Pollock and Sinfonia Ancaster take on forces of nature
One day several years ago, Sinfonia Ancaster music director Jeffrey Pollock was driving in his car when CBC Radio 2 began playing Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Cantus Arcticus.”
“I was completely captivated,” recalled Pollock. “I had to pull off the road and listen to the rest of the piece. I couldn’t believe this was a piece for orchestra.”
Composed in 1972 and subtitled “Concerto for Birds and Orchestra,” “Cantus Arcticus” is an electro-acoustic work in three movements for orchestra and pre-recorded birdsongs, the latter taped by Rautavaara in the Arctic Circle and the marshes around Liminka then processed in a studio.
“The combination of recorded birdsong that’s played simultaneously with live orchestral music makes for a transcendent and immersive experience,” said Pollock. “Rautavaara writes long, slow, upwardly searching melodies for strings and brass. The harp and celesta add the sparkles of the perennial arctic snow and the woodwind instruments become birds themselves.”
Not real live birds, of course, but you get the idea.
Ever since that day, Pollock has been waiting for an opportunity to program Rautavaara’s signature piece.
That wait is over.
On Friday, at 7 p.m. in the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre, 357 Wilson St. E., Pollock will lead Sinfonia Ancaster, a 50-member community orchestra with eight paid coaches, in Rautavaara’s “Cantus Arcticus” on a bill entitled, “Forces of Nature.”
The opening work will be the Canadian premiere of Juhi Bansal’s 2022 “Songs from the Deep.”
“I wanted to pair Rautavaara’s piece about the sky with one of water,” said Pollock. “When I discovered Juhi Bansal’s piece (on the website Accessible Diverse Orchestral Repertoire Equity, ADORE for short), it just clicked. They complement each other very well, as they are two pieces that showcase the wild and untamed sides of Nature.”
On her website, the India-born, Hong Kong-raised, Los Angelesbased Bansal wrote, “Inspired by an experience hearing humpback whale songs while diving, ‘Songs from the Deep,’ juxtaposes antiphonal masses of sound, Hindustani melodies and dramatic color shifts to build an homage to an immersive soundscape of water, movement, current and flow; of changing colors and shifting light; of wild voices emerging out of chaos.”
“I think our audience is absolutely going to love it,” said Pollock of the Bansal. “It is radiant, vibrant and full of colour. What first captivated me about the piece is its surging beginning, which, to my ear, accurately evokes the roiling, undulating currents of the ocean.”
Pollock’s recorded interview with Bansal about her inspiration and compositional process for the piece will be shown prior to the performance.
After intermission, Pollock and SA will dig into C. P. E. Bach’s “String Symphony in C” and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 1.”
Tickets via sinfoniaancaster.com:
$25, senior $20, under 14 $15 (plus fees).
Ernie Porthouse is a man of many hats. He’s a pedorthist and a freelance percussionist who’s played everything from jazz to classical rep with orchestras such as the Hamilton Philharmonic, the KitchenerWaterloo Symphony and Sinfonia Ancaster for whom he’ll be playing the timpani on March 10.
In December 2019, the Stoney Creek-raised, Brantford-based Porthouse returned from a trip to Italy with the baking bug.
He took an online pizza making course with Vito Iacopelli who also shared his family recipe for focaccia.
Since then, Porthouse has become a master baker of focaccia, supplying Massimo Capra’s Mississauga restaurant, Capra’s Kitchen.
Porthouse is also a man with a big heart.
“During the course of the pandemic I began giving the breads to fellow musicians who were showing signs of depression or anxiety and some who had lost loved ones to COVID,” said Porthouse. “I ended up delivering more than 200 focaccia, mostly to musicians, just to cheer them up and have a talk. When the pandemic started to diminish, the war (in Ukraine) hit and I was at a loss to help in any way I could. I thought I might raise a few bucks by selling the bread.”
A few bucks? So far, Porthouse has raised and donated $10,540 to Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hamilton.
His focaccia is available for $10 and can be ordered via his Facebook Messenger “Focaccia Portocasa” page.
LEONARD TURNEVICIUS WRITES ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR. LEONARDTURNEVICIUS@GMAIL.COM