Ann Southam

Thought I'd drop by and make a plug for Ann Southam's music. She's a Canadian composer that passed away last year and her piano music is really quite stunning. Sometimes she employs a mixture of twelve-tone and minimalism, like in Simple Lines of Enquiry (http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Lines-of-Enquiry/dp/B002CR1FDA), and others it's a beautiful, sort of postminimalist style like in Glass Houses Revisited (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TTY-ybM3rQ). You can order and even borrow a lot of her scores through the Canadian Music Centre (http://www.musiccentre.ca/apps/index.cfm?fuseaction=composer.FA_dsp_biography&authpeopleid=435&by=S), and if you register on the site you can listen to TONS of archival recordings. Edit: I should also add that everyone I've dealt with at the CMC has gone out of their way to be helpful. There are some great people working there, and no, I get nothing in promoting their organization.

Yes, I'm biased as I just completed a recording project of her music, but I really do think more people should be looking into her scores. Pieces that I'd recommend, in addition to those mentioned are:
Soundings for a New Piano
Qualities of Consonance
Rivers (3 sets)
Soundstill

Most of these are hand-engraved, but once I got used to her handwriting, I found I preferred those scores to the computer-engraved ones.

Enjoy!

 

I'm sure I have heard some of her scores a while back and her piano music is really something. Ann Southam’s piano music was so beautiful and Eve Egoyan’s interpretation so lovely, that when I heard it plays, I just want to lose myself and simply enjoy.

 

StephenC, are you continuously searching for old topics to bump ? In most forums, this is considered Not Done. Do you never feel like posting in a recent thread ?

Having said that, it's good that someone comments here, even if it took a while. I had not heard of Ann Southam before, and clearly missed the original post. She sounds like an important composer and Andy Lee does a marvellous job here as always.

 

I really don't intend to search old topic to bump, it's just that I can't relate to new or recent topics and I don't have anything to offer for me to create a new thread. Apologies then.

 

Not a problem. I was just wondering.