The commanding power of Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper
SGT. PEPPER RETURNS When: Friday, 7 p.m. Where: Dominion-Chalmers United Church Tickets: from $30, at chamberfest. com When the Toronto-based Art of Time Ensemble brought its re-imagining of the music from the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to Chamberfest in 2013, it drew a record-setting audience, almost selling out Dominion-Chalmers United Church.
Knowing a crowd-pleaser when it sees one, Chamberfest has brought back the genre-spanning project for a reprise on Friday night as the closing gala concert of its 2017 edition, synced to mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark pop album’s release.
In the edited conversation below, Art of Time’s pianist and artistic director Andrew Burashko delves into the power of Sgt. Pepper and discusses how his group, which will be augmented by four pop vocalists, including Steven Page, has staked a claim on its timeless music.
Q What do the songs on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band mean to you?
A They’ve been a constant in my life from the age of eight. It’s probably the oldest musical influence in my life. Being a classical musician and getting to play it is an incredible treat, because it’s not something that classical musicians usually get to do — play the Beatles in its pop form.
That music was their most ambitious to that point in terms of scale of arrangements, in terms of use of orchestra, production … they recorded it pretty much in the same year as Revolver, which in many ways is a more interesting record, but the leap in terms of production from Revolver to Sgt. Pepper was huge.
So I felt like this album, this music had room for really innovative and rich arrangements, because the originals are so interesting.
Q Tell me more about the arrangements that you’re using.
A Rather than trying to sound like the Beatles — which would be just like a terrible idea, because what they did was so perfect — I wanted to do something different with it.
For years we’ve been doing these projects called the Songbooks, with various opera and jazz singers — Hawksley Workman, Madeleine Peyroux, Sarah Slean, Steven Page, et cetera — and the idea with those, which is basically the predecessor to the Beatles project, was to find that fine line between being as experimental as possible while retaining the essence the song — so it doesn’t suddenly sound like something completely other.
One thing that I really struggle with are classical versions of pop music. I feel like they just rob the music of its soul. So the essence has to remain intact. Most of it is done by the pop singer, as opposed to a classical singer, and also half the band (Art of Time Ensemble) being from that the world.
I just invited a bunch of composers who I really respect, who are amazing at what they do, from the classical world, the pop world, the jazz world, to create interesting arrangements.
(With) all the arrangements, everyone went to a really interesting place ... except for me. I arranged Sgt. Pepper’s and the reprise because I wanted them to be a touchstone. They’re quite close to the original.
The one thing that was off limits to all the arrangers were melodies and the vocal harmonies. If you’re sitting in the audience and singing along with the album, it’s the same as the original. Everything behind it, in the fabric, the orchestrations, the counterpoint in the music, everything is different than the original. Everything. Yet, it’s really is for Beatles fans, it doesn’t disappoint the Beatles fans. That was really the goal, to do this music justice.
Q How do you think the upcoming performance in Ottawa will compare to the one here in November 2013?
A It’s so hard to say. From the perspective of the band, having so many goes at it is invaluable. They’re very, very sophisticated and tricky arrangements. We’ve since done it maybe 40 or 50 times. That will probably make a huge difference. But I don’t know how obvious that will be to the listener. Hopefully it will be as good a show.