzaneh Milani & Kaveh Safa (A Cup of Sin, Syracuse 1999) Farsi transliteration, additional translation assistance & adaptation: Siavash Shabanpour & Behnaz Siahpustan Troubled by the song of a bird at night, the narrator imagines it brings a coded message from the battlefield. Who will listen? At the heart of the song Behbahani alludes to the 13th century Persian poet Sa'adi Shirazi's famous poem Bani Adam. "We are all members...

20 December, 2023

solo piano [5'30"] 2017. Commissioner: Stephen De Pledge Funder: Creative New Zealand and NZ On Air Recording: RNZ Concert & SOUNZ Premiere: New Zealand International Festival, 27 February 2018 [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/burl.mp3"][/audio] Program note: Of all the movements in J.S. Bach's Partita no.3 in A minor, it's the burlesca that speaks most compellingly to me. I love its obsessive ornamentation and the confounding eruption of parallel octaves two-thirds of the way through. The recurring twists and turns makes me think of the way wood grows around an an insect or an injury. Over time, these irregularities amplify, forming a complex pattern — a burl. Often described as...

29 November, 2023

a cappella opera for 5 soloists (2 sop, mezzo, bar) and chorus SSAAA [70’] 2016; film 2023. [embed]https://vimeo.com/urbanvessel/sweat-trailer[/embed]   Librettist: Anna Chatterton Commissioner: Soundstreams Canada Funders: Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts Sweat film (2023) Sweat merges contemporary dance and operatic storytelling with evocative and striking imagery. Filmed in raw factory spaces, Sweat tells the story of a group of women working in the garment industry and sets their individual aspirations against the demands of global capitalism. Producer: Bicycle Opera Project Director Jennifer Nichols Cinematographer Ash Tailor Music Director Geoffrey Sirett Featuring: Stephanie Tritchew, Larissa Koniuk, Catherine Daniel, Keith Lam, Caitlin Wood, Justine Owen, Erica...

02 November, 2023

animated documentary by Miriam Harris [16:00] 2022. Credits: direction Miriam Harris; score Juliet Palmer Funder: Creative New Zealand Select screenings: SHIFT Film Festival, CineSud; New Media Film Fest, LA; Jewish Film Festival, UK; Documentary Edge, NZ; Antimatter Media Arts Festival; Indie Shorts Awards NY; Rising of Lusitania AnimaDoc Film Festival; NCCC Film & Animation Festival; Oregon Documentary Film Festival; T.O. International Women's Film Fest; The Women's Film Festival, Phuong Nguyen; Awards: Best Composer, T.O. International Women's Film Fest; Best Documentary Award, New Media Film Fest, LA; Best Non-Fiction Winner, Short to the Point International Short Film Festival; First Prize, Documentary, NCCC Film & Animation Festival;...

13 December, 2022

Pianist Gregory Oh welcomes Canadian composers for orchestra, Juliet Kiri Palmer and Ian Cusson, to discuss The Unsilent Project. Juliet Palmer composed Invicta for The Unsilent Project and NYO Canada. https://youtu.be/UloeM3E2RpQ The Unsilent Project In 2017 NYO Canada partnered with Signal Theatre, an interdisciplinary and intercultural Canadian theatre company whose work reflects and privileges Indigenous knowledges. Signal Theatre's international creation methodologies centre around physical rigour and exploration. The Unsilent Project was a separate and discrete component of the 2017 national tour – in itself the most extensive artistic project in our history. The piece had its own distinct creative team, designed to augment and...

27 October, 2022

imaginary composition of indeterminate duration, 2020. Imagined Compositions (2020) by of-the-now Commission: Decolonial Imaginings series produced by of-the-now with the Vancouver Foundation and the Canadian Music Centre BC region, October 2020 Excerpt: "Come with me to the edge of the tracks, through the rotting wood and rusting metal of the train turntable, where under the Manitoba maples and aspens grow deadly nightshade and goldenrod, mulberry, Queen Anne's lace and wild rose. The fence has been knocked down in places and what's left of the freight yard buried in trash. In the middle of the night, people pull up at the bottom of the Rona...

07 February, 2022

Toronto composer, artistic director, and community leader Juliet Palmer in conversation with Norm Adams and Barbara Pritchard. ...

21 January, 2022

music video featuring photography by seniors from Without Borders, Without Limits [8:00] 2021. https://vimeo.com/637296538 Music: Composed and performed by Juliet Palmer with vocalist Mingjia Chen and guitarist/vocalist Alejandra Nuñez. Video: Juliet Palmer with photography by program participants Without Borders, Without Limits Koffler Gallery Toronto During the most isolated time of the pandemic, I collaborated with a group of seniors, amateur photographers gathered together by Jessica Dargo Caplan and Without Borders, Without Limits. This was one of the most moving experiences of shared music-making I've had, even with the challenges of multilingual online collaboration. The resulting video — CAPTURAMOS EL MOMENTO 我们记录这一时刻 WE CAPTURE THE MOMENT — combines...

13 December, 2021

Canadian composer Juliet Palmer talks about Down in the River to Pray and asks what if we treated rivers as though they could sing? Preseneted by the University of Toronto's Centre for Ethics for the series, The Ethics of Songs. https://youtu.be/HAX96wsemDM   Drawn to water I'm drawn to water: flowing, falling, rushing, rolling, rippling, thirst-quenching water. Buoyant water that holds me afloat as I swim, that carries me along in the river's flow, that hurls me onto the edge of the beach and pulls me back into the surf. Hot water that rises up from the sand at low tide or bubbles up from...

15 October, 2021

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. https://youtu.be/Z8gy0PTRHfQ 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...

20 June, 2021

Canadian composer Juliet Palmer in conversation with Alex Eddington. Check out other episodes in the podcast here! Episode 5 (May 5, 2021): Part 1 Today, Juliet Palmer and I talk about her most collaborative composition projects with community arts organizations, children's choirs, youth orchestras, high school students and professional musicians alike. Somehow we got onto swapping stories about musical page turning in high-pressure situations and that was the best place to leave off. Are there really page turning competitions somewhere in the world? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter because I am *certain* that they must exist, but can't find them. Fresh Sounds...

21 May, 2021

Conductor Marc Taddei in conversation with former composer-in-residence Juliet Palmer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6_nLKBdN6E  ...

20 July, 2020

In conversation with Laura Stanley in a series celebrating the Music Gallery’s universe of artists, thinkers and creatives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtiPoXDLCf0  ...

22 April, 2020

2 2 2 2 / 2 2 / timp / str [13′] 2020. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/fire-break-audio.mp3"][/audio] Commissioner: The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra Funder: The Genesis Project Premiere: The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Patrick Dupré Quigley, FirstOntario Concert Hall, Hamilton, Canada, May 14, 2022. Program note: fire break is my song for the forests burned by the climate crisis — fires amplified by a heating planet, and by over a hundred years of colonial suppression of Indigenous cultural burning. fire break was inspired by a creative residency at LTER or Long Term Ecological Residency in Andrews Forest, a two hundred year-long program for scientists and artists. In the barren...

