Wende Bartley

Claire-Voie presents four works by Wende Bartley composed between 1985 and 1993. For her the title means letting the light through, with an echo of clairvoyance and, in French, of “voix”, voice. All four pieces use the voice to explore images from the collective story of women and, in her words, to bring to light “a new consciousness of woman’s power, expressed in sonic metaphor”.

Ellipsis, for female singer and tape, follows the three lunar phases as a three-part story: The Age of Darkness, Creating a New Space, The Age of Resonance. First written in 1989 for electric string quartet, voice, tape and dance, it was reworked in 1992-93 with the mezzo-soprano Fides Krucker, who sings a wordless part grounded in breath, over sampled strings, FM synthesis and layers of her own voice. Rising Tides of Generations Lost, realized on the Synclavier at McGill in 1985 and remixed at Banff in 1993, moves from whispered vowels to everyday conversation and is dedicated to her grandmother Cora Parry Showers, with a line from Kate Chopin.

Ocean of Ages Revealed, commissioned by David Olds for the radio programme Transfigured Night, draws on an image of a cave from Susan Griffin’s Women and Nature. Balkan songs recorded for the piece by Brenna MacCrimmon and Jayne Brown are stretched with Barry Truax’s PODX granular synthesis system at Simon Fraser University, alongside the voice of Paul Dutton and a Bulgarian gaida. IceBreak turns short improvisations on Kyai Madu Sari, the Javanese court gamelan of Simon Fraser University, into ice breaking and melting into water.

Born in Woodstock, Ontario, in 1951, Wende Bartley lives in Toronto. She took her MMus in composition at McGill with alcides lanza and John Rea, also studied with James Tenney at York University, and writes for computer, film, dance, concert and radio.

CD in crystal case, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 9414, 1994.