[Foreshadow]: Continnuum

Continuum Contemporary Music Presents

[Foreshadow]

Dutch and British works & some of the best of Continuum’Äôs commissions in recent years

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 8 pm

The Music Gallery

Toronto, October 20, 2008: Continuum Contemporary Music launches the 2008/09 season with [Foreshadow] at The Music Gallery on Tuesday, November 11. With this programme, Continuum’Äôs ensemble gears up for its second European tour. Works are a sampling of the touring repertoire: 9 through 99, by Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz and Underpaintings, by British composer Ian Vine. [Foreshadow] also features works by Canadian composers: Moonlight on the Bluff, by Martin Arnold; Marsh Chapel Experiment, by Nicole Lizˆ©e and Liquid States by Linda Bouchard. Fast pieces can really move, or they can stand still ’Äì slow pieces can wash over the listener or create dynamic tension; [Foreshadow] balances movement and stasis through essays in time.

9 through 99, by Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz, reflects in its relentless, dizzying precariousness, the composer’Äôs preoccupation with formalism, structure and audible mathematics. Underpaintings, by British composer Ian Vine, is a slow shadowy piece that moves mysteriously through a highly coloured landscape. Widely commissioned in the UK and abroad, Vine has worked extensively with London Sinfonietta and is artistic director of Radius (London) and first moon. Continuum performs his work at Sound Festival in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Recent Continuum commissions are Moonlight on the Bluff (2005), by Martin Arnold, and Marsh Chapel Experiment (2007), by Nicole Lizˆ©e. Arnold teaches at Trent University, plays guitar, banjo, hurdy-gurdy and melodica with a number of groups in Toronto, and in the summer works as a gardener. Moonlight (included on Continuum’Äôs latest CD, Sea Change) is an intricate interlacing of lines that are calculated to lead nowhere. Continuum plays it on tour at November Music and in the UK at the prestigious Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF.) Marsh Chapel Experiment, by Nicole Lizˆ©e, manipulates tempo and motion in a more programmatic sense, ala psilocybin experience, by making use of ghetto blaster as percussion ’Äì the ghetto blaster playing distorted karaoke tapes -- and through the video that accompanies the work. The work is played again at HCMF. Active as composer, rock musician and video artist, Lizˆ©e exemplifies the mix of genre and media and musical overflow so much in evidence in Montreal.

A composer-in-residence with the National Arts Centre Orchestra during the days of Trevor Pinnock, Linda Bouchard is represented in this concert by Liquid States. In Amsterdam Continuum joins with the acclaimed Ives Ensemble for the premiere of her new work as part of SHIFT, a festival of Canadian and Dutch arts.

Led by artistic director Jennifer Waring, Continuum has one of the finest new music ensembles in the country. Members are Anne Thompson (flute), Max Christie (clarinet), Benjamin Bowman (violin), Paul Widner (cello), Ryan Scott (percussion) and Laurent Philippe (piano) and regular guest conductor Gregory Oh. The upcoming European tour is organized around SHIFT, a festival of Canadian and Dutch music, film, literature and visual art that takes place in Amsterdam in November 2008 and is repeated in Toronto in February 2009. Continuum is the instigator and artistic and organizational lead; partners include the International Festival of Authors, Images Festival of Film and Video, Harbourfront, and in Amsterdam, the Muziekgebouw aan ’Äòt IJ and Muziek Centrum Nederland.

Other concerts in Continuum’Äôs 2008 -09 season are SHIFTed, February 28, 2009, and After Image, a co-production with Images Festival in April 2009.

Continuum is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, SOCAN Foundation, the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation and many private donors.

Continuum Contemporary Music presents

[Foreshadow]

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 8 pm at The Music Gallery

197 John Street, north of Queen

Tickets ($25 regular/$15 member + senior/$5 student)

will be available at the door on the night of the concert.

For more information on this concert, Continuum’Äôs European tour and SHIFT please visit www.continuummusic.org, email josh@continuummusic.org

or call (416) 924-4945.