Continuum Ensemble Spotlights Canadian Composers in Northern Exposures II December 13, 2010

New York’s Continuum Ensemble, currently in the midst of its 43rd season, has been on the cutting edge of new music for over 40 years, with a career that spans four continents and a repertoire that ranges from 20th-century classics to new work from around the world. In this Americas Society concert, the ensemble will explore the music of Canadian composers. Following last season’s successful exploration of an amazing crop of young Canadian composers, the ensemble will focus this time on “the mentors,” Canada’s pioneering progressives. The program will include a wealth of brilliant music, some of it rarely (if ever) heard on this side of the border, including: solo tours de force by R. Murray Schafer and Gilles Tremblay; an evocation of the Inuit landscape by Diana McIntosh; a transcendent masterpiece by Ann Southam; absurdist music-theater from John Weinzweig; and reflections on Bali by the late Claude Vivier.