27 February, 2020

picc, cl/bass cl, ob, hn, tpt, trb, vib, acc, pno, vn, vla, vcl, db [10′] 2019. Commissioner: Auckland Chamber Orchestra Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: Auckland Chamber Orchestra with conductor Peter Scholes, Raye Freedman Arts Centre, New Zealand, October 20, 2019. Program note: Cutwork takes its inspiration from textile decoration: material is cut away and the edges of the hole are repaired to prevent fraying and unraveling. Further stitching embellishes the fabric, reworking and refilling around the material that has been removed. The technique suggests musical analogies as well as a vision for ecological recovery. Responding to either wilful or accidental damage takes creativity and...

27 February, 2020

for flute, clarinet, electric guitar, percussion, violin, cello, choir & video projection [20′] 2020. Commission: Continuum Contemporary Music with funds from the Ontario Arts Council Premiere: Christine and the Element Choir with the Continuum Ensemble, February 9, 2020 at the Music Gallery, 918 Bathurst, Toronto Choreography of Trauma embraces the virtuosity and emotional extremes of the Trauma Bay. Listening and observing one Saturday evening in March 2018, I was mesmerized by the complex choreography of the trauma team working to bring patients back from almost certain death. Choreography of Trauma is my musical homage: an intermingling of the hundreds of small gestures, strings...

24 February, 2020

Juliet Palmer in conversation with conductor Peter Scholes before a Portrait Concert by the Auckland Chamber Orchestra. https://youtu.be/_fQAKoJEsbA...

07 November, 2019

for violin, shamisen, voice, bass koto, percussion, piano & & video projection [28′] 2019. [embed]https://vimeo.com/844276884[/embed] Funding: The Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Thin Edge New Music Collective & Urbanvessel.  Ongaku Festival, September 22, 2019 at 918 Bathurst, Toronto Ukiyo, floating world is a poetic contemplation of the detritus of our disposable economy, inspired by improvisations with marine plastic pollution in Japan. “Ukiyo” or “The Floating World” was the name given to the pleasure quarters of 17th century Edo, Kyoto and Osaka. For over 250 years, beautiful volumes of woodblock prints celebrated this world. “Ukiyo can also mean “sad troublesome world.” Wading knee deep in...

27 October, 2019

3 3 3 3 / 4 3 3 1 / timp / 3 perc / hp / str + tape [16' 30"] 2019. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Oil-Water-complete-EQ-compress.mp3"][/audio] Commissioner: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Funder: Elaine Lebenbom Award for Female Composers Premiere: Detroit Symphony Orchestra with conductor Leonard Slatkin, Symphony Hall, Detroit, June 7-9, 2019. Program note: Water flows between the Great Lakes cities of Detroit and Toronto, where I live. Looking at the map, I am reminded of the powerful work of the late Ojibway Elder Josephine Mandamin, who walked around each of the Great Lakes to honour and pray for the water. Her dedication made me wonder how a...

02 July, 2019

In conversation with conductor/composer Yaniv Segal before the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's premiere of Juliet Palmer's work "Oil & Water". https://youtu.be/6xJnHRnySs8 Transcript (excerpt): JULIET: ...

10 June, 2019

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...

30 January, 2019

Episode 43: In this episode, we begin with discussion of Juliet PALMER’s new piece MORSE, written for mezzo-soprano and electric guitar quartet with text by Iranian poet Simin Behbahani. http://www.soundlabnewmusic.com/juliet-palmer/...

09 January, 2019

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07 March, 2018

for solo vocalist, choir, audio tracks, multiple video projections, 3 televisions, and turntable [45′] 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NoDz8_qwig&t=38s Commission: Western Front with funds from the Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Laura Swankey with DB Boyko and the VOICE OVER mind Choir, February 8, 2018 at the Grand Luxe Hall, Western Front, Vancouver Recording: Laura Swankey, Christine Duncan & The Element Choir, February 9, 2020, presented by Continuum and Urbanvessel, Toronto's Music Gallery Inside Us presents ten stories gathered from “the edges of life” — moments of awareness of heartbeat and breath. These sung stories are punctuated by two interludes, improvisations by the soloist using diagnostic ultrasound...

13 February, 2018

for soprano, choir, picc, alto fl, ob, 2 bass cl, 3 perc [23'] 2017. Commissioned by Continuum with funds from the Ontario Arts Council Premiere: June 3, 2017 at Evergreen Brick Works, as part of FOUR LANDS, co-produced by Continuum Contemporary Music & Jumblies Theatre “Everything stays the same, Everything is yet to be discovered.” Quarry excavates layers of memory and place through song and sound. The lyrics intertwine words from community members across Canada into a dreamscape that hovers between the present, the past and the future. What do we discover if we dig deep — beneath the ground where we stand, back into...

04 November, 2017

2 actors/spoken word artists + 4 4 4 4 / 4 3 3 1 / timp 2 perc 2 hp / str [12'] 2017. Lyrics by Zaccheus Jackson Commissioned by NYO Canada Premiere: NYO Canada, conductor Jonathan Darlington with Zoey "Pricelys" Roy & Lindsay "Eekwol" Knight, National Arts Centre, Ottawa, July 22, 2017 Zaccheus Jackson's words are fierce and fiery, veering from humour to tragedy in one sentence. His performances are musical — rhythms and rhymes which flow and hurtle, their political sophistication revealing Zaccheus' grasp of the big picture. He was a poet who saw injustice in the world around him and called...

04 November, 2017

Tenor with piano trio [ 15'] 2016. Composed for Simon O'Neill and NZTrio with funds from CreativeNZ Vermilion Songs brings together six Emily Dickinson's poems in a cycle that offers a compelling inner perspective on the human body: from breath, the circulation of the blood, varieties of pain, to the last moments of life itself. While human-scaled and engaged with the viscerality of the everyday, her work simultaneously conjures the epic and the immense — cosmic rhythms and the ineffability of consciousness. The cycle moves from an acknowledgement of the insights of science, through contemplation of pain, disorientation, a return to consciousness,...

04 November, 2017

dance opera for 3 vocalists, 2 dancers & chamber ensemble [50’] 2017. counter-tenor, baritone, Carnatic vocalist, flute, clarinet, percussion, portative organ, hurdy-gurdy, violin & cello. Premiere: Toronto Masque Theatre, Crow's Theatre, Toronto, March 10-11, 2017 Librettist: Anna Chatterton Commissioner: Toronto Masque Theatre Funders: Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts Production: choreographer Hari Krishnan, director Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, conductor Larry Beckwith, set & costume design Rex, lighting Gabriel Cropley Featuring: Scott Belluz (counter-tenor), Alex Samaras (baritone) & Subhiksha Rangarajan; Ravyn Wngz & Sze-Yang Ade-Lam (dancers) Program note: Unwilling to marry a woman, a man fashions a lover from his own left side. He's enraptured by her perfect...

06 February, 2017

chamber opera for mezzo, percussion & electronics [20’] 2016. [gallery columns="4" link="file" ids="2875,2876,2877,2878"] Presenter: Opera Peepshow Premiere: Christine Duncan (mezzo) and Jean Martin (percussion & electronics), Baņuta Rubess (dramaturge). Campbell House, Toronto April 28-39, 2016. Lyrics: Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein with additional found and verbatim text Program note: Boots invites you into a boudoir full of guilty pleasures — starring singer Christine Duncan and her precious footwear. Accompanied by percussionist Jean Martin, Christine presents a cast of more than thirty pairs of boots, procured over the last decade from secondhand stores, online auctions and retail outlets. She adds to her obsessive collection weekly. When...

