Thanks to Sabrina Cruz and everyone at Answer in Progress for inviting me to be a part of this YouTube production. What a great mix of goals – curiosity, learning, questioning assumptions, putting music back into your life, and seeing what pleasure it brings. Far from being another ‘let’s trash the recorder’ piece – do you think I’d actually be involved in one of those? – this is a definite ‘thumbs-up’ for the instrument and playing it, whatever your level and goals may be.
In the spring of 2023 I announced that I’d be leaving the Toronto Consort at the end of the 2023-24 season, and indeed, I have stepped away. Thanks to my colleagues and so many wonderful guests, and to many wonderful volunteers, stage managers, administrators and Board members for the many musical and personal joys of the past decades!
Summer 2023: Peter Hannan’s Harmonia, recorded with Stephanie Chua (keyboard synths) in early October 2023. Peter wrote the piece in 1990 for midi wind and revised it in 2022 for the Artinoise Re.corder. It was a huge pleasure – and a huge learning curve! – to learn, rehearse and record this piece and I’m so grateful to Peter for asking me.
Here’s the piece, on Peter Hannan’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfAYGBH5Xf4
Thanks to Colin Savage for the session photo of sound engineer Matt Antal, videographer Jeremy Mimnagh, composer/producer Peter Hannan, Stephanie Chua and yours truly.