cellist Margaret Maria and soprano Donna Brown talk about the joys of collaboration on the words and music of their album Between Worlds

Cellist and composer Margaret Maria and soprano Donna Brown, each Canadian, have been collaborating on an album, Between Worlds, which has just lately been launched on the Canadian Music Centre’s Centrediscs label. Consisting of eight songs which function Donna’s voice and her phrases, plus Margaret’s music and her cello, the album may be very a lot a three way partnership. 

As a soprano, Donna started her opera profession with Peter Brook’s manufacturing of La Tragédie de Carmen, a piece which concerned two months of intensive workshops with Peter Brook, studying his technique of performing based mostly on Stanislavsky, adopted by three months of performing La Tragédie de Carmen in Paris, after which touring it all through Europe for a 12 months together with his troupe. Since then she has carried out everywhere in the world and had particular collaborations for over 15 years with Helmuth Rilling and John Eliot Gardiner, doing quite a few recordings with each of them. 

Margaret skilled as a classical cellist as a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and was knowledgeable cellist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Nationwide Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra, she has since developed a profession as a composer very a lot specializing in her personal instrument. Her most up-to-date solo album was The place Phrases Fail – Music For Therapeutic from 2021, with music is born ‘within the hope that it may be useful to others…it may supply some therapeutic, some understanding, some consolation, some power after we really feel weak or when phrases fail us‘.

They see their new album as very a lot a inventive outflow from two folks, and the moods and feelings of the music they hope will elicit a response from listeners, they usually remark that it’s virtually a mini-opera within the sense of journey, the music takes you there and again. They need the album to be a chunk that makes folks react. 

The 2 met while Margaret was taking part in within the NAC Orchestra and heard Donna singing in initiatives with the orchestra. As Margaret began composing she felt that if she have been to jot down for anybody’s voice it will be for Donna’s. Donna was a buddy of associates and got here to do a fundraiser for OrKidstra, the musical charity that Margaret had co-founded, so Margaret requested Donna about singing a few of her music. Not that Margaret had written something for voice on the time, and that first undertaking took endurance. Additionally, Margaret didn’t know what texts to make use of however when she talked about this to Donna, it turned out that Donna wrote poetry or as she commented to me, ‘I write stuff‘. These texts spoke to Margaret and the collaboration was born.

The phrases, largely, come first, however for the ultimate track on the disc there have been initially no phrases and Donna added them later, while completely different songs took completely different paths to fruition. Speaking to the 2, it’s clear that although technically one wrote the phrases and the opposite the music, the songs are the results of a powerful and intense collaboration. And the fabric for the album developed over two years. At first, their ideas have been that the topic can be the seasons, however then they included some spoken texts they usually began to see a distinct sample, about responding to your internal inventive voice, your muse. And the way, if you happen to ignore it, chaos ensues. It helped that they each realised that the phrases and the music have been in tune with one another, the poems had in them what Margaret’s music did, each mirrored the identical journey. 

They see the music on the album as reflecting that while we reside within the current we additionally reside in an internal place that’s elsewhere, an idea which was conveyed each within the music and within the phrases. The journey of the album is about transferring from the true world to that internal area and again.

One among Donna’s early texts, Observe the Star, was written way back and was about transferring out and in of the true world, and each discover it phenomenal that they each had the identical religious journey. Additionally, as a composer, Margaret is all the time looking for melodies and she or he discovered that these fitted with the vocal strains for Donna’s voice. The occasions when Margaret felt she could not do issues would typically result in createive collaboration between the 2. Donna discovered that Margaret was very open-minded in order that Donna may give concepts to her. The collaboration has been each enjoyable and a problem, and has stretched each facet of their creativity, and the 2 appear to be on one thing of a roll and they’re already speaking a few new disc. I’m assured it’s going to have a narrative, and that the title can be ‘I’m respiratory stars’

The music Margaret creates is commonly story-like, and Margaret loves the way in which this has developed within the album, making a narrative from one track to a different, and the way in which the creativity between the 2 of them produced sudden outcomes. Nevertheless it was essential to float of that creativity, some songs have been scrapped as a result of they didn’t slot in, once more one thing that fitted in with the album’s theme of being true to your muse.

Between Worlds was offered in a reside live performance in Ottowa in 2019, however that was very completely different to the disc because the music was orchestrated for a big orchestra. The consequence was an enormous, thrilling sound, however Donna had all the time beloved Margaret’s recordings which she creates by layering a number of cello strains with some electronics, a sound Donna felt was extra leading edge and completely different. The reside performances, utilizing a conductor, have been extra elastic whereas on the disc they have been multitracking with Donna recording to a pre-recorded observe, one thing that Donna discovered moderately a problem. Then for 2 tracks, on the time of recording the music didn’t exist so Donna recorded them chilly and Margaret added the music later.

Margaret makes use of Cubase and sometimes manipulates the completely different cello strains, including octaves, in addition to different results and she or he feedback that she just isn’t shy of utilizing expertise. That is one thing that she has grown in confidence with; initially folks would remark that the music was not classical, but it surely has developed into her personal model. The brand new disc provides drums and piano to the combination too. Donna’s model of efficiency developed too. In a single track she needed to ‘do some yelling‘ and located that there was an excessive amount of distinction between the ‘yelling’ and her operatic voice, so she sang extra on the sting of the voice. This labored higher, and she or he feels that she’s going to go additional on this course subsequent time.

They’re speaking about additional reside performances of the music, maybe organized for chamber ensemble for a smaller format. However in addition to collaborations, the 2 have their very own separate musical lives.

Once we are chatting, I point out Alexander Shelly, who’s musical director of the NAC Orchestra during which Margaret used to play, and whom I interviewed just lately. It seems that Alexander is an envoy for OrKidstra and comes and conducts the youngsters (he was at their December live performance), while one other ambassador is the Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt. OrKidstra relies on El Sistema and was based 15 years in the past as a free programme for kids not capable of play an instrument.