John Burge - Composition
Sadaf Amini - Santur
Colleen Reninhan - Solo Soprano
John Burge - Percussion
Kingston Chamber Choir, Darrell Christie, conductor

MOVEMENTS:

0:00 Introduction
1:36 Movement 1. First Refrain
4:10 Movement 2. Don't Come Without a Tambourine
8:24 Movement 3. Second Refrain
11:41 Movement 4. You Go Into My Soul
18:48 Movement 5. Third Refrain
22:01 Movement 6. On the Day of My Death
28:25 Movement 7. Fourth Refrain

BACKGROUND:

On January 8, 2020, the Iranian military shot down Ukrainian Air Flight 752 while the plane was leaving Iranian airspace. In total, 176 passengers and crew were killed including 57 Canadian citizens and 29 Canadian landed immigrants. The reverberations of this tragedy were felt across Canada and around the world. With regards to Kingston, Ontario, where the composer and performers of the online premiere of FLIGHT 752 ELEGIES reside, a doctoral Engineering student who was completing his degree at Queen’s University in Kingston, died in the crash.

Like much of the world, Sadaf Amini and John Burge who were working on another project at the time, were deeply saddened to hear the news about the Flight 752 crash. In Sadaf’s case, as she still has relatives in Iran, the depth of remorse was obviously very profound. Upon suggesting to Sadaf that we collaborate on the creation of a work choir and santur written in remembrance of the victims, she immediately indicated her complete support. Darrell Christie, Music Director of the Kingston Chamber Choir, quickly agreed to become involved in the project and proposed a concert to premiere the work in early 2021 in Kingston, but these plans were put on hold due to COVID-19. However, later in 2021, these performers, along with soprano, Colleen Renihan, were able to make a video of the entire composition using pre-recorded choir parts with the support of the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

COMPOSITION DESCRIPTION:

FLIGHT 752 ELEGIES is a 7-movement work with a duration of approximately 30 minutes. The unifying element of this composition is that the choir sings the same music for movements 1, 3, 5 and 7 which serves a consoling chorale or refrain. The choir part is wordless for these odd-numbered movements with the texture thickening to over-lapping sonorities of 8-part choral divisi with one central climax. Each of these refrains ends with a slightly different cadence and is sung at a slower tempo with each repetition. In these movements, the santur plays independently of the choir, beginning in the first movement (the “First Refrain”) with rhythmic groups of 7 notes, then 5 notes, then 2. For movement three (the “Second Refrain”), the santur is reduced to 5- and 2-note groups. Movement five (the “Third Refrain”), has the santur part is reduced to just 2-note groups, spaced far apart. In movement 7 (the “Fourth Refrain”), the santur does not play at all. Although perhaps not a particularly subtle metaphor, the arc of hearing the same wordless refrain sung by the choir with diminishing contributions from the santur, can be visually and aurally seen as a real-time symbol of loss.

The even-numbered movements have much more active music for the santur and the choir and are sung to English translations of three poems by the 13th-century Islamic mystical poet known as Rumi and whose full name was Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207-1273 AD). To give these movements a more distinctive focus, a simple percussion part is added for variety (tambourine in the second movement, crotales or bells in the fourth movement, and a drum in the sixth movement). The fourth movement, being the central movement around which the entire composition pivots, is given further prominence by having a solo soprano part.

For more information about this work and other compositions by John Burge, please check out, or contact the composer, through his website: www.johnburge.ca
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صدف امینی - سنتور
کالین رنینهان - سوپرانو سولو
جان برج - پرکاشن
گروه کر مجلسی کینگستون، دارل کریستی، رهبر ارکستر

«مر‍ثیه ای برای هوا‍پیمایی ۷۵۲» یک اثر ۷ موومانی با مدت زمان تقریبی ۳۰ دقیقه است. عنصر وحدت بخش این قطعه گروه کر است که یک موسیقی واحد را برای موومانهای ۱، ۳، ۵ و ۷ می خواند. در این موومانها، سنتور مستقل از گروه کر می نوازد که از موومان اول با گروه های ۷ نت، ۵ نت و ۲ نت شروع می شود. برای موومان سه، سنتور به گروه های ۵ و ۲ نتی تقلیل می یابد. در موومان پنج، سنتور تنها گروه‌های ۲ نتی مینوازد و در موومان ۷ سنتور اصلاً اجرا نمیکند. تعداد نت ها در این موومانها استعاره ای از شماره ی ۷۵۲ هوا‍پیماست و کاهش تعداد نت ها به عنوان نمادی از فقدان دیده شود. موومانهای زوج دارای موسیقی بسیار فعال تر برای سنتور و گروه کر هستند و با ترجمه انگلیسی سه شعر از شاعر قرن سیزدهم مولانا خوانده می شوند.

این قطعه در زمان محدودیتهای ویروس کرونا ضط شده که گروه کر قادر به اجرا ی زنده روی سن نبودند.

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