The Shaman: Spectacular New Canadian Orchestral Music: CD Review, 19th May 2018.

by Alan J Cronin for New Music Buff

I don’t know what it is about political borders and the arts but there must be some kind of walls up that prevent musical immigration from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, etc. In short there is a strong Eurocentric/American flavor to the classical music distributed here.

One of the issues with which the large colonial countries such as the United States and Canada grappled was the tendency for all their composers to sound like second rate European composers. With the dawn of the 20th Century there was the obligatory attention to folksong but that is also arguably Eurocentric…not bad, mind you, just leaving out the Native Americans or, using the elegant Canadian term, First Peoples. Eventually both the U.S. and Canada began to pay attention to indigenous traditions of the peoples they had conquered. One suspects that an appreciation of the social and spiritual traditions of indigenous peoples also encouraged a different view of the very landscapes.

In Canada the composer most closely associated with the post Eurocentric traditions would have to be Raymond Murray Schafer whose incorporation of the vast landscapes of his country embraced it musically and dramatically in a way that no one had previously. So along comes this disc from composer Vincent Ho (1975- ) born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He was educated variously at Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music, a Bachelor of Music from the University of Calgary, an MM from the University of Toronto, and a DMA from the University of Southern California. His mentors have included Allan Bell, David Eagle, Christos Hatzis, Walter Buczynski, and Stephen Hartke. In 1997, he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Schola Cantorum Summer Composition Program in Paris, where he received further training in analysis, composition, counterpoint, and harmony, supervised by David Diamond, Philip Lasser, and Narcis Bonet. Impressive credentials for sure but this album demonstrates the very impressive work of a composer who would seem to be poised to take on the mantle of the next generation of artists working to create music that represents the entire country in this generation. This is a man with formidable skills in writing for large ensembles. No doubt his facility with writing music allows him to create convincingly for any size ensemble. A quick look at the composer’s catalog of works inspired the mini polemic with which this review begins. How can so much wonderful music go unnoticed south of the border here in the U.S.? (End rant.)

Finally to the disc at hand. This is a beautifully recorded live concert of two major works by Mr. Ho, “The Shaman” (2011) and Arctic Symphony (2010). Both are for large orchestra and inhabit a very listenable realm melodically and harmonically. That is NOT to say that these are ordinary or simple works. In fact they clearly embody the work of a well trained and thoughtful artist. This is exciting music and the audience response at the end of each work was highly approving. Your reviewer heard the Carnegie Hall broadcast of The Shaman and jumped at the opportunity to review this disc. Dame Evelyn Glennie is reason enough to pay attention. This (essentially) Concerto for Percussion was written for her and she is ostensibly the shaman of the work’s title. Her performance is simply spellbinding. The piece has three numbered movements and an interlude. I will leave it to the program note readers to plumb the additional depths of meaning embodied in the concerto but I will tell you that if you are not enthralled by the “fire dance” finale you may very well be dead.

The Arctic Symphony is another animal. It is a programmatic work inspired by the composer’s experience on a research vessel, the Amundsen, exploring various arctic regions and describing the different areas of research being done. There are environmental themes here for sure and also an incorporation of Inuit songs transcribed by the composer and sonic evocations of various aspects of the composer’s experience of the journey (wind, silence, the strange sounds of uncertain causes that one apparently hears in these nether regions. The five movements fit pretty comfortably into the basic classical forms that comprise symphonies. There are chorales, variations, a nice scherzo in the Amundsen (3rd movement). It is, like the concerto, a very entertaining and exciting piece.
The Winnipeg Symphony and it’s talented conductor, Alexander Mickelthwate must be mentioned for their skill at holding this complex music together. In both works they provided readings that were both accurate and stimulating. One can’t imagine any audience failing to enjoy this music.

One can’t help but wonder about the confluences between the work of Mr. Ho and that of John Luther Adams. Both deal with arctic landscapes and both express environmental concerns. Well I invite listeners to do their part in eliminating the weird musical apartheid that appears to exist by buying this album. It is excellent.