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The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra is inviting audiences to a musical gathering by the fire at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights this week.
Awasowin – the Cree word for “those who gather around a fire” – is a collection of spoken word pieces, nature sounds, and, of course, music. The latter element will see two Juno nominees lead the orchestra and host the gathering: conductor Larry Strachan and cellist Cris Derksen.
Derksen – whose roots are in the North Tallcree community in Alberta – was stretched out of her comfort zone when first asked to create the concert's title piece by the Blue Ridge Chamber Festival in Vancouver.
“The directive of the piece was that it had to be audience participation,” Derksen recalled in an interview on Morning Light, something that she was not a huge fan of as a composer who utilizes improvisation and soloist elements liberally in her work.
"I was like, ‘What am I going to do that’s going to be cool with audience participation for chamber music?’ And so, this idea of sitting around a fire kind of came to me and all the different things that happen around a fire.”
Those fireside inspirations include scary stories, scanning the sky for storm clouds, and observing the nature that surrounds in this environment. The audience participation element was inspired by a childhood campfire game Derksen recalls where people recreate the sounds of rain and thunder, building up the storm system to loud, thunderous crashes before the rain ultimately recedes.
“It’s just sonic storytelling, really,” says Derksen. “I think of composing as like, it’s all a journey. It’s all about that time that you spend together, and the music is the journey.”
Another person contributing to the Awasowin musical gathering is award-winning author David A. Roberston, who will be reading as Derksen provides their signature improvisatory cello as a backdrop. Musical nature scenes by Quebec composer Michael Oesterle and Lethbridge, Alberta’s Arlan N. Schultz will also be featured on the program.
Derksen will also contribute a piece that represents the next chapter of their musical output. "Spiderbeing" is a piece that was co-commissioned by the MCO and Ottawa’s Chamberfest, and it will be a featured part of Derksen’s next album, entitled The Visit.
“Within Indigenous symbolism, there’s a lot of different circles,” Derksen says of the piece, highlighting the medicine wheel and the dreamcatcher as examples. It was the web of the dreamcatcher that ultimately captured their musical imagination, as well as a Cree creation story.
“It's all about the spider who brings down the two humans,” says Derksen, “and in the story, the spider’s like, ‘OK, I’ll bring you down, but you cannot look outside the basket. Humans being humans, of course, they look outside the basket, and then, you know, mayhem ensues. But this story is actually just about coming from the sky world and coming to the earth world.”
Audiences can enjoy the literal and sonic storytelling of Awasowin with Cris Derksen and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on May 1. Two performances of the concert will be given at 1 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and more information, patrons can visit the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra’s website.