NEWS STORY
Wallace Leung
The Helikon Ensemble is the most recent group jockeying
for position on the Vancouver new music scene. Although new, the ensemble
brings over 50 years of collective professional experience to "Time
Resounding," their March 17 concert at the Vancouver East Cultural
Centre.
Little did Helikon know when planning this concert last
fall, it would be a tribute to founding conductor Wallace Leung, who died
from viral encephalitis in January. Leung was a strong guiding force
behind the fledgling ensemble, formed in 1999 although its individual
members met well before that. "It all began back in '94," says
clarinetist Karen Noel-Bentley, one of the original members. "That
was when several of our founding members played Peter Maxwell Davies'
'Eight Songs for a Mad King' under Wallace Leung. We worked really well
together and at that time, there was no ensemble in town like that."
And so the Helikon Ensemble was formed, deriving its
name from Mount Helicon, the ancient Grecian home of the Muses. But with a
"k"? "It's there just because Wallace wanted to have a 'k'
in the name," says Noel-Bentley. "He liked the way it
looked."
Leung and Noel-Bentley, along with Chenoa Anderson,
flute; Nick Coulter, percussion; Leslie Dala, piano; Laura McPheeters,
cello; and Christi Meyers on violin were convinced that a flexible core
ensemble of six players would provide great repertoire possibilities.
"Eight Songs," for instance, is only one of many contemporary
"classics" the group felt was in need of more exposure in town.
English composer Harrison Birtwistle's "Secret Theatre," in
which the players also perform as actors, is another, as is a wealth of
music by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti. And there's much more.
Along with music by big international names, Helikon
also wants to develop its repertoire by local composers. This is an
ongoing concern that the group plans to address by vigorously seeking out
already-composed music and commissioning new pieces.
When the "Time Resounding" concert was planned
as an exploration of the relationship between chronological time and
music, Leung was a hale and hearty 33-year-old with a rosy future.
Needless to say, Helikon feels his loss keenly but decided the best way to
honour his memory would be to forge ahead with the concert. Vancouver New
Music director Giorgio Magnanensi will guest conduct the concert to be
dedicated to Leung's memory.
"Time Resounding" is an example of Helikon's
imaginative programming. The ensemble accompanies Vancouver mezzo-soprano
Rosalind Beale-Dala in American composer Lucas Foss's "Time
Cycle," a set of four songs with words by poets ranging from
Friedrich Nietzsche to WH Auden. Also on the program is Canadian composer
Bruce Cherney's "Die klingende Zeit" ("The Music of
Time") which, the composer tells us, "is about time made
'audible' but on another level it is about the way we experience music
during the passage of chronological time."
Cam Wilson's "Cuckoo Music," this concert's
Helikon commission, was still in the throes of creation barely a week
before the concert. "The piece starts off with a cuckoo,"
explains the busy Vancouver based composer-arranger-violinist, "then
this kind of irritating little march starts and that's the cue for Roz
[Beale-Dala]-in a rooster costume-to come stomping onstage. She intones
about a dozen catch-phrases with the word 'time' in them and the Helikon
Ensemble responds. Then the march comes back and Roz stomps off. There's a
Kellogg's Corn Flakes rooster clock at the very end-kind of a guest of
honour."
If this seems rather flippant fare in a concert
dedicated to such a respected colleague, remember this was the kind of
piece Leung programmed with such alacrity when he was alive.
That said, Doug Smith's "Tacet" will serve as
the local composer's elegy for Leung and the entire concert will be framed
by two movements from Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of
Time." "We're using just the movements for violin and cello with
the piano," explains Noel-Bentley. "They're the most elegiac
movements and are what we wanted to remember Wallace by."
To further Leung's memory, Helikon is planning an annual
concert to be conducted by a local, up-and-coming conductor.
By providing an opportunity to work at length with an
experienced new music ensemble, the project is intended to foster greater
interest in contemporary music among young conductors. Developing
opportunities for young musicians and exposing them to new music were,
after all, two things for which Leung worked so tirelessly and selflessly
during his all-too-short life.
by Robert Jordan Vancouver
Courier 13 March 2002
