S. Worthen | Weblog

Imagine being immersed into the complexities of an Elizabethan vocal arrangement written for forty independent melodic lines, divided into eight choirs of five singers. The music shifts back and forth around the room like a tide, swelling up and subsiding into corners, echoing back and forth. It is beautiful, restful, and surrounds with its depth and layers.

Jane Cardiff's Forty-part motet is installed at the Power Plant, down at the Harbourfront Centre, until Monday. Winner of the first National Gallery in Ottawa's Millennium Award, this striking piece takes an excessively complex bit of music and makes it, as much as it's possible, accessible. Tallis' "Spem in alium" was written in honor of Elizabeth I's coronation.

Several of us went to see/hear it yesterday, since it closes on Monday and we were running out of time and opportunities to go see it. We sat and listened through several times. I was very glad I didn't have the vocal training which irvinl does, since, as a consequence, she had more problems with the vocal performance than I did. I could sit back and let the beauty of the sound wash around me. I might try to go back before it closes - it's only $2 for students, $4 for adults.

It was a highlight in an all-social day. In a fit of efficiency, I put nearly every social things I'm doing this week into one day. In the morning, irvinl and I met up to read together; a brief visit with snow_drifted, among other people, at my department, then lunch at Zyng with aerinah. Years ago, I heard lousy things about Zyng, so this was the first time I'd eaten there. The food was rather boring, although the concept and the noodles were sound. aerinah, who loves the place, blamed an inadequacy of sauce in my particular dish. Perhaps I'll go back and see if they can do better next time.

I went to the Queen Mother Café for dinner, a novelty for me, but with a lovely company of people I don't see nearly often enough: curtana, forthright, theengineer, double0hilly, C. and Charissa. I swear, I know tons of people who don't have LJs - this just happened to be a day particularly full of those who do. Most of us had respectable, if underflavored, pad thai. It was a day of inadequate sauces. Afterwards we saw Hero... but that deserves a post of its own at some other point.