03 April, 2016

sound installation, Singing River, Pan Am Path, Pedestrian Bridge, Lower Don Trail, Toronto, July 4-5 2015. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/227057262" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /] Transducers applied to the pedestrian bridge transform it into a vibrating loudspeaker, singing the river’s Anishinaabemowin name to the most constricted and polluted section of the waterway. Original song for the Wonscotonach River composed by Marie Gaudet and performed by the First Nations School of Toronto girls singing group. Wonscotonach has been translated by linguist Basil Johnson as “burning bright point or peninsula” or a point bright with fire, perhaps referring to the peninsula near the mouth of the Don (later...

05 October, 2015

sound installation, Singing River, Pan Am Path, Belleville Underpass, Lower Don Trail, Toronto, July 4-5 2015. Diagnostic ultrasound recordings transport the listener along the body’s inner rivers. Entering the tunnel, we are immersed in a dynamic audio map of blood flow: from the tips of the fingers, through the abdominal region, to the head and brain. Research work in Dr. Peter Burns' laboratory at the University of Toronto makes use of Doppler ultrasound to measure the dynamic flow of blood, its pressures and the resistance of blood vessels themselves. Ultrasound imaging of blood flow can provide an audible indicator of health or...

05 October, 2015

Solo mezzo with mixed chorus [15’] 2015. Premiere: Laura Swankey & The Burble Choir with conductor Christine Duncan, Singing River, Pan Am Path, Lower Don Trail, Toronto, July 4-5, 2015. Text: Anna Chatterton [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BURBLE-MIX-1.mp3"][/audio]   Burble gives voice to the Wonscotonach/Don River, one of Canada's most polluted rivers. My curves are straight My mouth is a drain Spewing grease and trash Cars roar and ignore me I am deaf from the din...

05 October, 2015

Mixed voices [12’] 2015. Premiere: Alex Samaras & GREX, Singing River, Pan Am Path, Lower Don Trail, Toronto, July 5, 2015. Text: Nicholas Power [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2-JulietPalmer-DREAMING_OF_TREES.mp3"][/audio] walking at night in the woods between my childhood home and the river fully awake and wondering in a dream both strange and familiar particular trees reach out like lovers...

05 October, 2015

SATB [4’] 2015. Commissioner: Victoria College, University of Toronto Premiere: The choirs of Victoria and Emmanuel Colleges, Isabel Bader Theatre, Toronto, October 14, 2015. Text: Margaret Avison (excerpted from Stone's Secret, Sunblue, Lancelot Press, 1978)               Otter-smooth boulder lies under rolling black river-water stilled among frozen hills and the still unbreathed blizzards aloft; silently, icily, is probed stone's secret.   Word has arrived that peace will brim up, will come “like a river and the glory...

01 October, 2015

mezzo-soprano & piano [2’]; words Federico Garcia Lorca; 2015. Commissioner: Soundstreams Canada Premiere: Krisztina Szabo & Stephanie Chua, The Gardiner Museum, Toronto, September 18, 2015. Text: Federico Garcia Lorca Program note: How to set a portion of the Ghazal for a Dead Child by Garcia Lorca without hearing echoes of George Crumb’s version? I purposefully didn’t refresh my memory of this vocal classic, focussing instead on the first stanza of the poem, interpreting it as a quietly obsessive rumination on loss. The singer and pianist are both called upon to step outside their comfort zone through body percussion and vocalization. In response to the lyrical devastation of the poem, I chose...

30 September, 2015

Broadway World Interviews: Voice-Box's Juliet Palmer talks Female Aggression and Theatre, November 12, 2010. By Kelly Cameron ​Voice-Box is being billed as a competitive concert in a boxing ring. Unique and ground-breaking this show is from the team behind the critically acclaimed Stitch and is a genre-crossing, interactive performance that will blow the lid off gender and power dynamics. The show seeks to combine boxing with the power of the singing voice. It unites the talents of choreographer Julia Aplin, writer Anna Chatterton and composer Juliet Palmer. Together they seek to defy assumptions about female aggression as they unveil the woman's power to...

22 March, 2015

vn & pno [11'] 2019. 11 Frames by Andrew Beer | Sarah Watkins 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...

24 October, 2014

By Juliet Palmer, Canzona magazine, 2011. Once upon a time, a family travelled by ship to a tiny coastal settlement in New Zealand. As the ship came within view of the shore, mother and daughter clutched each other and wept, longing to return home. After flying for hours over the vast Pacific Ocean, a sliver of land comes into view just below the wing of the plane. Panic and relief rush through me as I wonder, how will I ever manage to leave again? And yet, how good to see that first tiny glimpse of home. The first arrival is that of my great-great-great-grandmother...

06 June, 2014

video installation by Millie Chen featuring an original soundtrack by composer Juliet Palmer [8:54] 2014. Credits  Direction & Camera: Millie Chen Composer: Juliet Palmer Sound Engineer & Producer: Jean Martin Vocalists: Maryem Tollar, Jani Lauzon, Christine Duncan, Andrea Kuzmich Funders: Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and Charles Street Video TOUR is a video installation by Millie Chen featuring an original soundtrack by composer Juliet Palmer. Created in collaboration with producer Jean Martin, the work is at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery until May 18, 2014. A quiet witness to four sites of genocide (Rwanda, Cambodia, Wounded Knee and Treblinka), the camera travels slowly through vegetation covering the arguably “healed” sites, while four women’s voices form a counterpoint of lullaby...

29 April, 2014

animated film directed by Miriam Harris with composer Juliet Palmer [10:33] 2013. Credits: co-direction (with Miriam Harris) and score (with Jean Martin)Funder: Creative New ZealandScreenings: Catskill Mountains Film Festival, New York (Best Animation Award); New Media Film Festival, Los Angeles (Best in the New Media category); Brooklyn Film Festival, New York (Spirit Award); Melbourne International Animation Festival; Dada Saheb Phalke International Film Festival, New Delhi (Special Mention); Animator Festival, Poznan, Poland; New York Independent Film Festival. This nine and half minute long experimental film is based on a journey artist/animator Miriam Harris made to her war survivor mother's birthplace of Warsaw, Poland in January 2011. The film...

29 April, 2014

Urbanvessel and Juliet Palmer — Creating performance works rooted in social issues, Musicworks Issue 108, 2010. Click here to read  ...

27 April, 2014

Artists on Stage: Juliet Palmer Opera Canada Sep 22, 2010. Boxing, we're told, is the quintessentially male sport. Joyce Carol Oates, in her 1985 book On Boxing, even says this: "Men fighting men to determine ...

25 April, 2014

Orchestra Wellington composer-in-residence and soprano soloist preview Sunday's concert: 'La Donna Ideale'. From Upbeat on 05 Sep 2013 ...

03 November, 2013

Current Jack C Richards-Creative New Zealand composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music. From Upbeat on 22 Jun 2012   ...

