FOUR LANDS
June 3, 2017 at 7:30pm
Installation and Artmaking 60 minutes prior to each show
CRH Gallery, EVERGREEN BRICK WORKS (550 Bayview Ave., Toronto)
Four Lands – deepening our connection to the places we live
Four Lands composer Juliet Palmer conducting Jumblies Community Choir at Evergreen Brick Works. Photo by Adrienne Marcus Raja.
For immediate release:
As part of the Touching Ground Festival, Jumblies Theatre is partnering with Continuum Contemporary Music on a unique concert taking place Evergreen Brick Works. Four Lands is the Toronto iteration of a project that has toured the country. Four Lands explores people’s relationship with the land on which we live – what we like, want to change, hold in memory, history and imagination. The concerts take place June 3rd at 7:30pm. Audience members can arrive up to one hour before each show, to enjoy artwork and documentation from the Four Lands tour, join in some simple art-making and even be invited into a small role within the performance.
In our Toronto version, two composers have been commissioned to respond to the local and national Four Lands material; voices dangle like bells by Jason Doell, and Quarry by Juliet Palmer. The program includes performance of Erik Griswold’s Spill, and short interdisciplinary improvisations by Jumblies artists and participants and Continuum musicians.
The venue – the massive CRH Gallery of the Evergreen Brick Works – will be filled with sonic, and choreographic performances and visual installations. The new musical works include an ensemble of four percussionists and four woodwinds, plus a solo soprano and Jumblies’ mixed ability community choir.
Composer Juliet Palmer had this to say about her work: “‘Everything stays the same, Everything is yet to be discovered.’ Quarry excavates layers of memory and place through song and sound. The lyrics intertwine words from community members across Canada into a dreamscape that hovers between the present, the past and the future. What do we discover if we dig deep — beneath the ground where we stand, back into the bedrock of time, below the tangle of our everyday thoughts?”
Jumblies Artistic Director, Ruth Howard says: “Working with Continuum on this piece is very exciting, as it brings together virtuosic musicians and community members of different ages, abilities and cultural backgrounds, with many challenges and many delights along the way. The two composers have inventively created music that responds to Jumblies’ Four Lands themes and bridges the realms of professional contemporary music and community-engaged arts.”
Ryan Scott, Artistic Director of Continuum Contemporary Music, also added the following: “I am very intrigued by this program almost 3 years in the making delighted to see it come to life, now in its final stages of fruition! To this project Continuum brings its usual familiarity with all things new and wonderful in the contemporary chamber music of today, but we share the stage with a number of people who bring so many other talents, philosophies, cultures and voices to this incredible performance space at the Evergreen Brick Works. This is a project Continuum could never mount on our own and in that sense is a true collaboration and we cherish our newfound relationship with our friends at Jumblies Community Theatre and the dozens of participants they bring to the table. Balancing the many forces at play is no small task and I am confident that the sensitive and versatile nature of our featured composers, Juliet Palmer and Jason Doell, will be centerstage in these world premieres, exploring the myriad of possibilities from all participants in a sensitive, meaningful and memorable way.”
Four Lands is part of Jumblies’ 6-week-long Touching Ground Festival – a suite of new works on a common theme. Find out more about Four Lands at jumbliestheatre.org/jumblies/current-projects/four-lands, and the Festival at touchinggroundfestival.ca.
Admission is by donation, and you can reserve your tickets at fourlands.eventbrite.ca
Composers:
Jason Doell (Canada), voices dangle like bells, world premiere
Juliet Palmer (Canada), Quarry, world premiere
Erik Griswold (Australia), Spill
Pricing: Admission by donation. Reserve your spot online at fourlands.eventbrite.ca
(Suggested donations: $30 Regular | $20 Seniors & Arts Workers | $10 students)
For Continuum media inquiries:
Tim Crouch
Marketing and Publicity Consultant
tim.jd.crouch@gmail.com
(416) 999-6097
For Continuum Contemporary Music inquiries:
Josh Grossman
Operations Manager, Continuum Contemporary Music
josh@continuummusic.org (416) 924-4945
For Jumblies inquiries:
Rachel Penny
Touching Ground Festival Producer
rachel@jumbliestheatre.org
647-801-0289
Formed in 1985, Continuum Contemporary Music is committed to presenting and promoting contemporary chamber music through unique and compelling programming. Under Artistic Director (and ensemble percussionist) Ryan Scott and Operations Manager Josh Grossman, Continuum each year presents a series of diversely themed concerts, often involving interdisciplinary collaborations. Over the past 31 years, Continuum has been responsible for commissioning more than 175 new works from emerging and established Canadian and international composers; drawing from a collective of some of Canada’s top contemporary music performers, the organization has earned international acclaim.
Continuum Contemporary Music is generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, the SOCAN Foundation and many private donors.
Jumblies, founded in 2001 by Ruth Howard, makes art in everyday and extraordinary places, with, for and about the people and stories found there: dismantling boundaries, connecting disparate elements and creating an interplay of virtuosity and inclusion; participant and audience; story and history; installation and performance; activism and art; art and life.
Jumblies has undertaken residencies in 6 Toronto neighbourhoods, most recently, CityPlace, built along the lakeshore on landfill covering lake and creeks, dock-yards, train-yards and industrial lands.
Jumblies, and this Four Lands event, are funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario 150, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Metcalf Foundation, Inspirit Foundation, J.P. Bickell Foundation and others.
