Couloir can’t wait for West Coast reunion
Something’s going on in the street outside Heidi Krutzen’s London digs. Even over a transatlantic phone connection, shouting and other forms of commotion can be heard— and are those small explosions, or just fireworks?
It’s an early Guy Fawkes celebration, the former Vancouverite explains, hinting that this year there are more than a few in the crowd who’d be happy to see Parliament blown up, and Boris Johnson too. “It has quite an interesting symbolic feeling to it,” she says wryly. “More than, perhaps, other years.”
As principal harpist with the U.K. capital’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the looming catastrophe of Brexit is much on her mind.
“Honestly, no one knows what’s happening,” she explains. “We keep holding out hope that Brexit won’t happen, and every time it looks really bad something happens that gives us just a little bit of hope again—but, ultimately, it will affect the arts tremendously.…Most of our conductors are from Europe, our soloists are often from Europe, and we tour in Europe all the time—but if this goes through we won’t be able to.”
With this as the backdrop, Krutzen is especially happy to revisit the West Coast, for a concert that finds her Couloir duo with cellist Ariel Barnes joining Vancouver’s own Turning Point Ensemble, which she helped form in 2002.
“I love Turning Point,” she says. “It’s an inventive and creative and magical group, and it still means a lot to me. Jeremy and Owen [artistic directors Jeremy Berkman and Owen Underhill] and the people who help run the day-to-day have done an extraordinary job of creating an incredible performing environment for people. It’s interdisciplinary, with film and dance and spoken word.…And to be able to create on that level, with such interesting programs, is quite rare.”
A further inducement to return, she adds, is that Couloir and Turning Point will be premiering The Razor Hiss of a Whisper, a new work by B.C. composer James Maxwell, whose Serere was a highlight of the duo’s 2016 recording, Maxwell, Muhly & Couloir. Like that earlier piece, The Razor Hiss of a Whisper will include an electroacoustic component, which Krutzen says makes the piece very much “of today”—and its intrinsic turbulence also seems timely.
“He’s kind of looking at different ‘incorrect’ sounds, if you will, meaning sounds that we think are slightly untoward versus sounds that we think are okay,” Krutzen notes. “Like maybe the phenomenon of coughing in a concert hall, where everybody coughs at the same time, or the rustling of candy wrappers and things like that.
“I think sometimes Couloir is going to be very clashing with the ensemble, and then at other times very harmonious,” she adds. “It’s an incredibly intense journey, and then at the end it opens up into this very peaceful, very beautiful space.”
It’s an inventive and creative and magical group, and it still means a lot to me.
– Heidi Krutzen
Turning Point Ensemble and Couloir join forces for Musical Innovators, at the Orpheum Annex on Saturday and Monday (November 9 and 11).