Mitch Renaud

This will be a quick update, I finished ‘Triptych on Themes of Children’ today. It rounded out at 15 minutes long and will be premiered in the early fall, more info to come.

The premier of ‘Life Cycles’ went really well, the players were outstanding and hall’s acoustics were great. I will post a recording soon, also I’m hoping to have a recording of ‘What will you do with this one precious life’ to upload soon. It seems that ‘Life Cycles’ will see a repeat performance in the fall as well so more info to come.

Summer is proving to be really fantastic so far, the Earwax ensemble has premiered ‘What will you do with this one precious life’ and given it a repeat performance. Its been great to hear this piece played by them and I’m looking forward to getting it recorded and will post it when I do.

My string quartet ‘Life Cycles’ will be premiered this Friday July 9th at 7pm at 310 Danforth Westminster United. See the poster below.

Currently I’m finishing my triptych of solo piano pieces exploring themes of children. The pieces have grown from children I’ve seen around, memories of my childhood, ideals of childhood, among other things. I’m planning to have this triptych premier at a upcoming concert of Canadian Solo Piano I’m working on organizing for late September, more info to come as its available.

It’s been a productive spring for me so far! Along with the piece for the earwax ensemble I’ve started work on two other pieces.

The piano piece is titled Scenes of Children and is a three movement work that will run around 6 minutes. The first and third movements were inspired by a group of children I often see playing down my street. The idea for the piece grew out of the first movement Playing in the Rain, which I wrote after walking past the group of children playing on the street in a beautiful early spring day with a light rain. I was moved by their nature, the way they interacted, their innocence. It made me look back too my own childhood and I wrote this movement as a reflection. The second movement came a week or so later while I was thinking about childhood and imagination. This movement is influenced by the music of Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurdsson that I’ve been really interested in for awhile now. Anyways the third movement came after walking past two kids playing with lightsabers, guided by their mother. The one kid turned his back on the other who took the advantage and swiftly cut his head off! The mother then exclaimed Oh no now you’ve lost your head! Now you have to have a dramatic death. All three movements are complete now so I’m just doing some editing here and there.

The nonet is titled čudo, which is a serbian word meaning something to the effect of a miracle with a touch of absurdity. I think this is a fantastic word and I wish english had a word with the same inflections. I’ve been waiting to use this word in a piece since last fall or early winter when a friend of mine mentioned it. I’ve been having fun exploring a lot of abstract (irrational) number relations with the piece. It’s based on the number 3 which creates 9, which creates 27, which is my favourite number. So I’ve used these numbers to create a 4 section form 432 bars long each section being 108 bars long so on and so forth… Needless to say its been a really fun piece to write so far, and it has presented a lot of new challenges to me which I’m excited to work through.

So I’m working on using this blog more and keeping it more up to date with what I’m doing, hopefully that will continue…

Well, the academic year is coming to a close. Its been a great year for me and I am looking forward to some new and exciting projects.

First off my String quartet is compelete. Its title is “Life Cycles” It runs approximately 18 minutes, the movements are titled:

1. I am but your memories

2. Only recreations of your past

3. Settling in your mind’s eye

4. Recapping the cycles of your life

It will premiered in the summer in Toronto I’ll post more details soon. Also on May 3rd I will be workshopping it with the wonderful Madawaska String Quartet.

I’m currently working on a piece for the Earwax ensemble lead by Charlotte Mundy to be performed on June 3rd in Toronto. The earwax ensemble is a exciting new Toronto group dedicated to performing adventurous works exploring graphic notation, text scores, and free impro. The piece is titled “What will you do with this one precious life?” it will be scored for Alto Sax, Clarinet, electronics, two electric guitars, bass guitar, possibly percussion, and voice.

It has been a busy but productive fall for me.

First off on Tuesday November 24, two works were premiered at the University of Toronto student composer’s concert. One a percussion trio I have been working on in various forms for a few months titled ‘Tracing Lights in City Nights’. The ensemble was made up of Greg Samek Auxiliary Percussion, Michelle Colton Marimba, and Greg Harrison Vibraphone. The performance went very well and a recording is available for download in the works section.

Program note:

“Tracing Lights in City Nights” explores the relationship between humans and nature, specifically the interaction between city lights and stars at night. Growing up in a rural environment allowed me to take for granted the stars. It wasn’t until moving to Toronto that I came to fully appreciate their presence. The dichotomy between urban and natural landscapes has been a constant source of inspiration and intrigue for me as our relationship with the world around us continuously changes.

The second piece that was premiered was a revised version of ‘Moments Capturing Time and Space’ for solo piano. Fellow composer Patrick Murray performed the piece, it was a pleasure working with him over the course of the development of the piece. The recording of this piece is also available for download in the works section.

Program note:

DIfferent parts of this piece have come together over the last few years. The main theme comes from a scraped song of a rock band I used to play with, while the first piano version of this piece was written in February 09. In September I picked it up again with the initial intent to use it as material for a percussion piece, but instead I decided to complete it as a solo piano piece. From there I choose to add a prelude, as well as revising and expanding the old material to bring it to its present form. My intent with this piece is to capture different times and places from my life that have left a lasting impression on me.

Looking forward, I have been working on a set of beginner piano pieces as well as a series of Bagatelles for Cello, Bassoon, Violin and Cello. I am planning to have these performed early next year, then moving on to some new pieces. Possibly something for voice, harpsichord and small ensemble.

Stay tuned!

My string Quartet “Reckless” that came out of my collaboration with poet Lara Bozabalian was done in a reading session by the St. Lawrence string quartet on March 31. It was a very exciting and inspiring experience for me to be able to work musicians of that caliber, on such an intimate level.

My year at University of Toronto has wound down to a close and the summer is opening up to many exciting projects. Most of all more time to compose!

I am currently working on a 4 movement sonata for 3 percussionist. It is coming very well and I’m hoping to have it premiered in the fall. The piece will be exploring the contrast between the city lights and the stars. I’m also starting to study composition privately with Alexander Rapoport.

Hello,

I now have a theme that I’m going to stick with so I can finally move forward on my work on developing this web page. I’m going to chip away at it when I can so please continue to check back for updates as they come.

Thanks,

Mitch