by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood
I will never forget the first time I listened to Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) by Richard Strauss. It was during my composition undergrad at McGill and I was sitting in my basement apartment lost in the orchestral soundscape created by the Chicago Symphony under Fritz Reiner. What imagination! What colours, and story, and sound! My peers scoffed at this Program Music (music meant to tell a story, the precursor to movie scoring) preferring the pure music of composers such as Brahms. But for me, the music was transcendent.
The format of his piece fit perfectly with Joseph Campbell’s hero myth format as laid out in A Hero With A Thousand Faces. I wanted to create my own. As part of my journey, I proposed writing a horn concerto for my Master’s at McGill but fate (and scholarship money) brought me to Toronto. The desire to connect with the hero myth is finally becoming fruitful in a collaboration with A. D’Agio and Rev. Walder who are writing the lyrics of a cantata that tells the story of our heroine, Iris. Stay tuned!