Sound is naught but broken air.
(Geoffrey Chaucer, from the 14th-century poem, The House of Fame)
Toronto’s innovative chamber ensemble The Happenstancers return to the stage on September 26, 2025 with a thought provoking program titled BROKEN. The concert will feature world premieres of music by Saman Shahi and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, alongside works by Kaija Saariaho, Du Yun, and others composers.
The concert’s premise is framed by Kaija Saariaho’s Folia and Antonio Vivaldi’s La Folia. La folia means madness, and the works bookend the program as a kind of framework.
“We like to eat our cake and have it too,” says cellist Peter Eom in a statement. “As in many of our recent projects, we want to experiment with masterful artworks from the past, while indulging in the freedom of the 21st century. Baroque music was contemporary and experimental when it was written, so I think there are compelling opportunities for us to take chances, especially as a so-called ‘contemporary music ensemble.’ ”
The Music
The concert juxtaposes music of the Baroque period, with its strict, but elegant, architecture, and the raw edges of 21st century chamber music. Historical music is reimagined and the acoustic melds into the electronic in programming selections that will keep audiences on their proverbial toes.
How has our society essential codified what we now think about when it comes to talking about musical period and genre? The concert explores those concepts.
Their programming notes offer a look inside their curatorial goals: to take the balanced orderliness of the Baroque as an expression of an equally balanced psyche, and use the contrast between that era and this as an expression of how that sense of order and stability, in musical form, (“the 18th century musical paradigm”, as their notes call it) has since dissolved.
BROKEN will feature world premieres by Toronto composers Saman Shahi and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan.
The consort was an instrumental ensemble largely of the 16th and 17th centuries; a broken consort mixes instrument types, such as winds and strings, into one ensemble. Saman Shahi’s Misshapen is composed for mixed winds and strings. In takes the concept of a broken consort further, in that it weaves Baroque elements into 21st century sounds and gestures.
Kalaisan Kalaichelvan’s La Notte is a work for solo cello and electronics based on a repeated ground bass, an element common to Baroque compositions, that is gradually subsumed by layers of disintegrating sound.
The concert also includes the world premiere of recently rehabilitated music by German Baroque composer Johann Rosenmüller (1619 – 10 September 1684).
The program includes:
- Kaija Saariaho: Folia, for double bass and electronics
- Johann Rosenmuller: 3 Sonatas (arr. Trevor Wilson) (world premiere)
- Du Yun: I Am My Own Achilles Heel (A Shape That Cannot Form), for string quartet
- Saman Shahi: Misshapen, for broken consort (world premiere)
- Georges Aperghis: Recitations (selections), for solo voice
- Kalaisan Kalaichelvan: La Notte, for solo cello and electronics (world premiere)
- Antonio Vivaldi: Trio Sonata ‘la folia’, for 2 violins and continuo
Performers
The performers are among Toronto’s most talented and adventurous musicians,
- Danika Lorèn, voice
- Christopher Whitley, violin
- Julia Mirzoev, violin
- Lauren Spaulding, viola
- Peter Eom, cello
- Travis Harrison, bass
- Matti Pulkki, accordion
- Joonghun Cho, harpsichord
- Aleh Remezau, oboes
- Brad Cherwin, clarinets and artistic direction
Along with the musicians on stage, the technical crew includes Billy Wong (lighting), Fish Yu (electronics/sound), and production manager Hoi Tong Keung.
Details
The concert takes place at Redeemer Lutheran Church on September 26.
- Find tickets [HERE].
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