raW

raW was written by filtering J. S. Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto through Bob Marley's War (Bach's first movement), Burning Spear's The Invasion (second movement), and John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever (third movement). The constant running sixteenths of the Bach are by turns syncopated or silenced, leaving fleeting and usually unrecognizable echoes of reggae or march. MIDI files downloaded from the internet coupled with music software (Sibelius in this case) formed the basis of early drafts of this work. From them, I made templates, which I then edited over the course of many drafts, as might an artist who takes a photograph and alters it by hand: drawing, scratching, colouring, erasing. raW was written during the buildup to the American invasion of Iraq, but it was only afterwards that I noticed the connection to the "filtering" pieces' titles. raW was commissioned and premiered by Ergo Concerts (Barbara Croall, Artistic Director) and written with the assistance of a grant from The Toronto Arts Council. It was awarded the 2006 Jules Léger Prize for Chamber Music.

Toronto composer James Rolfe (b. Ottawa, 1961) writes for chamber ensemble, orchestra, and choir. He has been commissioned and performed by ensembles in Canada, the USA, Europe, and New Zealand. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000, the K. M. Hunter Music Award in 2003, the 2005 Louis Applebaum Composers Award, and the 2006 Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music for raW.

Mr. Rolfe is also known as of Canada’s leading opera composers. His opera Beatrice Chancy was produced between 1998 and 2001 in Toronto, Dartmouth, and Edmonton by The Queen of Puddings Music Theatre Company. In February 2009 the same company premiered Inês, which was nominated for a Dora Award. The children’s opera Elijah’s Kite was premiered in New York in 2006 by Tapestry New Opera Works with the Manhattan School of Music, and later presented at Rideau Hall in Ottawa before the Governor-General. His masques Orpheus and Eurydice and Aeneas and Dido (with words by André Alexis) were premiered by The Toronto Masque Theatre in 2004 and 2007. Swoon was premiered in December 2006 by the Canadian Opera Company, which has since commissioned a new opera. Other upcoming premieres include Norway’s Trio Mediaeval and the band of North Toronto Collegiate Institute.

For more information about James Rolfe, click here.