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Continuum Contemporary Music Presents ORGANized Mechanical organs and other musical contraptions Sunday, February 12, 2012, 8pm at The Music Gallery For Immediate Release – Toronto, January 11, 2012: Continuum Contemporary Music returns to the Music Gallery on Sunday, February 12, to present ORGANized. Mechanical/human, past/present – this is a concert that breaches boundaries. Works by Petar Klanac, Michael Oesterle and Richard Marsella pit Continuum’s ensemble against mechanical devices ranging from musical contraption through simple crank organ to decorated cabinet organ. Other works include a commission from Brian Current, and Ligeti’s Continuum arranged for two marimbas. Also part of the event is a talk by Henk de Graauw, a Dutch-Canadian inventor and whisperer of street organs. The mechanical organ used in the concert (an indoor organ as opposed to the brash instrument used on the streets) was engineered and built by Henk de Graauw. As part of the event, Henk will present a talk on mechanical organs at 4pm, prior to the concert. Petar Klanac’s work Les petites créatures (The little beings), is imbued with the idea of the power or grandeur of smallness. Klanac was inspired by Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux's writings: «They say that all souls are tempted by the devil at the hour of death, so I will have to go through that. Yet no, I'm too small. With the very small, he can't ». “I was astonished by how clearly Sainte Thérèse expresses the invincible character of smallness. Smallness is incorruptible, not as an attribute but within its own nature”, writes Klanac. Now based in France, Petar Klanac studied with Gilles Tremblay in Montreal and Gérard Grisey in Paris. Influenced by Medieval processes and often inspired by religious themes (as a boy he sang in the Saint Joseph’s Oratory choir in Montreal), Klanac’s music has won acclaim in Canada and in Europe. By contrast, the work of Richard Marsella, aka Friendly Rich, tends towards the exuberant. For the last decade he has been tinkering with street organs, barrel organs and other mechanical and midi-driven devices with his friend Henk de Graauw in a tool shed in Bramalea, Ontario. In this piece, Friendly Rich disintegrates the beer barrel polka, using Henk's mechanical organ, a barrel organ, other mechanical devices and Continuum’s ensemble. Richard Marsella has composed background music for The Tom Green Show, run his own eclectic record label, The Pumpkin Pie Corporation, was programmer for the Ottawa Winter Festival and is currently director of the Brampton Indie Arts Festival and the Regent Park School of Music. He completed a Masters degree in music at the University of Toronto, concentrating on musical instrument construction and parade pedagogy. Look on glass, for ensemble, by Michael Oesterle, is a new version of a work written Japanese koto and marimba. Although the koto is omitted here, shifting focus to the marimba, its presence is felt in the sparse plucky textures of the piccolo, violin, cello and mechanical device. Oesterle writes that each the four movements of the piece, “act as a miniature, or what I like to think of as a musical haiku. These haiku are dedicated to the annual promise of emergence from beneath continuum 300 bloor street west, toronto, on m5s 1w3 CANADA t: 416.924.4945 www.continuummusic.org charitable no. 118875228 RR0001 what seems an impenetrable and unforgiving surface of hardened earth and ice.” Montreal composer Michael Oesterle is one of Canada’s most accomplished and busiest composers. Strata by Brian Current was commissioned by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Continuum in 2010 with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council. The title refers to the layering of musical material found throughout the work. Layers or patterns overlap with themselves; musical shapes are created by widening glissando lines. Brian Current, a leading composer of his generation, has been commissioned and performed by ensembles large and small, from the St. Lawrence String Quartet to the Warsaw National Philharmonic. He is music director and conductor of the Royal Conservatory’s New Music Ensemble. Continuum for harpsichord (1968), by György Ligeti, and performed in this concert on two marimbas, is to be performed so fast that the notes merge into a continuum. Rhythmic variation is created though the introduction into the sound stream of new pitches – in this way expressing qualities of chaos theory, ideas he was introduced to long after writing the work. Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923 - 2006) made a substantial impact on international contemporary music both as a university professor and as a leading composer of his generation. Continuum’s ensemble is: Anne Thompson (flute), Max Christie (clarinet), Carol Fujino (violin), Paul Widner (cello), Laurent Philippe (piano) and Ryan Scott (percussion); guest artists for this concert are Haruka Fujii (percussion) and Brian Current (conductor). Led by artistic directors Jennifer Waring and Ryan Scott, Continuum presents concerts featuring the core ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion, as well as unusual instrumental combinations. The organization has commissioned and premiered approximately 150 new works from emerging Canadian and international composers, and also established composers charting new territory. Increasingly the group engages in collaboration and interdisciplinary work. Continuum is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, the SOCAN Foundation, the Julie Jiggs Foundation, Roger D. Moore, and many private donors. ORGANized Sunday, February 12, 2012, 8 pm The Music Gallery: 197 John Street Tickets ($25 adults / $15 students, seniors, arts workers & Music Gallery members) available at the door on the night of the concert For more information please visit www.continuummusic.org, email [email protected] or call (416) 924-4945 Media Contact: Francine Labelle/flINK 416 654-4406 [email protected] continuum 300 bloor street west, toronto, on m5s 1w3 CANADA t: 416.924.4945 www.continuummusic.org charitable no. 118875228 RR0001