October 18th, 2024. Sanctuary Concerts announces the release of Passages (SCCD 007), a new recording from Blackwood duo Peter-Anthony Togni (pipe organ) and Jeff Reilly (bass clarinet) with special guest India Gailey.
While their previous release Lost and Found featured exclusively tracks with Peter-Anthony Togni on piano, PASSAGES focus on the pipe organ. Recorded on 3 different organs across the maritime provinces of Atlantic Canada, the sound of PASSAGES is rich, mysterious and lyrical.
Watch Peter and Jeff perform the title track here:
Inspired by plainchant, free improvisation and holy minimalism (think Arvo Part meeting up with Bram Stoker) Blackwood members Jeff Reilly and Peter-Anthony Togni join up with cellist India Gailey to release this new album PASSAGES.
Peter and Jeff are honoured and delighted to be joined by the cellist, composer, and improviser India Gailey, a rising star based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, who appears on 2 tracks from this album. India adds her wonderful musicianship and powerful improvisations to the sound of this project.
“Sonically haunting, sophisticated, euro-jazz minimalism” Selwin Harris, Jazzwise UK
Blackwood’s lyrical approach to music straddles the mysterious boundary areas between jazz and classical. Over the past 25 years these musical soul searchers have released eight albums on labels like the ECM new series and Warner Classics and presented hundreds of concerts around the world. Along the way, they’ve garnered four JUNO nominations between them.
Peter and Jeff are honoured and delighted to be joined by the cellist, composer, and improviser India Gailey, a rising star based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, who appears on 2 tracks from this album.
Lost and Found is Peter-Anthony Togni and Jeff Reilly’s collection of compositions inspired by subjects ranging from the power of dreams, the birth of children and grandchildren, the natural world and medieval plainchant. They also include a transcendent take on the Miles Davis classic Blue in Green.
Recorded in the pristine acoustics and isolated environment of Trinity St-Stephen’s church in the small town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada — the album has rich and inviting sonic atmosphere.
Watch Blackwood perform the title track to Lost and Found:
A featured work on my upcoming release To Dream of Silence is a work by the Canadian composer Christos Hatzis: Extreme Unction. Set for solo bass clarinet and string orchestra, it is a powerful depiction of both the struggles against, and the final acceptance of the inevitability of death. The recurring theme that runs through this entire release is the power of the heart as an engine of transformation. In To Dream of Silence you hear the heart of the machinery of a vast basement, the pounding of a heart recovering from terror, a bursting heart upon witnessing indescribable beauty, the rich heart of our home and finally in Christos’ work we hear a heart beating out the final moments of life. Death, as this brilliant work by Christos shows us, is the ultimate transformation.
Extreme Unction is now available for download on bandcamp as an individual track.jeffreilly.bandcamp.com
All tracks available on all download and streaming sites (Itunes, Spotify etc.. ) on September 29th
Christos Hatzis wrote this work using recordings of my improvisations that he then re-worked and orchestrated. Here is a letter I sent to Christos when I was preparing this work for the performance and recording of this piece last June:
“I have fallen in love with your piece in a truly complex way. It’s not all joy and light I have to tell you. Truth be told I am finding it hard to articulate what it is like to realize a piece that is so much me but also so much you. It is like we have had a strange musical baby together that has its own life that in turn describes death in such a chaotic, but nuanced expression. Hard, but beautiful. Hard to be me when my expression is chopped up, reset, orchestrated and returned with greater depth and power than any individual gesture could possibly express. My feelings around it are much deeper and more realized than they were in the Toronto performance. Maybe it’s the amount of time I have spent on it this time around, as now I certainly feel that I have wrestled this anguished beast into technical submission, while last time I think it was beyond my grasp…. but also I think it has to do with turning 60 – it changes you somehow. I hope you will hear all this in my performance, it certainly is my intention.”
Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra players:
First violins: Manuela Milani, Martine Dubé, Sara Mastrangelo, Geneviève Petit
Second violins: Solange Tremblay, Marjolaine Lambert, Maria Nenoiu,Brigitte Amyot
Violas: Catherine Ferreira, Sonya Probst
Cellos: Julian Armour, Thaddeus Morden
Bass: John Geggie
Nominated for a Juno Award in 2016 as well as the winner of the 2014 Lieutenant Governor’s Masterworks Award, RESPONSIO is Peter-Anthony Togni`s breathtakingly beautiful meditation on Guillaume de Machat’s medieval masterpiece the Messe de Nostre Dame. Featuring a bass clarinet (Jeff Reilly) that soars over the timeless sonorities of a world class vocal quartet, RESPONSIO is a deep reflection on over 1,000 years of spiritual music making.
This is a one night only event, a rare opportunity to experience this work with the original world class performers.
RESPONSIO was released internationally in September of 2015 on the Montreal based ATMA classique label. CDs will be available for purchase at the concert.
RESPONSIO will also be performed in April and May as follows:
The long awaited release by the Halifax based trio Sanctuary is here. ESTUARY was released internationally on Friday, September 25th. The third CD from this truly unique trio of pipe organ, cello and bass clarinet reflects 17 years of refinement and development.
Ranging from the full, suspended sound of Peter-Anthony Togni’s “Nuer Prayer”, through the austere beauty of Jeff Reilly’s “Creatures of Infinite Grace” to the driving rhythms of Christoph Both’s “Sonora”, ESTUARY is a deep-listening dive into the musical minds of these three highly experienced musicians.
Recorded by Rod Sneddon, produced by Jeff Reilly and mastered by Britain’s renowned mastering engineer Simon Heyworth, ESTUARY presents a pristine sound with incredible depth and resonance.
For a free track download please go here. The trio will perform tracks from ESTUARY in 2 concerts, one in Halifax and the other in Wolfville, NS on October 6th and 7th:
Tuesday, October 6th at 7:30 pm
Fort Massey United Church
5303 Tobin St. Halifax, NS
Wednesday, October 7th at 7:30 pm
Wolfville Baptist Church
487 Main St. Wolfville, NS
Tickets are 15/10 at the door and also can be purchased on-line for a reduced rate here.
Here is a beautiful little promo video about Responsio, a new work for bass clarinet and vocal quartet by Peter-Anthony Togni. It’s based on the 14th century masterpiece the “Messe de Nostre Dame” by Guillaume de Machaut. This stunning piece will be released on the Montreal based label ATMA Classique on Sept. 11th, 2015 and toured nationally in April and May of 2016..
Congratulations to Peter for this incredible acknowledgement of what is truly an extensive and beautiful masterwork combining the ancient and the new. Responsio is a contemporary response to Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame and it features:
