The UBC Bands Wind Ensemble opened their season with their cosmic performance Tarot.
Under the direction of Dr. Robert Taylor, the UBC Bands Wind Ensemble delivered an incredible program of works from local to world-renowned composers last Friday evening at the Chan Centre.
“It was a tremendous night,” Taylor reflected on the performance. “In a creative project like this, sometimes when you start you're never entirely sure where you're going to end up.”
“We brought in a lot of new ideas which are very different [from] what you might normally expect in a concert hall experience. And the openness and hard work by the students created this event that had all of the right kinds of energy.”
Under the soft glow of the Chan Centre stage, the UBC Bands Wind Ensemble performed a nothing short of graceful exploration of the interplay between western classical music and Hindustani rāga-inspired works centred around Lindsay Bronnenkant’s Tarot, a three-movement piece written for wind ensemble.
A rāga is a collection of pitches comparable to the western classical scale or mode system that roots the classical Indian genre.
Bronnenkant composed the piece in 2021 while researching the thematic influences of The Planets, one of Gustav Holst’s most well-known symphonies. Perhaps unbeknownst to many was Holst’s fascination and appreciation for Indian culture and the philosophies, art and cosmology that emerge from it — a rarity in the 19th century European scene.
So, Bronnenkant set out to compose a piece framed around the astrological analogy of the tarot card, pulling from Holst’s genius of designating one movement of his work to each of our solar system’s planets.
Tarot’s first movement, “The Fool,” shares many modal parallels with Holst’s “Jupiter.” According to Taylor, “Bronnenkant was hoping to capture the haphazard luck the fool sometimes falls into [with some] jazz influences.”
“The Fool” is followed by “The King of Cups,” where Bronnenkant uses an underlying Hindustani rãga that Holst used in The Planets, which is meant to evoke a sort of mystical astrological spirit. In this movement, Taylor wanted to highlight the local classical Indian music scene by inviting celebrated Hindustani singer Shruti Ramani to join in on the piece.
“Just as luck would have it, we were playing Tarot when Ramani first walked into the rehearsal, and she heard the opening of the second movement which has this temporal-like drone created by the harp and piano [that create] really interesting colours,” Dr. Taylor explained. “We were like, ‘maybe this could be the spot where we did a direct collaboration.’”
The kind of silence only felt when in a trance blanketed the crowd as Ramani descended into microtonal rubato. It was ethereal.
In the final movement “The Tower,” chaos is brewing, led by the melodic tones of flutes and oboes in its first half. Then under siege, the mighty brass and percussion are commanding.
Notable as well was the concert’s opening piece. The show began with a world premiere from UBC’s very first composer in residence Hope Salmonson, “Rediscovery.” The piece is inspired by Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Flourish for Wind Band,” which audiences also had the chance to hear. “Rediscovery” is a triumphant nod towards Salmonson’s love of band music and investigation into identity through sound.
With Salmonson’s inaugural role in the faculty, Taylor hopes to promote a push towards involving young Canadian composers in the band composition process, and give them a space to explore their compositional styles.
“A big part of my own research is on diversifying repertoire... bringing forward underrepresented communities in the wind band,” said Taylor. “[Hope’s] look into identity and a real thoughtfulness around the aspect of what it means to be a composer and artist got me particularly excited about working with Hope and collaborating in this new role.”
Other highlights of the night included the direction of Bach’s Fugue à la Gigue and Holst’s First Suite in E flat, Op. 28, No. 1 by graduate assistant composers Michael Witt and Maggie Whiteman respectively, as well as Julie Giroux’s “Riften Wed” which serves as a depiction of the deepness of love and darkness of loss.
The concert closed with Aakash Mittal’s thundering piece “Salt March” which, on theme with the program’s exploration of Hindustani tones, portrays the expressive dissonances and rhythms of Mittal’s native Kolkata and its similarities with the tones of the American west. The piece reflects on Gandhi’s non-violent movement towards Indian independence, and is inherently a celebration of Hindustani culture and freedom.
As Taylor noted, the overarching theme was one of connection. “Connecting to our local communities, connecting to diverse composers who have really unique perspectives, connecting ideas between musical works so that the concert is more of an experience,” he said.
“[The] connection between the people, the music and the experience creates a special kind of community and a special kind of moment. And that's something we aim to do.”
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