Honens to Present CADENCE, With Georgy Tchaidze And Wakefield Brewster

Honens, home of Canada's international piano competition, announces CADENCE, an event where the boundaries between music and spoken word dissolve. This special evening of piano artistry and live poetry takes place on Wednesday, October 9, at 7 p.m., at Flanagan Theatre (The GRAND). CADENCE features 2009 Honens Prize Laureate Georgy Tchaidze and Wakefield Brewster, a professional poet and spoken word artist who is Calgary's sixth Poet Laureate and one of Canada's most prolific poets.

"In many ways, this program is an attempt to combine the incompatible, an attempt to discover new facets of familiar sounds and rhythms," says Tchaidze who, following his Honens victory in 2009, has gone on to perform throughout Europe, North America and Asia to great acclaim, including at Carnegie Hall, Berlin's Konzerthaus, Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, among many others.

"Wakefield's powerful and fierce poetry is filled with music and rhythmic harmony on its own," continues Tchaidze. "The impact of this poetry on the listener is so strong that the idea of illustrating it with music, or accompanying it with some kind of background sound, initially didn't seem successful to me. Instead, I thought it would be interesting to create an entirely abstract sound space where the spoken word and played phrase could coexist and reflect each other. The hypnotic, elemental effect of the poetry on an almost subconscious level would merge with the mysterious, otherworldly sound of the piano. This program is a kind of leap of faith, a collaborative creative journey, and I am delighted to invite listeners to join me on it."

The program-which includes John Adams' China Gates, Olivier Messiaen's Première communion de la Vierge (No. 11) from Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus, John Cage's In a Landscape, and more, interspersed with Brewster's original poetry-explores the deep emotional and rhythmic connections between two seemingly incongruous art forms. The innovative program will transport audiences to the uncharted territory of musical phrasing and vocal inflection, which is brimming with potential for creative expression.

Presented in partnership with The GRAND.

PERFORMANCE DETAILS

CADENCE
WITH GEORGY TCHAIDZE AND WAKEFIELD BREWSTER

Georgy Tchaidze, piano
Wakefield Brewster, spoken word

Wednesday 9 October 2024
7 p.m.

Flanagan Theatre, The GRAND
608 First Street SW

TICKETS
Adult $45
A440 / Student $25

To get your tickets, click here.

To post a comment, you must register and login.