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The NB Contemporary Music Festival is dedicated to exploring the intersections between classical concert music, electronic music, and other contemporary idioms, and to providing the public with access to artistic programming not available elsewhere in the Atlantic provinces. For 2024, “Echoes" touches on the overlapping ripple effects of cyclical world events and personal displacements, asking: how can contemporary composition and performance convey the isolation, grief and chaos of loss, while offering hope for community and a better future?
This 6th edition of the Contemporary Music Festival brings a more intimate dimension by highlighting works for solo instruments alongside the ensemble works that continue to form the core of the festival experience. Two world premieres will be performed during the festival: “Call me Mother” from emerging composer Matthew-John Knights (they/them) and “Jackpine” from the acoustic ambassador of the Canadian subarctic, Carmen Braden (she/her).
The 2024 festival will include the following three concerts, taking the audience on a journey of discovery and offering a meditation on the imperfect perfection of life:
Concert 1: Loves Songs
Date & Time: Nov. 22, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
Love Songs centers on a new composition for flute and piano by up-and-coming New Brunswick composer and 2024 Maria Anna Mozart Award recipient Matthew-John Knights. “Call me Mother” explores a first-person perspective on queer nonbinary identity, opening the conversation on 2SLGBTQIA+ experiences of inclusion, acceptance and love. Flanking this important new work, Hildegard Westerkamp’s 20-minute solo cello and mixed media meditation “Liebes-lied/Love Songs” and other exquisite and experimental solo works from Cassandra Miller and Anna Höstman.
Performers: Karin Aurell (flute), Norman Adams (cello), Nadia Francavilla (violin), Carl Philippe Gionet (piano)
Concert 2: Perfect Offering
Date & Time: Nov. 23, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
Perfect Offering presents an intimate program of works for piano, violin, string quartet and winds by Cassandra Miller (b. 1976), Abigail Richardson-Schulte (b. 1976) and Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023). Personal and introspective, the pieces on offer demand careful attention, as a gentle persistence and curiosity from the listener reveals their layered themes. Among these: care and restraint; patience and perseverance; surrender and grief.
Performers: Nadia Francavilla (violins), Danielle Sametz (violins), Susan Sayle (viola), Norman Adams (cello), Carl Philippe Gionet (piano), Karin Aurell (flute), Richard Horsnby (clarinet)
Concert 3: Women of the North
Date & Time: Nov. 24, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
Women of the North wraps up the 2024 festival with a new commissioned work by Yellowknife composer Carmen Braden for violin, piano, voice, and video, drawn from personal experiences of displacement in the 2023 NWT wildfire season. Works by Canadian composers Cassandra Miller, Anna Höstman and Juliet Palmer round off the program
Performers: Christina Haldane (voice), Nadia Francavilla (violin), Danielle Sametz (violin), Susan Sayle (viola), Mark Kleyn (viola), Norman Adams (cello), Carl Philippe Gionet (piano), Karin Aurell (flute), Richard Hornsby (clarinet), Joel Cormier (percussion)
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
UNB Centre for Musical Arts - Memorial Hall, 6 Duffie Dr, Fredericton, NB E3B, Canada,Fredericton, New Brunswick
Tickets