03 November, 2013

New Zealand-born composer Juliet Palmer has written operas about boxing and nuclear fission, and is currently the NZ School of Music's Composer in Residence. From Nine To Noon on 24 Apr 2012 ...

03 November, 2013

NZ composer, back from Canada to be this year's New Zealand School of Music Composer in Residence. From Upbeat on 05 Aug 2011 ...

03 November, 2013

NZ Composer returning from Toronto next month to take up position as NZSM Composer in Residence. From Upbeat on 27 May 2011 ...

03 November, 2013

Toronto-based New Zealand composer gives us a Postcard Home from Canada. From Upbeat on 25 Jan 2008 ...

03 November, 2013

Sonic Mosaics: Interviews with Composers by Paul Steenhuisen, November 2003. STEENHUISEN: In your dissertation, you write that it’s “a defense and celebration of the playful in music and art”. You mention a number visual artists (Jeff Koons and Marcel Duchamp, for example), but I’d like you to talk about examples of the playful in music. PALMER: At the time I wrote that, I was very excited about C.P.E. Bach’s music. Its over-the-top rate of change borders on the comic. I wanted to look at his music more closely and understand how it works. I was also drawn to Franco Donatoni’s music because his...

03 November, 2013

Music in New Zealand, Michael Norris, November 1999. If you listen carefully enough, you can hear the sound of Schoenberg turning in his grave. The poor old codger; he would never have imagined his angular melodic lines pitted against those of nineties band-noir Portishead. But Secret Arnold, for symphony orchestra, is just that. Welcome to the world of Juliet Kiri Palmer: a genre-bending, groove-laden universe of humour and iconoclasm. She is a composer who likes to pitch her tent in the interstices of style, critically engaging with the music that "turns her on". She works in diverse media, her output ranging from...

03 October, 2013

soprano + 1 1 1 1 / 1 1 1 / pf perc / str [15'] 2013. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Juliet-Palmer_Solid-Gold-RNZ-08.09.2013.mp3"][/audio] 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...

06 June, 2013

animated short directed by Miriam Harris [6:08] 2008. [video width="320" height="240" mp4="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/soaring-roaring-diving.mp4"][/video] Credits: co-direction (with Miriam Harris) and score (with Jean Martin) Funder: Creative New Zealand Screenings: Marfa International Film Festival, Artsfest Film Festival, Los Angeles SSG Summer Shorts Film Festival (USA); In the Palace International Film Festival, Bulgaria; XII Brooklyn International Film Festival, NY; Fest Anca Animation Festival, Slovakia; New Zealand International Film Festival; Kansk International Film Festival, Siberia; Antimatter Film Festival, Vancouver; St John's Women's International Film Festival, Newfoundland; Tehran International Short Film Festival; Cambofest International Independent Film Festival, Cambodia; Byron Bay International Film Festival, Australia; Mediawave Film Festival, Hungary Award: Best Experimental...

06 June, 2013

experimental dance short [6:00] 2008. Funder: Bravo! Credits: composer (with Jean Martin) and performer, director Chelsea McMullen, choreographer Yvonne Ng, cinematographer Maya Bankovic Screenings: Toronto International Short Film Festival, Cinedans (Amsterdam), Dance Camera West (Los Angeles), Loikka Dance Film Festival (Finland) to the International Dance and Electronic Media Festival (Mexico City) Awards: Best Experimental Short and Kodak Award for Best Cinematography at Toronto International Short Film Festival (2010)  ...

05 June, 2013

accordion + alto flute/piccolo [10’] 2010. Commissioner: Joseph Petric Funder: The Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Joseph Petric & Sara Traficante, Ottawa ChamberFest, August 6, 2010. Program note: As I roved out one morning fair in the pleasant month of June As I roved out one evening all in the month of May As I rode out on a summer's evening As I went out walking one morning in June As I went out walking one morning in May Now as I did walk out one evening down by a riverside As I roved out one evening I heard a tender cry As I rode out one evening fair down by...

28 May, 2013

solo snare drum [10-15’] 2008. Commissioner: Morris Palter Funder: The Toronto Arts Council Premiere: Lenny Sakofsky, Adam Concert Room, New Zealand, June 28, 2012. Text: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barbara Bush & Saint John Performance: Corey Rae, Aventa Ensemble, March 6, 2015    Program note: While visiting Toronto’s historic Fort York, I learned that musicians had collected the wounded and corpses from the battlefield. Those least responsible for the violence were the ones most intimately acquainted with its effects. Exploring the traditions of military drumming as a form of signalling and communication, I began to look at how messages about war in our own time are shared and/or withheld. The...

26 May, 2013

solo piano [3'] 2004. Commissioner: Daan Vandewalle Premiere: Daan Vandewalle, Tone Roads Project, Evenings of New Music, Bratislava, Slovakia, November 26, 2004. Program note: Clip. to cut, snip or trim; to defraud or swindle; to strike with a sharp blow. clip is an unreliable transcription of 3 minutes of the protest march against the Free Trade Area of the Americas on April 20, 2001. The original audio comes from a video clip recorded by CNN in Québec City....

25 May, 2013

piano + percussion [15'] 2003. Commissioner: Danny Tunick & Kathy Supové Funder: Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Danny Tunick & Kathy Supové, The Cutting Room, New York, November 5, 2003. Text: Dennis Lee Program note: Poet Dennis Lee came to visit and left a blue folder on top of the piano. While plunking away at a new piece for Danny and Kathy the inevitable happened: I reached for the folder, opened it and began to read the most extraordinary sequence of poems I'd encountered in years. Like a thief in the night who turns out to be an incredible tango partner, Lee's poems snuck into...

24 May, 2013

chamber opera — 5 singers (sop, 2 mez, ten, bar) + ensemble (cl/bcl, egtr, perc, pf, vn, db) [80’] 2012. [embed]https://vimeo.com/urbanvessel/shelter[/embed] [gallery columns="4" ids="587,1495,1498,1496"] Commissioner: Tapestry New Opera Funders: The Ontario Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts and Tapestry New Opera Premiere: Edmonton Opera, November 16-20, 2012 Performers (2012, Edmonton): Christine Duncan, Andrea Ludwig, Maghan McPhee, Peter McGillivray, Keith Klassen Performers (2014, Toronto): Christine Duncan, Andrea Ludwig, Teiya Kasahara, Andrew Love, Keith Klassen Librettist: Julie Salverson Production: direction Keith Turnbull, design Sue Page, movement Jo Leslie, video & lighting Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson Program note: Shelter: a nuclear family adrift in the atomic age. Since Prometheus stole...

24 May, 2013

choreographed performance for brass, winds, vocals and drumkit [60'] 2012. Organized by TheWaves collective — Christie Pearson and Marcus Boon — the Fire on the Water event was a free all-ages all-day swim-in and dance party featuring installation and live performance at the Sunnyside Pavilion, Toronto. [gallery columns="4" ids="536,537,543,541,538,548,550,546"] Choreography: Aimée Dawn Robinson a.k.a. Motherdrift Performers: Allison Peacock, Barbara Lindberg, Lo Bil, Victoria Cheong and Dawne Carlton Music: Juliet Palmer (in collaboration with the performers) Performers: Brodie West, Nick Fraser, Lina Allemano, Doug Tielli, Nicole Rampersaud, Charles Davidson and Alex Samaras Funders: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and The Toronto Arts Council All photos by Giulio Muratori....

