Muzewest Concerts presents Nos Voix

Join us for an evening of chamber music featuring Melody Courage (sop), Jesse Plessis (piano), and Ariel Carrabré (cello), as well as the world premiere of works by Jesse Plessis and Patrick Carrabré. This concert is taking place on the ancestral and living lands of the Coast Salish Peoples.

COVID GUIDELINES (as of July 16, 2023):

• Müzewest Concerts follows current provincial health orders
• All guests are encouraged to wear masks and we will have some available if people wish.
• There will be no intermission in order to reduce crowding into smaller spaces

A bout the Artists

Victoria-based Métis soprano Melody Courage gained national attention as The Native Girl “...played with ethereal grace...” in the 2017 world premiere of Marie Clements and Brian Current’s opera Missing, co-produced by City Opera Vancouver and Pacific Opera Victoria. Missing gives voice, in English and Gitxsan, to the story of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women. Melody debuted with Anchorage Opera in the US premiere of Missing in 2023. Highlights for Melody in 2023/24 season are First Lady in The Magic Flute with Vancouver Opera and performing opera hits with the newly created ensemble Indigidivas, with conductor Janna Sailor and Calgary Philharmonic. Melody joins mezzo soprano Marion Newman for Wreckonciliation, approaching opera repertoire through an Indigenous lens, with Opera Kelowna. In April, Melody debuts with Kelowna Symphony Orchestra in Mozart’s Requiem. Recent performances for Melody include Chrisann in Calgary Opera’s production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, and Messiah with the Vancouver Bach Choir.

Canadian pianist and composer Jesse Plessis grew up in Sparwood, British Columbia, and has been described as a "force of nature" with "a skilled hand at crafting textures that pulse with life," (Winnipeg Free Press). He has regularly appeared in concert series and music festivals across Canada, England, and continental Europe, performs as a guest artist with several orchestras and ensembles in Canada, and has garnered numerous awards in both piano and composition. As a composer, his works have been called “ardent and incredibly well-structured” (Arlan Schultz) and have been performed by many musicians and groups in Canada including the Land’s End Ensemble and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 he founded the Centric Festival, a classical music festival that continues annually in Lethbridge, Alberta. Plessis obtained a Master of Music degree from Brandon University where he studied piano with Megumi Masaki and composition with Patrick Carrabre. His Bachelor of Music degree is from the University of Lethbridge where he studied piano with Deanna Oye and composition with Arlan Schultz, and he currently resides in Montréal where he just finished a doctorate in piano with Paul Stewart. He is currently working on a doctorate in composition at McGill University with Denys Bouliane.

Originally from Brandon, Manitoba, Ariel Carrabré earned his Bachelor’s degree in cello performance at McGill University in Montréal, studying under Yegor Dyachkov. Most recently, he was a finalist prize winner in the prestigious Eckhardt-Grammaté National Music Competition in the spring of 2018. Ariel is currently pursuing doctoral studies in cello performance at the University of Montreal, studying with Yegor Dyachkov once again. His research project focuses on injury prevention and recovery for string players and incorporates the areas of biomechanics, body awareness methods, neurological patterning, the motor system, and the problem of muscular tension.

T. Patrick Carrabré has been active as a composer, administrator, educator, radio host and conductor. For well over a decade, he worked closely with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, including six seasons as composer-in-residence and co-curator of the orchestra’s New Music Festival. Also active in the media, Carrabré served two seasons as the weekend host of CBC Radio 2’s contemporary music show The Signal. Commissioners have included pianists Janina Fialkowska, Megumi Masaki and Alexander Tselyakov, the Gryphon Trio, the Winnipeg Singers, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Winnipeg Chamber Music Society, cellists Caroline Stinson and Shauna Rolston, as well as the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition. Carrabré’s best known compositions include Inuit Games, for throat singers (katajjak) and orchestra, Sonata No. 1, The Penitent, for violin and piano, From the Dark Reaches, and A Hammer For Your Thoughts…. Together these works have earned two Juno nominations, a recommendation at the International Rostrum of Composers (2003), a Western Canadian Music Award (Best Classical Composition) and two other WCMA nominations. This past November, his “Eternal Earth, Scherzo for Piano” was a test piece in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s Manulife Competition and Orpheus Drones was selected for the Spotify Playlist “Classical with Electronics.”