COMPOSERS IN PLAY XV: Ink from the Shield

Pianists Anthony de Mare and Adam Sherkin join forces for this all-Canadian program. In sets for both one and two keyboards music from our continent’s north is highlighted in fresh relief featuring works by Vivian Fung Andrew Stanliand Ann Southam Heather Schmidt Linda Catlin Smith and Rodney Sharman. With every selection written in the last twenty-five years de Mare and Sherkin take on solo sets then team up for special commissions on two pianos: a novel version of Jared Miller’s "The Bright Exuberant Silence" – from the second movement “Effervescent” – and Adam Sherkin’s Ink from the Shield: musical postcards taking inspiration from the time Benjamin Britten and Peters Pears spent in Canada – as pacifists – during the Second World War. 

PROGRAM:

VIVIAN FUNG – White on Black (2023)

JARED MILLER – Effervescent (2025) for 2 pianos*

KELLY-MARIE MURPHY – Star Burning Blue (2000) 

HEATHER SCHMIDT – Twelve for Ten: Prelude-Fugue for Glenn Gould (2007)

RODNEY SHARMAN – Selected Opera Transcriptions: Don Giovanni (2021); La Rondine (1991); I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2022-24)

ADAM SHERKIN – Northern Frames Op. 15 No. 8: Draco (2018); Ink from the Shield (2024) for 2 pianos*

LINDA CATLIN SMITH – The View from Here (1992)

ANN SOUTHAM – Rivers: Set 3 No. 4; Set 1 No. 1 (1979 1981; rev. 2004)

ANDREW STANILAND – Etudes: Symmetry Of the Sea and Flower in Nighttime (2018) **

* WORLD PREMIERE; Piano Lunaire commission

** US PREMIERE

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