23 May, 2013

operatic staging of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale for 2 operatic soloists — sop + bar, 2 traditional singers, 2 SATB choirs, traditional drummers and chamber ensemble - cl/bcl, pf, perc, vn, db [150’] 2011. https://vimeo.com/955619059?share=copy [gallery columns="4" link="file" ids="567,568,569,570"] Commissioner: Jumblies Theatre Company Funder: Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Jumblies Theatre Company, director Varrick Grimes, soloists Doug MacNaughton (baritone) and Neema Bickersteth (soprano), Rosary Spence (First Nations singer), Sharada Eswar (Carnatic singer), Toronto, December 8-18, 2011. Concept: Ruth Howard Program note: Like an Old Tale has drawn me into a world in which hundreds of people from all over the world retell an old story through sound,...

23 May, 2013

a fusion of dance, boxing, & opera [60’] 2010. https://vimeo.com/18786744 Music: Juliet Palmer Choreography: Julia Aplin Text: Anna Chatterton Premiere: Urbanvessel with Vilma Vitols, Neema Bickersteth, Savoy Howe, Christine Duncan, Anna Chatterton, Julia Aplin & Juliet Palmer, World Stage, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, November 10-14, 2010. Commissioner: World Stage, Harbourfront Centre Funders: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Roger D. Moore & Harbourfront Centre Fresh Ground new works. Program note: During the research and development of Voice-Box we learned that Canadian women were not allowed to box until 1991. Lawyer and aspiring boxer Jenny Reid not only won that right for women, but fought the first sanctioned...

23 May, 2013

a cappella opera [40'] 2008. [gallery columns="4" ids="613,614,616,617,618,619,620,621"] Commissioner: The Theatre Centre, Toronto Premiere: Vilma Vitols, Neema Bickersteth, Christine Duncan & Patricia O'Callaghan, FreeFall Festival/World Stage, The Theatre Centre, Toronto, March 12-16, 2008. Creative Team: music Juliet Palmer, libretto Anna Chatterton, choreography Marie-Josée Chartier, direction Ruth Madoc-Jones, design Sarah Armstrong, lighting Kimberly Purtell Awards: Dora nominations “Outstanding New Opera” and “Outstanding Production” (2008) Funders: The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council Theatre Creator's Reserve and The Theatre Centre. Preview in NOW Magazine, May 2010. Stitch was developed in residence at The Theatre Centre and funded by The Ontario Arts Council, The...

23 May, 2013

site-specific performance for 3 singers, percussion and dancers [60’] 2006. [gallery columns="4" ids="595,596,597,598,599,600,601,602,603,604,605,606,608,609,610,611"] Funders: The Laidlaw Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, and the City of Toronto. Premiere: Urbanvessel with Susanne Chui, Louis Laberge-Côté, Jean Martin, Christine Duncan, Aki Takahashi and Vilma Vitols, Harrison Baths. X Avant Festival, Toronto, September 20-22, 2006. Creative Team: music Juliet Palmer, choreography Yvonne Ng, lyrics Anna Chatterton, installation Christie Pearson. Program note: Slip is a site-specific performance for a swimming pool or bath house fusing sound, movement and light. Urbanvessel investigates each new performance site, reflecting the users and the history of the space, and evoking its latent drama, dream...

23 May, 2013

dance score for bass clarinet + double bass [35'] 2002. https://vimeo.com/953258446 [gallery columns="4" ids="528,529,530,532"] Commissioner: Yvonne Ng, Tiger Princess Dance Projects Choreography: Yvonne Ng Premiere: dancers Justine Chambers, Susanne Chui and Susan Lee; musicians Robert Stevenson & Peter Pavlovsky, Artword Theatre, Toronto, December 5-8 2002. Remount: Louis Laberge-Côté, Brendan Wyatt and Hiroshi Miyamoto; Festival Accès Asie, Montréal & Guelph Dance Festival, 2012. Funders: The Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, The Laidlaw Foundation, The Canada Council for the Arts. Photos: David Hou Program note: Conceived and Choreographed by Yvonne Ng, Cypress was inspired by the Chinese legend of the Three Friends: bamboo, plum and cypress. They do not die, but...

23 May, 2013

dance score for violin + audio playback [90'] 2002.   [audio mp3="http://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/INLAND_flockdance.mp3"][/audio] Excerpt: Flock Dance Commissioner: The New Zealand International Arts Festival Funder: The New Zealand International Arts Festival Trust Premiere: Douglas Wright Dance with violinist Deborah White, The Opera House, Wellington, The New Zealand International Arts Festival, March 7, 2002. Credits: concept and choreography Douglas Wright, set and costume design John Verryt, film/video Florian Habicht Program note: Using animal imagery to take us into the heart of the human condition, Inland charts the fragile equilibrium between shepherd, flock, dog and hawk....

23 May, 2013

interdisciplinary performance for mezzo-soprano, piano & dancer [50’] 2001. [gallery columns="4" ids="539,540,542,544,547,549,554,555"] Funders: The Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Laidlaw Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Vilma Vitols, Ya-wen Wang, Susan Macpherson, Open Ears Festival, Kitchener, Canada, May 6, 2001. Credits: music & concept Juliet Palmer, choreography Bill James, lighting Paul Mathiesen, costume Evelyn von Michalofski, video Nick de Pencier, set design Juliet Palmer, Paul Mathiesen & Evelyn von Michalofski. Additional credits: Am Meer (1828) for voice and piano — Franz Schubert; Venus of the South Seas (1924) starring Annette Kellerman — dir. James R. Sullivan; excerpts from How To Swim (1918) — Annette Kellerman; recorded voice:...

23 May, 2013

site-specific collaboration for 2 percussionists & 7 dancers [18’] 1999. Commissioner: Bill James & Chiyoko Slazvnics, Art in Open Spaces Funder: The Laidlaw Foundation Premiere: Pam Johnson, Karen Kaeja, Juliet Palmer, Sara Porter, JoAnna Powell, Rick Sacks, Miko Sobreira, Teena Walker & Julia Wyncoll, Water Sources 2, Art in Open Spaces, Toronto, Canada, July 23, 1999. Credits: choreography/co-direction Karen Kaeja; music/co-direction Juliet Palmer. [gallery columns="2" ids="855,858,862,2774,2775,2776" orderby="rand"] Program note: Cocktail was conceived in the turbulent waters of "Salmon Run", Susan Schelle's evocative and erotic sculpture situated in the fountain between the Skydome and the CN Tower. Due to a last-minute city permission battle, Cocktail was reworked for...

23 May, 2013

children’s chorus SATB [8'] 2010. Commissioner: Viva Youth Singers Funder: Viva Youth Singers Premiere:  Viva Youth Singers, Trinity-St.Pauls, Toronto, May 16, 2010. Text: Dennis Lee Program note: These two songs for children's chorus draw on the beloved Canadian poet Dennis Lee's works for children — Garbage Delight — and adults — Yesno, creating a world which acknowledges distance and pessimism, but also hope and possibility. The Moon (from Garbage Delight, 1977) “I see the moon and the moon sees me And nobody sees as secretly...

