Song Room 6

The Song Room has rules.

<- Marguerite Witvoet

For the performers: The song must be an original composition, no more than 5 minutes in length. There can be no more than 3 performers, including the singer. The lyrics must be from a living Canadian writer. The theme of the evening is predetermined, and the song must have some relevance to that theme. There is a required dress rehearsal a couple of days prior and usually a sound check on the day of the show. Composers cannot participate in two consecutive Song Rooms.

For the audience: The cover charge is $10 plus a favourite food item, either savoury or sweet. There must be absolute silence during the performance. Engage the performers in conversation afterwards.

For the presenters: Open your home to up to a hundred people. Set up a meeting of the previous compsers and writers to determine a theme. Decide on six new composers. Organize rehearsals and performances to the minute. Make performers and audience feel welcome and a valued part of the process. Document the performances with a decent recording. Pay the performers 100% of the door proceeds. Make it a must-see happening. Repeat twice yearly.

Tom, David and Karen ->

Karen Matthews, Tom Cone and David Pay conceived of this series to promote the development of a library of new Canadian songs. To date they have premiered 65 new compositions involving over a hundred musicians. The musical disciplines range from contemporary classical to free improv, hip hop, folk and rock. Most of the performers are extremely accomplished, some are absolutely raw.

Since I composed The Deluge in collaboration with Stew Brinton, Alita Dupray and Dominique Brunchmann for Song Room 5, I couldn't participate again this time as a composer. I was happy to be an audience member for a change. And when I showed up with my trusty camera, I was pressed into being the official photographer for the evening.

This evening's theme was "indiscretion", a concept put forth by Stew at the Song Room 5 post-mortem.

The program opened up with a burlesque-style piece by Marguerite Witvoet in a sensual duet with her accordion named "Titano". Apparently this was quite a stretch from her more usual staid performances. It was a hoot.

Soressa Gardner and Karma Sohn ->

Next up was Soressa Gardner in your basic Gidget get-up, accompanied by accordion and cuica. Again it was fairly high in the camp factor. The text was based on letters to a fictional advice columnist, a cross between Dear Abbey and Dan Savage.

<- Kathryn Cernauskas and Heather Pawsey

The more "serious" content came from composer Leslie Uyeda and writer Brenda Brooks. They had stunning soprano Heather Pawsey sing about indescretion accompanied by cello and flute/bass flute. The piece was beautifully composed, with a degree of difficulty added by a last-minute substitution of cellists.

By this point in the program, it was getting pretty clear that the common conception of what constituted indescretion could be boiled down to "Men are pigs."

Tony Wilson, Billy Little and presenter Tom Cone ->

After a short break came a duet between the always-great Tony Wilson and distinguished poet Billy Little. He was in poor health and really could not sing, but nevertheless gave a very moving performance. He announced that his indiscretion would be attempting to sing. A born American, he had written a very blunt dissection of The Star Spangled Banner's lyrics entitled "We are Sick of War". I'm a little fuzzy on the details on this one as it was a last-minute addition and not in the written program.

<- Shanto, Carol and Rajinderpal

Carol Sawyer followed with a composition of hers with text by Rajinderpal Pal. The piece was based on director Krzyzstof Kieslowski's Dekalog, a ten-episode TV series, with each installment having been based upon one of the 10 Commandments. Carol called her piece Decalog 3, and it was certainly the most emotionally harrowing performance of the evening. Rajinderpal read his text while Carol and Shanto Bhattacharya on cello improvised on the emotional content of the words.

Kori Miyanishi, Leah Abramson and Shiho Mizumoto ->

The evening finished off with an Appalachian-style song played on two fiddles, he twist being that the the lyrical concept was a "murder-suicide hymn". Writer Leah Abramson and fiddler Kori Miyanishi sang in taut harmony. It was a very effective piece as the open tunings had a very primal effect.

As varied as the styles were, the songs all held together in a coherent set. It was a very satisfying night. The post-performance hang and nosh were equally as satisfying and by the end it was far too late to consider heading over to Ironworks or 1067. There was still talk about how effective our performance of The Deluge had been at the previous Song Room, and suggestions that I consider another collaboration with Alita for the next one.

Stew and I discussed it this morning and we were both of the opinion that we first need to know the theme for the June Song Room. That will lead to some concept for the text. We can then decide which singer would be the best to interpret it. With all of the great singers that we know in town, that's like letting a kid loose in a candy shop.