This is the third and final CD in Hétu’s series of compositions about snow performed by her Ensemble Supermusique. It’s divided into four multi-part segments—La Neige, Jamais froid, Rafales, and Paysages—but there are overarching patterns here, a profound experience of a season, the Quebec landscape (“Chaque chute de neige est une exposition d’art unique”) and, above all, a sense of community. While Hétu is composer, lyricist, conductor, vocalist, and saxophonist, what comes through most strongly here is a sense of shared life. Sprinkled throughout are brief reminiscences about snow spoken by musicians, writers, and family. They mix with the strong improvisatory and textural contributions of saxophonist-flutist Jean Derome, trombonist Scott Thomson, accordionist Diane Labrosse, bassist Alexandre St-Onge, and drummer Pierre Tanguay to create the sense of a collective ceremony presided over by Hétu, the moods of which are deeply reflective—almost reverent—playful, and celebratory by turn. Hétu’s sense of collaboration extends even further to the inclusion of a Steve Lacy composition, an adaptation of the folk song “À la claire fontaine,” and a collection of Inuktitut words for snow. In its ever-shifting linguistic textures and evolving musical language, Récits de neige marks a rare intersection of composer, group, and subject.
Stuart Broomer has written extensively on music, mostly improvised, for both general and specialist publications, and his liner essays have appeared on CDs by musicians from some 20 countries. The author of Time and Anthony Braxton (Mercury, 2009), he is currently writing a fantasia on the life of Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips. He has been intermittently active as an improvising musician since 1965; his composition Found Theme for the Age of Reason appeared in Musicworks 112. He lives in Toronto.