Christos Hatzis on his music for Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation

sgupta — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 11:09:12 +0000

Christos Hatzis on his music for Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation sgupta Wed, 02/03/2016 - 06:09

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“I would go to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s website, watch the harrowing testimonials of survivors,” says Professor Christos Hatzis (photos by Samantha Katz)

Sylvia Urbanik

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Faculty of Music professor worked with Indigenous musicians, artists and elders when composing

Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation is a ballet and a shattering history lesson in one.

Based on a story by Joseph Boyden and inspired by the testimonies of survivors at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this production of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet follows the lives of two young contemporary First Nations people who explore their own dark and violent history to come to terms with their lives.

Premiered in Winnipeg in 2014, Going Home Star is now in the midst of a Canadian tour. The Toronto performances are at the Sony Centre on Feb. 5 and 6. Christos Hatzis, a professor of composition at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music discusses his role in telling this story of pain and hope.

How did you get involved with Going Home Star?
I got a cold call from Mark Godden, the choreographer, who was also a principal dancer of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. They had been thinking about this story for about 10 years, so after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed, they commissioned the piece. This is a native story and ballet is the most western-European of all possible cultural art forms, so Mark wanted the music to tell the story. I had never written a ballet before, but in the 1990s I had done some work with Inuit throat singers. Mark heard it and was taken by that work.

What was your creative process like?
We started in January 2014. We wanted to involve native singers early on, so we brought in Tanya Tagaq (pictured below with Hatziz) and Steve Wood, leader of Northern Cree singers. We got together in the studio in Winnipeg for three days, telling stories, writing and reading texts. Most of the Aboriginal material in the score came from those sessions. There was a lot of vetting with the sources, artists and elders. We made sure we weren’t stepping on any kind of ground we weren’t supposed to tread on. We had lots of help from the ballet on that, so we weren’t alone.”

How long did it take to compose the music?
A ballet score is about a two-and-a-half year process. I thought I had a year, but it was announced that the premiere was to be in October 2014. I didn’t want to cut any corners, so it was a very intensive period. When I got tired of composing I would go to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s website, watch the harrowing testimonials of survivors and that would get me back to the music.

What kind of music did you write?
The first 20 minutes is music that you would hear in hair salons and nightclubs: big band music, dubstep, hip-hop, Swan Lake and anything in between. The whole point wasn’t to throw things together, but to find connections that would generate a character who finds meaning in all of these things. The music follows the transformation of this character, Annie, throughout the piece.

What is the significance of the performances in Toronto?
In some ways Torontonians will get a sense of location from the soundtrack. One of my PhD students and I spent nights between midnight and 1:30 a.m. roaming the subway recording trains for the commuting scenes. The big question mark for me was how well this performance would do in Winnipeg, because there is where the cultural battleground really is.

It’s a good time for this to happen. With the new government and with the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there is a concerted effort. The piece has been performed in selections in two native festivals so far. One was the Indigenous festival last summer at Harbourfront. It’s incredible, this is a ballet score with white ballerinas, but I still felt that it addressed native identity to native viewers. I was very heartened by that. Because to me it could have been incredibly successful as far as ballet audiences are concerned and still failed if it alienated our native populations.

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Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra

sgupta — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 11:18:12 +0000

Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra sgupta Tue, 12/08/2015 - 06:18

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(Images courtesy Second Story Press)

Sylvia Urbanik

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U of T researcher tells the inspiring story of the conductor and the first Canadian orchestra to play Carnegie Hall

Maria Noriega Rachwal is no stranger to the academy or the orchestra. As a PhD candidate, teacher and musicologist at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and a flutist who has performed with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra, she has both studied women in music and experienced the special dynamic of playing in a large ensemble.

The result of her research is From Kitchen to Carnegie Hall: Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, an account of the Montreal conductor Ethel Stark and the revolutionary all-female symphony orchestra she created in the 1940s. Writer Sylvia Urbanik spoke to Noreiga Rachwal about this unusual organization.

Can you describe your book?

This book is about the women of the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, who dared to dream a place for themselves on the orchestral stage at a time when women were banned from symphony orchestras and ridiculed for playing “masculine” instruments such as the cello or the trumpet.

Were they all women of a certain social standing?

This was an orchestra of Jewish, Catholic and Anglican women, black women and white women, women of the high class, maids, factory workers, of ages ranging from 16 to 60. I couldn’t believe the determination and audacity of these women. This was an 80- to 100-piece orchestra, which had no funding, played on old instruments, and started from scratch, and went on to become the first Canadian orchestra to perform in Carnegie Hall.

What was the research process like?

I started to write my master’s thesis in Calgary nine years ago on the MWSO, but there wasn’t much information. Even though this was a groundbreaking orchestra, nobody had paid much attention to their work. Then in 2012 Ethel Stark, the conductor of the orchestra, passed away and all of a sudden there was this great interest in her, as is the case with many great musicians who die.

You mean the media took an interest?

The CBC did a radio documentary about the MWSO, and the producer discovered that there were still three members alive, who wanted to tell their side of the story. Then family members started calling into the show to talk about their mothers, grandmothers, friends and wives who played in the orchestra. I thought, “I have to write a book about this” not for me, but for these women and their incredible story.

What resources did you have?

When Ethel Stark’s nephew found out I had been doing research on his aunt, he gave me her unpublished memoirs, all written by hand, containing her whole history. I combined a lot of what I read in her diary, along with what the other women had told me, as well as the original research that I had done, and put it all together.

What is the most touching story that you came across while researching?

Violet Grant States was the first black woman to play in an orchestra in Canada, and at the time black people were not really welcomed into a lot of white organizations. When I interviewed her, she was so animated. She said to me: “Playing in the orchestra was the highlight of my life.” She credited the orchestra for breaking barriers in her life and giving her the confidence to do what she was able to do afterwards, to go back to school despite all the racism that she encountered, get her bachelor’s degree in music and music education, and go on to be a very successful teacher.

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