23 May, 2013

three singers playing theremin, hand-held percussion, shamisen and clarinet [35'] 2007. Premiere: Christine Duncan, Aki Takahashi and Juliet Palmer, Voice++ Festival, Victoria, May 12, 2007. Credits: music Juliet Palmer in collaboration with the performers (Christine Duncan and Aki Takahashi), text Anna Chatterton with additional lyrics in German (Wilhelm Müller) and Japanese (traditional). [gallery ids="579,580"] Program note: The Province of Impossible bridges the two worlds of Japanese folksong and Schubert’s Die Winterreise. The first piano arrived in Japan in 1823, four years before Schubert composed his famous song cycle Die Winterreise (The Winter’s Journey).  Western classical music took firm root following the forcible end to Japan’s isolation...

23 May, 2013

soprano and chamber orchestra [5'] 2005. Commissioner: Open Ears Festival Funder: The Laidlaw Foundation Premiere: Patricia O'Callaghan and the Canadian Chamber Ensemble with conductor Dan Warren, Open Ears Festival, Kitchener, April 29, 2005. Text: Leonard Cohen Program note: Both So Long, Marianne and I were born in 1967. Leonard Cohen's song lodged itself in my brain at an undetermined point somewhere between that first release and the present. The moment that stuck in my mind most clearly was when the back-up singers wiggled their way upwards in the chorus on "Marianne" (a moment which fails to reappear in my own version of the song). Now Marianne's...

23 May, 2013

unaccompanied chorus SSAATTBB [5'] 2005. Commissioner: Soundstreams Canada Premiere: Tafelmusik, Soundstreams Canada's New Voices Choral Workshop, Trinity-St. Pauls, Toronto, January 22, 2005. Text: Dennis Lee Program note: gone is based on one of the fifty-one poems which make up Dennis Lee's UN (Anansi Press, 2003).  ...

23 May, 2013

chamber opera for 2 baritones, bcl, perc, acc + vc [14'] 2003. Commissioner: Tapestry New Opera Funder: Ontario Arts Council Premiere: Tapestry New Opera with baritones Gregory Dahl & Ian Funk, Tapestry Gala Opening, The Distillery, Toronto, May 24, 2003. Text: Julie Salverson Program note: Ordinary people who carry extraordinary events: Maurice (an office cleaner) and Thomas (an office intern). A normal day. The past is past.  ...

23 May, 2013

mezzo-soprano, clarinet & hurdy-gurdy [8’] 1999. [gallery ids="856,857"] Commissioner: Bill James and Art in Open Spaces Funder: The Laidlaw Foundation Premiere: Vilma Vitols, Juliet Palmer & Martin Arnold, Water Sources 2, Art in Open Spaces, Toronto, July 23, 1999. Note: music choreographed by Bill James for Shannon Cooney, Dancemakers, Toronto, Canada, November 16-20, 1999. Program note: When I dropped by in the springtime, there was a futon in the sphere. Someone had moved in and made it their bedroom. Vilma’s song is inspired by the Beach Boys’ classic tune, ‘In My Room’, along with a little snippet of Schubert’s ‘The Hurdy-Gurdy Man’ (from Die Winterreise). ‘In my room No-one...

23 May, 2013

2 sopranos, clarinet, trumpet, drum set, keyboard, violin & double bass [9’] 1997, revised 1999. Commissioner: Dogs of Desire, Albany Symphony Orchestra Funder: Albany Symphony Orchestra Premiere (revised version): Marty Elliott & Susan Lewis sopranos, Michael Lowenstern clarinet, Charles Lazerus trumpet, Danny Tunick drumset, Elizabeth di Felice keyboard, Andrea Schultz violin Maureen Llort double bass, Steve Mackey conductor, Taplin Auditorium, Princeton, October 20, 1999. Program note: Living in New York, looking wistfully back to my 1970s New Zealand childhood, my curiosity was sparked as to the origins of Maori action songs — a hybrid form combining traditional movements, borrowed Western melodies and Maori lyrics. Introduced...

23 May, 2013

soprano, bass clarinet, viola, accordion and percussion [7’] 1995. Premiere: Dana Hanchard soprano, Michael Lowenstern bass clarinet, Mark Zaki viola, Guy Klucevsek accordion, and Danny Tunick percussion. Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, March 1996. "The systems they learn are nothing but skeletons to them...

23 May, 2013

solo piano [20’] 2000. Commissioner: Eve Egoyan Funder: Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Eve Egoyan, Music Gallery, Toronto, May 5, 2000. Program note: The tension between the piano’s percussive mechanism and the fluidity of water has borne fruit in countless works for piano: from Ravel’s Ondine and Chopin’s ‘Raindrop Prelude’, to Schubert’s Am Meer. Not coincidentally, these works were among those played by my grandmother as silent film ‘scores’ in the small New Zealand town of Takaka. In Aquamarine watery fragments from the musical past refract and reflect. Aquamarine is dedicated to my grandmother, Gladys Boyce....

22 May, 2013

violin + marimba [9’] 1994. Premiere: Marimolin, Princeton, April 14, 1994. Program note: The melody in Starving Poetry comes from a Russian folksong taught to two Chinese poets as children during the Cultural Revolution. ‘In the middle of a snow storm. Going far. In the middle of nowhere. Lovers must separate. The snow is covering their footsteps...

21 May, 2013

2 2 2 2 / 2 2 1 / timp 2 perc hp / str [12'] 2004. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/01-Swerve.mp3"][/audio] Commissioner: Windsor New Music Festival Funder: Ontario Arts Council Premiere: The Windsor Symphony with conductor John Morris Russell, Capitol Theatre, Windsor, January 16, 2004. Recording: The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with conductor Kenneth Young, Recorded by Radio New Zealand Concert FM, September 8, 2011. Program note: Writing Swerve began as an exercise in reading. A poem caught my ear and lulled me with its rhythm: lilting and stalling, flowing and overflowing the bounds of the line. Just as there are an infinite number of readers, so are there infinite ways of...

21 May, 2013

3 3 2 2 / 4 3 2 1 / timp 2 perc hp / str [12’] 2003. Commissioner: l'Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal Funder: l'Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal Premiere: l'Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal with conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, October 9-20, 2003, Montréal. Program note: Two birds inspired this piece: Tchaikovsky's Swan and Stravinsky's Firebird. Buzzard is dedicated to my father, a high-speed pilot who loved Stravinsky's music as passionately as that of Gil Gilberto and Dave Brubeck. A real buzzard...

21 May, 2013

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...

21 May, 2013

vocalizing piano duo and percussion [7-8’] 2008. Commissioner: Toca Loca Premiere: Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, March 25, 2008. Program note: Five leaps into the vexing world of Alanis Morrissette and the never-ending list of opposites found in her song Hand in My Pocket. Why choose this song? I heard it when I first came to Canada in 1996 which gives it a sentimental gloss, but I'm also intrigued by songs that we remember in spite of ourselves. How does that work exactly? I also couldn't but help think of the invincible pianist and cyclist Gregory Oh when Alanis sings "I'm short but I'm healthy, I'm high...

