Soundstreams to Present POITU VAREN: A Pilgrimage Through Sound

Lawrence Cherney, Founding Artistic Director of Soundstreams has announced details of the company's first TD Encounters of 2025: Poitu Varen, curated by Toronto-based composer, pianist, and Soundstreams New Voices Curator Mentorship Program winner Kalaisan Kalaichelvan.

Named after the Tamil farewell gesture "poitu varen" ("I will go and come back"), Kalaichelvan has crafted an immersive concert-going experience inspired in part by Anne Carson's "The Anthropology of Water," and centred around a search for meaning through sound. The concert features instruments connected through speakers, and projected text, to drive a musical meditation on legacy, loss and renewal.

Says Kalaichelvan: "The concept of Poitu Varen is grounded in my interest in objects as storytellers, as containing their own history and memory. I wanted to build a piece of music based on resonance - the transformation that happens during a performance, the relationship between performer, object and audience. In a shared space we add to the history of the objects being performed, building a map together of memory, time and place."

The audience is invited into the heart of the experience with seating arranged around the instruments, dissolving the boundary between performer and observer.

Poitu Varen features Chris Pruden on four interconnected pianos, and double bassist Zoe Markle, with Nick Walker Grimshaw on electronics. Composed by Kalaichelvan, the work examines how performance objects accumulate gestures and cognitive patterns imbued with layered meaning to create a space for transformation and profound dialogue across what different generations of music-making share.

Poitu Varen takes place on one night only: Wednesday, February 5 at 7:30 p.m. at Hugh's Room. Seats are free but space is limited. A discussion and audience Q&A with Kalaichelvan and musicians will follow the performance. Reservations can be made at Soundstreams.ca.

Soundstreams' TD Encounters is a free event series hosted in venues across the city. Always offering something different, they are equal parts performance, artist discussion, and Q&A, and give audiences the opportunity to engage with artists and their work in an intimate and relaxed setting.

KALAISAN KALAICHELVAN's compositional practice spans multiple disciplines, drawing from film, dance, theatre, installation and deals with themes of translation and transference. Named by Ludwig Van Toronto as one of "six emerging Canadian composers to keep an eye on" and Playback's 10 to Watch, his music has been performed and premiered by celebrated ensembles such as Pro Coro Canada, the Dior Quartet, NMC Ensemble and featured at festivals such as Cannes Film Festival and Sundance. He was awarded the Kathleen Morrow Award in 2024 and the SOCAN Emerging Composer Award in 2023. Kalaisan's music is defined by its genre-bending boldness, its refined classicism and musical ingenuity. Having worked across various disciplines and communities of thought, Kalaisan seeks to bring together incongruous institutions to build novel structures that reflect his artistic upbringing. Learn more at kalaisanmusic.com.

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