Partner Orchestra
Table for Five
Maureen Crotty-Williams, Music Director
Year founded: 2007
Table for Five is a chamber music group comprised of strings, voice, flute, clarinet, and piano. All of the musicians were active in a very lively music scene in Yellowknife but realized that they wanted to play works of larger scale. Their first performance was in September, 2007, at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, and they have continued to present concerts regularly every year since. Table for Five is frequently joined by musicians from southern Canada, allowing them to present music for a wider variety of instrumental and vocal combinations. Always on the lookout for new repertoire, they have hired local composers to arrange works for their unusual combination. September 2017 is the tenth anniversary of Table for Five, and while not quite an orchestra, they are thrilled to be part of the Orchestra Canada Mosaic.
Photo credit: Scott Lough
Carmen Braden
Birthplace: Whitehorse, YT
Current home: Yellowknife, NT
Carmen Braden is a composer from the Canadian sub-Arctic. Her company, Black Ice Sound, is based in her hometown of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Hailed as “a talented, bold musician” (Uphere Magazine), Carmen is a life-long Northerner whose music has been described as “drop-dead gorgeous” (Ottawa Citizen).
Carmen’s vocal, instrumental, and electroacoustic music is greatly tied to her soundscape. She draws from the environment by examining natural phenomena through sonic, visual, sensual, and scientific ways of understanding. Her creative research has led her into deep study of ice on Great Slave Lake, as well as raven calls, bedrock, and different qualities of light.
Carmen’s music has been performed across Canada by the Elmer Iseler Singers, the Gryphon Trio, the Land’s End Ensemble, GroundSwell, and the Penderecki Quartet. Carmen’s works have been performed across Canada, as well as in Finland and Germany.
Carmen received her Master’s of Music in Composition from the University of Calgary in 2015, studying under Allan Gordon Bell, and her Bachelor of Music in Composition from Acadia University, where she studied with Derek Charke. Carmen was born in 1985 in Whitehorse, Yukon, and grew up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
"Blood Echo" : Sesquie for Canada's 150th
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
November 3, 2017
Table for Five, Yellowknife
November 4, 2017
Table for Five, Yellowknife
Identity is a powerful question for any generation. When it is used as a weapon, an insult, or a source of profit, then identity is cheapened. But when it is a source for understanding, self-empowerment, and strengthening connection, then identity has a stronger power, will last longer, and will run deeper. I wrote this poem as I wrote the music for Blood Echo:
where all the blood that came before you
and all the blood yet to come
meet and exchange greetings
wisdom that echoes
where the past and the future become one
where the root meets the tree
where the water meets the ice
where the child meets the ancient
the heartbeat
the heartbeat
the heartbeat