20 May, 2013

double bass + audio playback [25’] 1994. Premiere: Robert Black, Princeton, March 3, 1994. Program note: The tape part for A Bridge of Ice was recorded on Williamsburg Bridge, New Year’s Day, 1994.  ...

20 May, 2013

3 3 3 3 / 4 3 2 1/ timp 2 perc hp / str [12’] 2001. Commissioner: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand, July 19, 2001. Program note: 1. When I walked into St. Thomas’ Church in Leipzig last October, the space was filled with the sound and smell of sawing wood. Beneath the sawing came the rumble of a single giant organ pipe. A sign demanded complete silence: the organ was being tuned. Shhhhh! My mind jumped to other wood being sawn, other trees being felled — for canoes,...

20 May, 2013

3 3 3 3 / 4 3 3 1 / timp 3 perc / str [5’54"] 1999. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Secret-Arnold_JulietPalmer_APO.mp3"][/audio] Commissioner: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra with conductor Samuel Wong, Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand, May 5, 1999. Program note: In his Second String Quartet op.10, Schoenberg stepped outside the four corners of the quartet and created a sublime part for soprano. In the last movement she sings 'I feel air from other planets'. Just as Schoenberg opened a door for classical music with his Second String Quartet, Jamaican dub started the sampling and scratching scene which grooved all the way...

19 May, 2013

cl, perc, pf, vn, va, db [16'] 2004. Commissioner: Arraymusic Funders: The Laidlaw Foundation and Ontario Arts Council Premiere: FontanaMIX Ensemble with conductor Giorgio Magnanensi, Angelica Festival, Teatro San Leonardo, Bologna, Italy, May 23, 2004. Program note: The march is connected with both military and alternative political gatherings. Trying to understand the form, I’ve been listening to Purcell’s Queen’s Funeral March, the conga playing of Québec Summit protestors and the strangely military snap of Old Mother Hubbard (performed by the US Air Force Band). Revisiting this nursery rhyme, I was struck by the revolutionary aspirations of the last verse: The dame made a curtsey,  The dog made...

18 May, 2013

cl, tpt, perc, pf, vn, db & CD [16'] 2002. Commissioner: Arraymusic Funders: The Laidlaw Foundation and Ontario Arts Council Premiere: Arraymusic, Toronto, March 8, 2002 Program note: The march is connected with both military and alternative political gatherings. Trying to understand the form, I’ve been listening to Purcell’s Queen’s Funeral March, the conga playing of Québec Summit protestors and the strangely military snap of Old Mother Hubbard (performed by the US Air Force Band). Revisiting this nursery rhyme, I was struck by the revolutionary aspirations of the last verse: The dame made a curtsey,  The dog made a bow; The dame said, "Your servant,"  The dog said, "Bow,...

18 May, 2013

piano trio [3'] 2004. Commissioner: Composing for a Change and Music Toronto. Premiere: Gryphon Trio, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto, February 27, 2004. Program note: dive(rs) began life as a study for an orchestra piece for l'Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal (Buzzard). I found myself sandwiched between dance music by two Russians: Stravinsky's Firebird and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. In writing this trio, I wanted to see what sense of the dancers' movement and grace would survive my somewhat brutal compostional process of digitization and digestion. In chewing my sources well, it's possible that I also wanted to cause them a little pain. Thankfully the dance survives...

17 May, 2013

Violin and CD [15']. Commissioned by Mark Menzies (Los Angeles, USA) with funding from Creative New Zealand. 2002. One spring afternoon, I wander over the hills of Te Kahu farm with Mark Menzies. This is the New Zealand sheep farm where he grew up: a place of steep gullies where voices (and bagpipes) echo and macrocarpa trees cling stubbornly to the eroded slopes. Following the sound of frenzied bleating we arrive at the docking yard, a make-shift enclosure of metal gates and ramps where lambs and ewes are separated for the first time in their lives. While chatting politely with the resident...

16 May, 2013

string quartet [15’] 2001. Commissioner: The New Zealand String Quartet Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: NZSQ, Adam Festival of Chamber Music, Nelson, New Zealand, February 6, 2001. Program note: ‘Foreign kingdoms are like an enormous photograph’. So begins ‘La Vuelta al Reino Extranjero’, performed by the greatest son huasteco trio in Mexico, Los Camperos de Valles. Comprising the virtuosic violinist Heliodoro Copado, Marcos Hernández’ extraordinary falsetto and the jarana guitar playing of Gregorio Solano, this trio sizzles to the words of a legendary trovador, Serapio El Güero Nieto. Rhythmic sleights-of-hand twist an already complex argument of two against three into an intoxicating ‘journey to a foreign...

15 May, 2013

clarinet in Bb, 2 bass clarinets [7’] 2000. Commissioner: The Solaris Trio Premiere: International Clarinetfest, Norman, Oklahoma, USA, July, 2000. Program note: My high school in New Zealand specialised in rugby and horticulture. I was interested in neither. Twenty years later, rush takes me back to my roots — crisp early mornings playing in the school clarinet choir, an aberration in a world that spoke the language of rugby and kiwifruit. Revisiting the school sportsfield, rush is named after the rugby technique of moving the ball forward with short kicks and runs. rush is dedicated to the Solaris Trio....

14 May, 2013

vocalizing gamelan orchestra [25'] 2012. Commissioner: Gamelan Padhang Moncar Premiere: TBA Program note: Nails as a rose, nails with tiny heads blunted of reason hammered by iron held by a hand at the end of an arm at the end of a brain at the end of a nail at the end of a thorn;   —  Janet Frame The Goose Bath Poems...

14 May, 2013

sound installation 1998. [gallery columns="4" ids="860,863,864,865"] Commissioner: Mercer Union Premiere: Mercer Union Gallery, Toronto, Canada, May 15-June 20, 1998. Thanks: Martin Arnold, Steve Bishop, Sam Bishop-Green, Nicholas Brooke, Allison Cameron, Ruth Caston, Millie Chen, Ann Christie, Christian Christie, Sasha Lutz-Winkler, Barbara Milewski, Eliot Palmer, James Rolfe, Nicholas Scott Rolfe, John Sherlock, Evelyn Von Michalofski, Todd Winkler and Mary Wright. Program note: A Guided Viewing hijacks the gallery audio-guide and reworks it into a face-to-face encounter between viewer and ‘artwork’. Questioning the idea of an authoritative voice, A Guided Viewing presents instead a polyphony of voices, each equally insistent....

13 May, 2013

afl/fl, vn, va, vc, db [15’] 2000. Commissioner: Continuum Contemporary Musi Funder: Ontario Arts Council Premiere: Continuum Ensemble, The Music Gallery, Toronto, Canada, June 16, 2000. Program note: When a handful of 9,000 year-old flutes was unearthed recently in China, the first impulse of the archaeologists was to play them. While hoping to reconnect to a lost time and culture, the archaeologists succeeded in cracking several of the instruments. More careful study revealed that the flutes were tuned to ‘familiar’ scales, enabling their former owners to play ‘perhaps even music’. A researcher then performed a Chinese folk tune, Little Cabbage, on one of the flutes....

