Sarabande (from Ensuite)

I have always loved the Baroque dance suite form, and my love of slow music drew me in particular to the sarabandes.  In university, I played harpsichord, and worked on many such suites by Louis and Francois Couperin, Lully and Rameau among others.  I also took a course in Baroque dance, which gave me an understanding of the rhythmic life of the suites. While there is no specific reference to Baroque style in my piece, I explored the feeling of a sarabande, its particular lilt in 3/4 time (with departures into 3/8 and 4/4); in the end, the work became its ownkind of slow dance.

Composer Linda Catlin Smith grew up in New York City and lives in Toronto. Her teachers include Allen Shawn in NY, and Rudolf Komorous, Martin Bartlett, John Celona, Michael Longton and Jo Kondo at the University of Victoria. She was Artistic Director of Arraymusic, one of Toronto's major contemporary music ensembles in Toronto, from 1988 - 1993. She is a composition instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally, and she has been supported in her endeavours by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Chalmers Foundation, K.M. Hunter Award, and the Banff Centre.

Linda's music has been recorded by Eve Egoyan, Arraymusic, Evergreen Club Gamelan, Penderecki Quartet, Continuum, Les Coucous Benevoles and on her solo CD, Memory Forms. A new recording of Ballad, a 45-minute work for cello and piano (performed by Andy Smith and Eve Egoyan), has just been released on the World Editions label.

For more information about Linda C. Smith, click here.