I’ve had the great pleasure of attending several of Daniel Brandes’ A Place to Listen concerts. It’s time well spent, focusing on sound and silence, in the intimate venue of James Bay United. Time seems to evaporate, and I leave with a lasting impression of calm. If you too are willing to “stay awhile” I would recommend experiencing this concert series.
For its 6th program, A Place to Listen presents the world premiere of other echoes inhabit the garden, an extended work for tenor saxophone and gated tape by Daniel Brandes. Commissioned by Victoria based Dutch Saxophonist Erik Abbink , other echoes inhabit the garden explores the quiet, fragile, and vulnerable side of the saxophone – a side of the instrument that is rarely used.
“As a composer I am very interested in what it means to create musical/social situations,” says composer (and A Place to Listen founder) Daniel Brandes. “I have a special interest in writing for unaccompanied soloists. Placing a musician in this exposed and vulnerable place — alone with an audience — is what is truly at stake when composing a work for unaccompanied soloist. It is a very special dynamic. It is in this hyper-intimate and tenuous space that the most alive and engaging music may happen — if the composer, player, and listener(s) are deeply sensitive to the situation.”
More than a concert series, A Place to Listen is about creating a space. A quiet place where, for an hour or two, one can be deeply attuned to something. Nothing spectacular or sensational. Just some tones and some silence. In our current culture of hyper-stimulation and saturation—which attempts to colonize our imaginations and demands that we not look too closely, or feel too deeply—this kind of musical practice is essential. It feeds a part of us that, more and more, we are learning to neglect. The part that needs quiet.
Rather than a concert series, this is a listening series. Thanks for listening
A Place to Listen presents:
other echoes: Erik Abbink plays Daniel Brandes
Date: Wednesday, March 20th
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: James Bay United Church
Address: 517 Michigan Street, Victoria
Admission: General Admission $10/Students and Artists $5
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