{"id":113317,"date":"2025-04-07T16:03:36","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T20:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=113317"},"modified":"2025-04-08T08:00:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:00:01","slug":"interview-canadian-composer-tawnie-olsons-beloved-sky-recorded-grammy-award-winning-choir-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2025\/04\/07\/interview-canadian-composer-tawnie-olsons-beloved-sky-recorded-grammy-award-winning-choir-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Canadian Composer Tawnie Olson\u2019s Beloved Of The Sky Recorded By GRAMMY Award-Winning Choir The Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Composer
Composer Tawnie Olson (Photo courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Canadian Tawnie Olson is one of three composers featured on the latest album by four-time GRAMMY-Award winning choir The Crossing. The album, the choir\u2019s 37th recording, and titled At Which Point, was released on the New Focus label on April 4.<\/p>\n

The Crossing is a professional choir based in Philadelphia that specializes in new music, led by conductor Donald Nally. Their most recent GRAMMY win was just a few weeks ago. Other composers on the recording include Ayanna Woods and Wang Lu. Tawnie Olson\u2019s Beloved of the Sky is a work in five movements, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Competition, a fund established in 1983 at Brigham Young University in Utah.<\/p>\n

We caught up with Tawnie to talk about the piece.<\/p>\n

Composer Tawnie Olson<\/h2>\n

Olson earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Calgary, followed by a Master of Music from the Yale School of Music, and a doctorate in music composition from the University of Toronto. She also holds n Artist Diploma from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.<\/p>\n

Her compositions have garnered numerous prizes and accolades, including winning the 2021-2023 National Opera Association Dominick Argento Chamber Opera Composition Competition for her opera Sanctuary and Storm, with a libretto by Roberta Barker. She has also won a 2019 Copland House Residency Award, and the 2015 Iron Composer Competition, among others.<\/p>\n

Tawnie\u2019s music has been performed and recorded by ensembles across the globe, including releases by percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum, the Yale Schola Cantorum and Elm City Girls Choir, Parthenia viol consort (with bass-baritone Dashon Burton), bassoonist Rachael Elliott, the Canadian Chamber Choir, Chronos Vocal Ensemble, soprano Magali Simard-Gald\u00e8s, clarinetist Shawn Earle, oboist Catherine Lee, and Shawn Mativetsky, McGill University professor of tabla and percussion.<\/p>\n

Other recent commissions include Salve Mater, a piece commissioned by Tafelmusik for their Chamber Choir in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Interview<\/h3>\n

\u201cI was interested in composing as a child,\u201d Olson recalls.<\/p>\n

She wrote music for fun, and began taking lessons, but her first teacher focused on learning to play. Writing music wasn\u2019t something she envisaged for herself.<\/p>\n

In high school, she studied with a piano teacher who didn\u2019t know much about composition. \u201cMy piano teacher would say I can\u2019t really help you with that, let\u2019s do scales,\u201d she says. At the same time, that same teacher eventually sent her to another instructor who could teach both piano performance and composition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a child, there was such a mystique about composing,\u201d Olson says. It\u2019s essentially why it took her years to come to the conclusion it\u2019s what she wanted to pursue. \u201cIt\u2019s a language, so why can\u2019t we just speak in that language?\u201d<\/p>\n

Noted composer, flutist and teacher David Eagle (2007 to 2014) was her instructor in music theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also assigned some composing exercises in class.\u201d He liked what she\u2019d done, and encouraged her. \u201cI had trouble seeing myself as a compose at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was essentially happenstance that set her on that course.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I would pursue flute at first,\u201d she says. That idea, however, came to an end with an injury to her hand. The injury was misdiagnosed, she reports, but at the time it diverted her from performing to composing. As she points out, however, choosing one over the other has only been the norm for about the last century or so.<\/p>\n

\u201cClassical performers who aren\u2019t organists aren\u2019t taught to improvise, and that\u2019s kind of the gateway into composition,\u201d she says. It\u2019s true that the composer\/performer combination has become much more common over the last couple of decades. \u201cA lot of that has been eroded now,\u201d Olson adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite my envy, I think that\u2019s a really fantastic trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beloved Of The Sky<\/h3>\n

About half Olson\u2019s compositions are vocal or choral in nature, and another half instrumental. She working on a string quartet currently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love writing for the human voice,\u201d she says. \u201cIn this particular piece, I was very much interested in exploring the creative process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tawnie Olson\u2019s Beloved of the Sky is inspired by Canadian artist Emily Carr, but less by her iconic paintings and other visual arts than by her writings. In her journals, Carr documented her observations and artistic process.<\/p>\n

While the final movement does touch on Carr\u2019s paintings \u2014 it\u2019s titled \u201cI made a small sketch\u201d, after one of the artist\u2019s journal entries about making a sketch based on a walk in the woods \u2014 the piece overall is less focused on Carr specifically as it is on the creative process in general. Emily Carr was a thoughtful choice of subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to do ti through the lens of a woman,\u201d she explains, \u201csomeone recognized for excellence in her field. Yes, Emily Carr, but it isn\u2019t solely about Emily Carr.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first movement is titled \u201cI went down deep\u201d. \u201cI feel like many people who are creative could resonate with that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The process of creating is deeply personal, and connects to ideas, thoughts and feelings inside the artist, including dreams. The second movement is titled \u201cI woke with this idea…\u201d and describes a morning when Carr woke with the idea of mixing complementary colours, mixing red into greens, then into yellows and purples.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was taken with that idea.\u201d Sometimes, those spontaneous ideas don\u2019t lead anywhere in particular, but they\u2019re always worth working on. \u201cYou wake up with something \u2014 you want to work on it right away, but you don\u2019t really know the outcome,\u201d she adds. \u201cThere are so many ways that people are creating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third movement is titled \u201cOh, that lazy, story, lumpy feeling\u201d and, as in Carr\u2019s journals, deals with artist\u2019s block. It\u2019s both humorous and sad, and as Olson points out, chronologically, that moment of deep existential dread comes just before a prolific period where Emily produced what many consider her best work. She captures that dread and up and down emotion in the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that moment, it feels real.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Crossing<\/h3>\n

Tawnie entered the Barlow Music Competition, which calls for works written with specific ensembles and soloists in mind, a roster they rotate over the years. For the 2018 competition, it was a piece for chamber chorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were selected, you would write a piece for them,\u201d she explains. \u201cI threw my hat in the ring. Somehow they picked me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The piece will be also be performed by two other chamber choirs aside from The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very big honour, and a wonderful surprise for me.\u201d<\/p>\n