The new release by Leaf Music, Duo Oriana\u2019s How Like a Golden Dream<\/i>, features the combination of lute and voice: Jonathan Stuchbery, a lutenist trained on classical guitar, and Sin\u00e9ad White, a vocalist trained as an operatic soprano. Both studied early music and received music degrees from McGill University, and White is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n
Stuchbery and White began working as a duo during the pandemic on Zoom and have continued to collaborate since 2021, as the clouds over live music performance lifted. They set out to portray, in music, how poets, musicians and others perceive the night. The result: a recording released on Leaf Music, which includes a new composition with poetry by Erica Jacobs Perkins, original arrangements of Irish folk melodies, English lute song and music from the courts of 17th-century Italy, the order of which mirrors the ritual found in traditional Celtic monastic ceremony.<\/p>\n
This is the duo\u2019s first large-scale recording project, spanning three days at Humbercrest United Church. They described their satisfaction in working together throughout the recording and post-production editing process, which has lent authenticity to their voice and credibility to the project. Such collaboration enabled them to capture the performance details meticulously.<\/p>\n
The performers enthusiastically described their joy in undertaking the recording project and continued performances. Their ease in interacting with each other and communicating with their audience, whether live or livestreamed, is apparent. \u201cThere was a real sense of discovery for us in putting this album together as we explored repertoire from lesser-known composers such as George Handford to folk songs in the Irish language that we had never heard before,\u201d said White, \u201cand not to mention, a new composition altogether by Jonathan.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Whether folk melodies or more traditional early music, the power to inspire is unconstrained by classification of genre. As the artists describe their continuously cohesive journey, the background recording of soothing music evokes images of nighttime reflection spanning centuries from a mother rocking a child, to a sense of loneliness and despair but ultimately, to a sense of hope and renewal.<\/p>\n
The album is funded by FACTOR and Canada Council for the Arts. Performances continue from coast to coast with a tour to Ireland and the U.K. planned in the future.<\/p>\n