OUT WITH A BANG
Percussion tops SSO finale
For nearly a decade, the Ritornello Music Festival has been pushing the boundaries of chamber music and bringing the music style to new venues and audiences. Now, one of its founders is part of an Ottawa-based quartet with a “take no prisoners” attitude it will showcase at a pair of performances at this year’s festival.
Ritornello co-founder and Saskatoon native Carissa Klopoushak has joined with three of her colleagues from the National Arts Centre Orchestra to create the Ironwood Quartet. It’s a place to explore different music and their love of the chamber format. The group was born out of the NAC’s WolfGANG Sessions, a series that pairs orchestra musicians with video projection artists.
“We’re playing some pretty cool, adventurous stuff,” she said.
After their first performance in 2015, the foursome — which also includes Jessica Linnebach, Julia MacLaine and David Marks — decided to keep playing together. They followed that up with a show at The Record Centre in Ottawa, a record store that also hosts live music. Ironwood was the first string quartet to perform in the space.
Though they’re still a new group, the quartet hopes to bring future performances to unusual places.
Ironwood’s Ritornello show takes place at Village Guitar & Amp. They’ll also join pianist Jon Kimura Parker for the second half of his performance at Convocation Hall on May 12 to play a Brahms piano quintet.
Ironwood gives the musicians an outlet to explore the music they’ve always wanted to play, such as minimalist composer Philip Glass and new Canadian composers. The Village Guitar show features the second movement of Ravel’s string quartet. Film fans might recognize it as the music that accompanies the opening credits of The Royal Tenenbaums.
“It’s one of the big quartets in the repertoire. It’s pretty standard in some ways, but it’s a really amazing piece of music,” said Klopoushak.
The show also includes Janacek’s Kreutzer Sonata. The piece is based on a Tolstoy novella, in which a husband recounts the murder of his wife to strangers on a train. As a result, the piece is dramatic, with a train-like cadence. The show’s third piece is by Caroline Shaw, a youngest-ever of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Ironwood will perform her piece Entr’acte.
“It sounds both really old and really new at the same,” said Klopoushak.
In addition to the practicality of having the same schedule in the NAC Orchestra, Klopoushak said the musicians in Ironwood are a good fit both because of their shared and different experiences.
“My friends in the group are really amazing creative people with really diverse backgrounds,” she said.
Klopoushak is looking forward to Ironwood’s Ritornello performances but, as one of the founders alongside pianist Jacqueline Woods, she also exciting about the other programming.
Parker’s show will begin with solo performances of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata and William Hirtz’s Fantasy on Wizard of Oz.
“I watched his video, looking at his hands flying around, it’s a difficult piece. But it will be a showstopper, I’m sure,” said Klopoushak said of the latter.
Ritornello concludes with a Mother’s Day matinee performance at Mayfair United Church. The concert features many local musicians, including Mistral 5, the principal woodwind players of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra.
Klopoushak said chamber music is one of the biggest vehicles for innovation in music today, often combining the classical and indie/ experimental scenes into something that both challenges and welcomes audience members. It’s also a nice way to get away from all the noise.
“The world can be a loud place. It’s not like this is soft and relaxing, but it’s more earthy and organic,” she said.