At our concert on May 16th, Countermeasure brought in some videographers to record our performance for the purpose of getting some good-quality promotional video material. Well, the first song is up! This is London Bells, and it's probably one of my favourite songs that we sing. I'm really happy with the video. :)
I hope you like it as much as I do. :)
Marla
As I mentioned awhile ago, I've been in the process of recording and re-recording some songs, so that I have half-decent versions of my stuff to post. Well, I finished one! Here is The Longest Night, a song I wrote a little while ago when I wanted something a little different from your typical breakup song.
Enjoy! :)
Marla
This is unrelated to creative projects, but I think I'd like to use this space for public updates about my life in general - those just usually happen to be related to creative projects. :)
On Sunday (May 31) I'm riding in Ride for Heart, which is a fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. They close off the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway to cars and let cyclists ride along it, which is great fun. I'm doing the 50km distance.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation is a charity close to my heart, so I'd appreciate it if you'd consider donating to my ride. You can find my fundraising page here.
Your generosity is greatly appreciated! :)
Marla
Perhaps I'm a little belated in posting this, but better late than never, right?
Countermeasure has a handful of shows coming up in the next couple of weeks!
Tonight (May 16) is a big one: we've rented Glenn Gould Studio so that we can film some promo material. The more people the better, so tickets are an extra low $10! It's rare that we do a full-length show for so cheap, so it's a great opportunity to check us out. More info here.
At the end of the month is Sing! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival, and we're involved in a number of events for that:
I'll come back to this post and add more information about those concerts as I get it. But in the meantime, I have to go prepare for tonight's big show!
Marla
Back in the fall, I wrote a piece called Subtlety Is Not Your Specialty, for Soup Can Theatre's production of Circle Jerk. The line was given to me as inspiration, so I wrote a lovely piece for piano, flute and cello - and then the clarinet comes in an stomps all over it.
I was kind of sad that the piece ends up ruined by the clarinet, so I adapted it for piano solo, in which the original pleasant piece doesn't get interrupted - and decided to just name it Subtlety, since the spirit of the original title was no longer there.
It was an interesting experience, trying to condense a piece for four instruments into a solo. I find a lot of my piano writing tends to be simple, because I write what I can play immediately while sitting in front of the piano. This was different - since I was trying to conserve as many of the original instrumental lines as possible, it ended up being much more difficult than the piano music I usually write. A fair bit of practice went into being able to play it properly!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
Marla
A couple of weeks ago I did a little informal photoshoot with my baby cousin, Isla, who was two months old at the time. Here are a couple of my favourites.
What a kid. :)
Marla
I've lately been inspired to record more of my music. I have some songs that I have low-quality recordings of on Youtube which I'd like to improve upon, and I have some newer ones that I haven't gotten around to posting ANY version of yet.
I spent my day recording takes for Subtlety, the piano solo that's adapted from my chamber music piece Subtlety is Not Your Specialty, written for Soup Can Theatre's production of Circle Jerk, in fall 2014.
I also spent some time mathing out tempo maps for Dancing, the first pop song I ever wrote, and The Longest Night, my most recent song which has a bit of musical theatre feel. Due to limited recording facilities at home I'll have to wait until I get to work to make more progress on them (and on editing Subtlety) but hopefully I'll be able to post all three of them in the next few weeks. :)
This website has been good for my productivity!
Marla
A good friend of mine, Katy Harmer, will be premiering a piece of mine tonight at the Yellowknife Music Festival! It's very exciting for me - the piece was one I originally wrote in university for a specific purpose but due to various circumstances it was never performed. It's called There Will Come Soft Rains, the text from a poem by Sara Teasdale.
Katy will also be performing it at her recital in June, so perhaps I will be able to post a recording of it in the compositions section of my site in the near future.
Exciting to tie up loose ends!
Marla
Welcome to my brand spanking new website! I'll be improving it as time goes on, but I'll be keeping this page up to date with news on my various artistic projects.
Feel free to comment if you have any suggestions.
Enjoy, and hope to see you back soon!
Marla