13 May, 2013

fl, cl, pf, perc, vn, vc + narrator [14'] 2010. Commissioner: Continuum Contemporary Music Funder: The Toronto Arts Council and The Ontario Arts Council Premiere: Continuum Ensemble & RH Thomson, The Music Gallery, Toronto, May 21, 2010. Text: Thomas King from the 1993 novel Green Grass, Running Water Program note: "In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water." "But where did all the water come from?” Throughout Thomas King’s novel the character of the trickster Coyote reappears, hopelessly bamboozled, trying to learn what really happened when the world began. Who knows the Real Story? Coyote would like to think he does, but then there's Coyote's Dream -...

13 May, 2013

alto sax, bass clarinet + ‘cello [15’] 1999. Commissioner: Mark Storey Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: 175 East, Hopetoun Alpha, Auckland, New Zealand, May 9, 1999. Program note: Three things: 1. Listening to Othello, drifting in and out of sleep, I hear Iago warn his master, ‘Beware my lord of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster; cruelly aye it doth mock the meat it feeds on, and with its poison doth change our nature.’ 2. A dislocated groove repeatedly interrupts  a seduction in the 'Earth, Wind and Fire' song Can’t Hide Love. 3. Trellis: what my sweet peas climb up each summer. It's loosely woven together from strips...

12 May, 2013

for 2 percussionists [10’] 1998. [gallery ids="866,868,870"] Premiere: Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Voix Nouvelles, Royaumont, France, September 26, 1998. Text: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Program note: Blood Shower is based on the poetry and polemics of Filippo Tomasi Marinetti, author of the Futurist Manifesto. Nourished by “fire, hatred and speed”, the futurists exulted in a Utopia of technological violence. In conflict with this ideal of a “heroic hygiene”, Marinetti’s work is pervaded by a passionate sensuality: love becomes both sadistic and voluptuous. Blood Shower juxtaposes and blends sounds from daily life with ‘normal’ percussion sounds, while weaving an enigmatic relationship between the two musicians....

12 May, 2013

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....

12 May, 2013

sop, afl, bcl, perc, kbd, vn + db [10'] 2009. Commissioner: Motion Ensemble Funder: Canada Council for the Arts Premiere: Motion Ensemble, Sappyfest, Sackville, July 31, 2009. Lyrics: Burton Cummings (excerpted from the Guess Who song) Program note: In 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, Canadian band the Guess Who released the song “American Woman”. The album of the same name became their first U.S. Top Ten hit and first gold album. The group performed for President and Mrs. Nixon and Prince Charles at the White House. (Pat Nixon requested that “American Woman” be dropped from the set list.) In recomposing “American Woman” I was...

12 May, 2013

CD/sound installation/radio broadcast 1995. [gallery columns="4" ids="572,573,575,577"] Commissioner: Artspace Gallery Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: Artspace Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, August 29-September 22, 1995. Radio Broadcast: Concert FM (NZ)and ABC's The Listening Room (Australia) Text: Josh Lacey Program note: Miasma is about the weather. Miasma is about the remote chance of getting what you want. Miasma is a multi-track work for two compact disc players, mute weather channel T.V. and living room. Utilizing the random shuffle feature of two domestic CD players, twenty short dialogues by English writer Josh Lacey combine with forty-four music tracks in an endlessly changing remix. The dialogues use meteorological language to describe broader concerns,...

11 May, 2013

guitar quartet [15’] 1995. Premiere: Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, Taplin Auditorium, Princeton, USA, May 3, 1995. Program note: a porous or vesicular carbonate of lime...

11 May, 2013

six pianos [9’] 1995. Commissioner: Piano Circus Premiere: Piano Circus, Birmingham Symphony Hall, England, January 2, 1995. Program note: For a composer, the piano is so often merely a means to an end — the blank sheet on which we write. Focusing on melody seemed an apt way for me to rediscover the piano's own voice. I owe a debt of inspiration to many pianists and composers, among them Aretha Franklin, Glenn Gould, Sergio Mendes, Theolonius Monk, Nina Simone and Cecil Taylor....

11 May, 2013

afl/fl/picc, cl/bcl, hn, tbn, pf/cel, vn + vc [11'] 2004. Commissioner: Continuum Contemporary Music Funder: The Laidlaw Foundation Premiere: Continuum Ensemble with conductor Patrick Gallois, Music Gallery, Toronto, Canada , February 17, 2004. Program note: With the help of neighbours and a precarious arrangement of plywood and castors, we hauled an old cast iron bath tub from the back garden to the curb. Within hours it had vanished. Scooped up by scrap metal scavengers the tub was on its way to a new life as...

11 May, 2013

for voice, tape, food blender, electronics, grapefruit & slides [25’] 1993. [gallery columns="4" ids="1244,1245,1246,1247"] [audio mp3="http://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Citrus.mp3"][/audio] Commissioner: Richard Dale Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: Juliet Palmer, SoundCulture Japan, Tokyo, January 27, 1993. Ars Electronica: honourable mention, 1994 Voices: C. Bryan Roulon, Matt Wuolle, Mark Zaki, Josefina Calzada-Garza, Christoph Erlenkamp, Jeffrey Fourmaux, Juliet Palmer, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Janet Parker Program note: Beginning with a photograph I hold dear of my grandparents proudly displaying bunches of home-grown grapefruit, I set out to make this image resonate through my obsessive expression of this personal icon. I wanted to turn the grapefruit into sound. Grapefruit. I searched for texts using the words pulp, juice, juicy, grapefruit,...

10 May, 2013

variable instrumentation + randomly tracking CD, 1995 & 2001. Commissioner: Artspace, New Zealand (installation); Wetterfest, Austria (concert) Funder: Creative New Zealand Premiere: Veni Ensemble, Wetterfest, Vienna, Austria. October 19, 2001. Text: Josh Lacey Program note: Miasma is about the weather. Miasma is about the remote chance of getting what you want. Miasma is a multi-track work for two compact disc players, mute weather channel T.V. and living room. Utilizing the random shuffle feature of two domestic CD players, twenty short dialogues by English writer Josh Lacey combine with forty-four music tracks in an endlessly changing remix. The dialogues use meteorological language to describe broader concerns, their randomization...

10 May, 2013

string quartet [10’] 1994. Premiere: Lydian String Quartet, Princeton, January 17, 1994. Program note: he ‘Elgin Marbles’, taken from the Parthenon, lie at the centre of a long-standing property dispute between Greece and the British Government. Encountering these sculptures in the British Museum for the first time, I was intrigued to learn that one of the decorative motifs adorning its carved stone form was known as ‘egg and tongue’. The sensuously rounded forms of eggs and tongues alternate and repeat along the borders of the monumental sculptures, an ancient pattern combining symbols of virility and fertility. The motif is widespread: several years later,...

10 May, 2013

fl/picc, cl/bass cl, vn, va, vcl, pno, perc [14:05] 1992. [audio mp3="https://www.julietpalmer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/skirt.mp3"][/audio] Commission: Bang on a Can Festival Premiere: Present Music, New York, May 1992 Recording: Dinosaur Annex, Boston, October, 1993 Program note: Fragmentary recollections of beginnings...

09 May, 2013