Composer Kevin Lau Talks About Ballet, Composition, And Kimiko’s Pearl

Composer Kevin Lau’s rating for Kimiko’s Pearl, a brand new ballet with choreography by Yosuke Mino (Royal Winnipeg Ballet) will see its world premiere in St. Catharines in June 2024. An orchestral suite based mostly on the ballet music might be premiered by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra of their 2024/25 season.

That can comply with the latest premiere of Lau’s choral piece Stained glass rainbows by means of cathedral by Toronto’s Cantabile Chamber Singers, and the discharge of his album Below A Veil Of Stars (on Leaf Music) final September.

We caught up with the busy composer to speak about Kimiko’s Pearl and different issues.

Stained Glass Rainbows Via Cathedral Motion 2 by Dr Kevin Lau (premiered March 2, 2024 in Toronto with the Cantabile Chamber Singers):

Composer Kevin Lau: The Interview

A winner of the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynn-Staunton Award in 2017, Kevin’s work usually revolves round themes of the surreal, and discovering connections in numerous components. His music has been commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Nationwide Arts Centre Orchestra, and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, amongst others, and has been carried out internationally, and championed by artists like Jonathan Crow, Rachel Mercer, Scott. St. John, Angela Park, Marc Djokic, and others.

His six string quartets have been carried out by the Viano, Tesla, Afiara, Dior, and Cecilia String Quartets, together with others, and two of the quartets had been programmed within the Banff Worldwide String Quartet Competitors. In 2023, his Third String Quartet was chosen because the check piece for the Saint Paul String Quartet Competitors in Minnesota.

His compositional output is numerous, together with choral and orchestral works, ballets, and work such because the opera-film hybrid Sure, commissioned by Towards the Grain Theatre, and carried out by the TSO. Two earlier releases showcasing his music have received JUNO award, together with Detach (Redshift, with harpist Angela Schwarzkopf) and Mosaique by Ensemble Made in Canada.

He was the Affiliate Composer of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 2012 – 2015.

Kevin’s music may very well be referred to as Neo-romantic in fashion, melodic and evocative, whereas nonetheless completely up to date.

“I believe these stylistic classes undoubtedly cross my thoughts,” Kevin says, including, “I believe composers aren’t the best individuals to ask about their very own music.”

The feelings of a chunk are often on his thoughts. “I’m usually considering alongside the traces of expression.” Suggestions tells him whether or not his instincts are proper.

His influences vary from romanticism to modernism to “issues that vary out of classical music,” he explains, resembling heavy steel and jazz. “I see myself as being a bit eclectic. […] Intense lyricism tends to be part of loads of my music.”

Synthesizing totally different concepts and components is one other recurring preoccupation. “I’m within the convergence of various issues in music,” he says. “It’s attention-grabbing once you mix issues that don’t appear to go properly collectively on the floor.”

The Nationwide Ballet’s premiere of Kevin Lau’s Le Petit Prince (2016):

Ballet & Kimiko’s Pearl

“I like ballet,” he says. It’s not one thing that he essentially had in thoughts as a particular aim from the beginning. “I’ve felt very fortunate to have the chance to be concerned within the creation of ballet.”

He says the expertise has helped him usually phrases to work out the main points of a large-scale venture. Le Petit Prince with the Nationwide Ballet of Canada was his first. He calls the expertise difficult but in addition very rewarding.

He’s since labored with choreographer Guillaume Cote once more on Darkish Angels, a shorter 30-minute ballet. Kimiko’s Pearl would be the third.

“It does share some facets with the opposite ballets when it comes to the long run narrative,” he explains.

The Canadian authorities dispossessed and displaced greater than 22,000 Japanese Canadians throughout the notorious interval of internment between 1942 and 1949. Kimiko’s Pearl tells the story of the Ayukawa household in Mission B.C. by means of 4 generations.

Primarily based on the true story of the Japanese Canadian internment of WWII, the ballet revolves round themes of warfare, sacrifice and renewal. It was commissioned and produced by Bravo Niagara!, who intend on touring the manufacturing after its world premiere this yr. The particular story relies on a chunk by Emmy Award-winning author Howard Reich, impressed by the household historical past of Bravo Niagara! co-founders Christine Mori and her daughter Alexis Spieldenner. The pair function co-creators and producers of the ballet.

Kevin’s involvement got here by means of connections to Christine and Alexis. “They knew me principally by means of my affiliation with Niagara Symphony,” he says. Kevin was a composer-in-residence with Niagara Symphony in 2018/19.

They approached him with the concept of working collectively, however the best venture didn’t come alongside till simply previous to the pandemic. “Christine had the concept to inform the story of her household’s expertise with Japanese internment,” he explains.

The venture was initially conceived of on a small scale, as a piece of chamber music that may very well be accompanied by dance. Musicians Ron Korb (flute), Conrad Chow (violin), and Rachel Mercer (cello) might be performing the music. As the concept developed, it expanded to a full-length narrative of 70 minutes.

The inventive workforce was assembled and, after the pause of the pandemic, is lastly continuing to the stage.

An excerpt from Kimiko’s Pearl:

Music, Social Relevance And Therapeutic

Kimiko’s Pearl would be the first time that ballet and classical music have been used to convey the Canadian Japanese internment expertise. The performing arts will be the simplest solution to confront and take care of complicated points.

“I completely do [agree]”, he says. Music can play a key position position with points which can be very troublesome to speak about. “It engages the feelings on a sort of degree that’s past the attain of language. It has occupied a really layered place in lots of cultures traditionally.”

In Western society, we are likely to have relegated music to the realm of leisure, however he doesn’t see it as an both/or alternative.

“It was attention-grabbing to me that Christine and Alexis selected to inform this story in manner that wasn’t verbal,” he says. It makes the story intense, transferring and cathartic, with out requiring an in depth essay to elucidate its background.

“After I see it work, and after I expertise it myself […] it could actually create this exorcism of emotion,” he says. “It may be very profound.”

“My position, as a lot as doable, particularly on a venture resembling this, is to inform their story,” he says, “to attempt to serve their story, and provides one thing again.”

It’s a manner of therapeutic previous wounds.

His latest album, a collection of piano trios recorded by cellist Rachel Mercer (who’s additionally concerned in Kimiko’s Pearl), with a chunk devoted to Mercer and her husband, violinist Yehonatan Beric, who handed away abruptly after recording a part of the album. The album as an entire is devoted to Beric’s reminiscence.

“It was fairly a cathartic course of for me to place collectively that album.”

Kevin is at the moment engaged on a chunk for this summer time’s Ottawa Chamberfest, to be carried out by the Ironwood Quartet with Philip Chiu

• Discover tickets and extra details about the June 22 and 23 world premiere of Kimiko’s Pearl on the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines [HERE].
• You’ll be able to take a look at Kevin’s launch on Leaf Music [HERE].
• Discover tickets and extra details about the world premiere of Kimiko’s Pearl Orchestral Suite with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra [HERE].

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