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Pianist Charity Chan sandwiched our interview between two practice sessions in different parts of town, her schedule indicative of her increasing activity within the Montréal improvised music scene. Originally from Kitchener, the 28-year-old first settled here in 2005 to complete her music BA at McGill, which included improv classes with Lori Freedman and Eric Lewis. After stints in the USA, completing an MFA in contemporary improvisation at Mills College (studying with Fred Frith and Roscoe Mitchell) and the start of a PhD in musicology at Princeton University, she has been back in Montréal since August. “Mills was perfect for me at that time. They were flexible and supportive,” she enthuses, “but I always wanted to come back to Montréal.”
Chan has two discs out on the Ambiances Magnétiques label, which she says “feels like family.” The solo effort Somewhere the Sea and Salt features her highly physical “extended piano” music, which creates sonorities from every surface of the instrument, conjuring up a rich blend of often harrowing textures. Her trio disc with Fenaison is entitled plat, and features Rémy Bélanger de Beauport on amplified cello and Kris Covlin on saxophones. Chan plans at least two further releases for 2011. A second and as yet unnamed (“titles are always the last thing,” she says) solo CD will feature works for piano, harpsichord and accordion. “If you can improvise then you can compose,” Chan asserts, and the CD will include both approaches. An online, digital-only set will look back in time, comprised of improvised recordings with fellow Mills students. The latter will be for sale by donation only, an experiment in the workings of the Creative Commons licence, another one of Chan’s diverse interests.
Her PhD dissertation studies the culture surrounding improvised music. Using Montréal as its primary locale, she will document how musical improvisation scenes and distribution networks develop, and the pedagogy of improvisation. She will run a workshop next fall with renowned French bassist Joëlle Léandre and SuperMusique, aimed at teaching younger improvisors. “One can go through techniques such as conduction and graphical scores,” but in a philosophy that echoes Mills professor Pauline Oliveros, her main point is to “encourage a state of mind that encourages improvisation.”
Also, look forward to a duet with Nicolas Caloia of Ratchet Orchestra fame, and a multimedia extravaganza with Chan on piano accompanied by two cellists, de Beauport and Gaël Huard, video projections by Raphaelle Frigon, and a dancer to be named later.
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Se Ganesh Anandan e Hans Reichel, con Self Made, attraverso sottili intarsi percussionistici ci spingono in un mondo dove il profondo oriente si sposa ad una raffinata propensione improvvisativa (Amphibian, Primate Marathon), Charity Chan (in Somewhere the Sea and Salt) ci guida nel Regno della Dissonanza attraverso l’acustica deformata di un piano preparato ed “oggetti vari”. Ma è ancora il femminile ad ammaliare in Amy Horvey (Interview) dove la trentenne trombettista canadese si cimenta in quattro brani di compositori contemporanei tra cui spicca l’asciutto lirismo di Quattro pezzi per tromba sola, opera del grande Giacinto Scelsi (musicista ligure ultimamente molto rivalutato) e il radicalismo della conclusiva Overture to the Queen of Music Boxes. L’attenzione alla “classica contemporanea” è mantenuta alta anche da Quasar, che con Miroir des vents ci regalano un vivido affresco fiatistico dove la solitudine del vento (leggi i sax di Marie-Chantal Leclair, Mathieu Leclair, André Leroux e Jean-Marc Bouchard) viene declinata attraverso otto composizioni che trovano ne Le chant de l’inaudible di Jean-François Laporte la sublimazione ultima.
Con Rainer Wiens (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors) la faccenda si fa davvero intrigante: il percussionista (sic) di origini tedesche organizza undici performances in forma di solo e duo dove si alternano il flauto di Jean Derome, i violini di Malcolm Goldstein e Joshua Zubot nonché il sax di Frank Lozano. Il risultato - profondo e suggestivo - trova la sua sublimazione estrema nella traccia omonima: oltre dieci minuti splendidamente giocati dal duo Derome-Zubot, attraverso un zigzagare materico nel silenzio incombente…
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Solo album Somewhere Sea and Salt by pianist and improvisor Charity Chan. Chan studied and plays classical and modern repetertoire, but she focuses mainly on improvised music today. The piano is her tool. She uses all kinds of objects to trigger unheard sounds, timbres and resonances from the piano. With this wide palette of possibilities she carefully choses the sounds, etc. she can use. Not just to demonstrate a bunch of extended techniques, but in function of a minute and detailed research into all the subtleties between the different sounds that can be generated from the piano. This, sometimes in a way that it is hard to imagine that the sounds come from the piano. As a result Chan creates a diversity of moods and textures, sonic landscapes that one loves to explore.
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Charity Chan has appeared on two previous Ambiances Magnetiques releases. On those, with the trio Fenaison (Remy Belanger de Beauport on cello, flute and electronics and Kris Colvin on saxophone and voice), her extended piano fell deep within alien abstractions. The Montréal label now isolates her instrument for a solo CD that is a series of beautiful surprises.
Chan distinguishes her technique as “extended,” rather than “prepared” piano, in that the objects she uses aren’t fixed. In the Cagean tradition of prepared piano, nuts and bolts are put between the piano strings, they are muted with duct tape, or otherwise altered to affect their vibrations. Chan’s approach is more like a slide guitarist — handheld objects are moved across the strings, sometimes as she plays but more often being both slide and plectrum.
A piano is not a guitar, however, and the deep resonance of the instrument’s big case cannot be, shouldn’t be and isn’t hidden. Somewhere the sea and salt is an eminently pianistic record. The first half of the disc tends toward greater extension, with techniques employed that are not dissimilar to the work of Denman Maroney. The microphones are set so close that the listener is put alongside the tin pans and metal bowls inside the case. It’s unorthodox music for sure (although the language of altered piano is starting to become codified), but it’s also warm and musical. Which makes it all the more surprising, just past midpoint, when Chan reveals herself as a strong, classically trained player. The piano begins to sing, to proclaim its presence, making its way through the applied rattles and mutes. The instrument’s natural voice then disappears again on the beautiful Silent Sands, a piece built around a gentle midrange drone that sounds as if it might be generated with an E-bow. By the lovely closing track, J’ai manque son depart, piano and player seem to have found compromise as harpsichord. The 14 tracks are quite a workout, and Chan proves herself to be a talented and inventive player.
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