Animating Art Song Series ⮛ | Reaching Out Through Song ⮚
Animating Art Song Series
The Wild Goose
CASP’s first animation project
Premiere: Saturday, June 15, 2024 at the Revue Cinema
The song “The Wild Goose” was originally written by singer / songwriter Wade Hemsworth and arranged for Canadian Art Song Project by Cecilia Livingston in 2019. CASP Co-Artistic Directors, pianist Steven Philcox and tenor Lawrence Wiliford recorded the arrangement in this new animated short.
The Wild Goose animation project by Canadian Art Song Project pays homage to the National Film Board supported animation projects The Log Driver’s Waltz (1979) and Blackfly (Christopher Hinton, 1991), both inspired by Wade Hemsworth songs. A team of talented animation students from OCAD University collaborated with CASP on this project under the supervision of Experimental Animation faculty member and Chair, Philippe Blanchard.
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Reaching Out Through Song
CHRISTOS HATZIS: Three Songs on Poems by Anne Michaels
Video Released Feb 16 2023
Canadian Art Song Project is thrilled to present the video premiere of Three Songs on Poems of Anne Michaels by Christos Hatzis. Commissioned to celebrate CASP’s 10th Anniversary in 2021, hopes of a live premiere were dashed with the arrival of Covid-19.
Written for tenor and piano, the work defies idiomatic convention, offering moments inspired by classical, jazz and other music traditions. The songs in the 30 minute set are titled: 1. Women on the Beach; 2. Not; 3. Somewhere Night is Falling. More information about the commission and score can be found here.
This filmed performance, featuring CASP directors Lawrence Wiliford and Steven Philcox, was made possible through the generous support of the Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts. The film features audio engineering by Aaron Tsang and cinematography by John Lauener.
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JOHN BECKWITH: Four Short Songs
Video Released March 9 2022
In Celebration of John Beckwith’s 95th birthday, CASP is releasing a music video performance of Beckwith’s Four Short Songs – settings of German poems by Wassily Kandinsky as translated to English by Elizabeth R. Napier. Released as part of CASP’s REACHING OUT THROUGH SONG video series, the film features mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó and pianist Steven Philcox performing, and is directed and filmed by Patrick Hagarty and Jennifer Nichols.
Composed in 2014, the songs in the 5 minute cycle are titled: 1. Song; 2. Table; 3. Why?; 4. Earth. The score can be previewed and purchased here on the CMC website. More details >
ABIGAIL RICHARDSON: Another Day
Video Released Feb 7 2022
The Another Day cycle was commissioned in 2019 by Canadian Art Song Project and Jeunesses Musicales Canada for the Jeunesses Musicales Canada 2019-2020 Maureen Forrester recital tour. Due to the pandemic, the planned tour had to be cancelled, so CASP and JMC have collaborated to premiere the new work on video.
This third and final commission for the Maureen Forrester Prize is inspired by the poetry of children reflecting on the experiences of refugees. In 2009 the UNHCR Toronto office (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and COSTI Immigrant Services organized the first Refugees and Human Rights Child and Youth Poetry Contest in commemoration of World Refugee Day. Several years of winning poems were published in a collection entitled “A Book of Poems: Expressions from our Youth”. Composer Abigail Richardson-Schulte sets six of these poems in this powerful work. More details >