A versatile call to prayer, a double-CD of music for voice and Disklavier piano, Oremus Versatile, by multidisciplinary artists Jocelyn Robert and Alexandre St-Onge, is an album that wanders and weaves through a collection of improvisatory textual and auditory meditations. The combination of the Disklavier with St-Onge’s voice creates a sparkling photomosaic. It conjures images and emotions, and it tells a nomadic story that is both tender and melancholy.
The text has a ruminative quality. Certain words jump out, provoking contemplation; for example, institutions, volonté, surveillance. These words elicit dark, heavy thoughts, while the piano moves in feathery contrast. It’s as if the piano creates a safe place for the listener to consider the deeper message. In Pluie, Jamais, the wordplay created by replacing plus jamais (never again) with pluie makes you wonder if this piece is a lament for the rain which will never fall again, or if it’s a plea to the sky to cease its deluge. Either way, the wild piano flutters and patters, evoking the rain with delicate grace. In Près du Loup, the absence of voice is immediately obvious. The low sinister start is punctuated with long, dense silences that build tension and drama.
The entire album intertwines moments of shimmering intimacy with chaotic belligerence. It wails and whimpers like a wild animal, ultimately taking the listener on a ride that is emotional, beautiful, and surprising.
KATHRYN KNOWLES is a composer, cellist, conductor, and writer based in Toronto who served as the 2023–24 Composer Fellow with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Her composition A Strange and Preposterous Affair was premiered by the HPO in October 2023. Her debut fantasy trilogy, The Quiescence Trilogy, is available for purchase now.