LIVELab Hybrid Concert Series: Iris Trio

In Memory of Carl Turkstra

incite Foundation for the Arts Presents

LIVELab Hybrid Concert Series 2022-2023

Iris Trio

With Poetry by Don McKay

In-person and LIVEStreamed from the LIVELab

Wednesday, February 1st, 2023

7:30 PM – 9:30 PM ET

Doors open at 7:00 PM

 TICKETS 

In-person General Admission: $30
In-person Student Admission: $10

LIVEStream: Free (register to receive link)

Buy Tickets or Register for LIVEStream

Blue Chapter, Project Earth Video Preview

Celebrated for their imaginative programming and powerhouse performances, the Iris Trio (clarinetist Christine Carter, violist Zoë Martin-Doike, and pianist Anna Petrova) returns to Canada for a much-anticipated tour. Together with distinguished Canadian poet, Don McKay (Governor General’s Award, Griffin Poetry Prize), they present the “Blue Chapter” of their multi-year “Project Earth,” including stunning new works by McKay and Juno-nominated composer/jazz pianist Florian Hoefner. Project Earth is the Trio’s response to the triple planetary crisis. Through newly commissioned poetry and genre-crossing chamber music, the project strives to illuminate the impact of human behavior on the environment, addressing issues of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, while recognizing the power of our collective imagination to create meaningful change.

Biographies:

Praised for their “beauty of sound and striking expression” (Bremen Weser Kurier), the Iris Trio (clarinetist Christine Carter, violist Zoë Martin-Doike, and pianist Anna Petrova) is known for their imaginative programming and powerhouse performances. Their 2013 debut at the German Consulate in New York City was met by a sold-out audience and followed by an immediate invitation to the prestigious Mozartfest in Würzburg, Germany. The Trio subsequently gave the world premiere of Christof Weiß’s Conversation Among Friends at the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Residence Palace and were featured in Michael Wende & Andreea Varga’s documentary, MozartLabor. They have since appeared at venues throughout North America and Europe, including a tour of their program, Homage and Inspiration, across Germany. Their debut album by the same name, recorded at the Sendesaal in Bremen Germany, was released in 2020 on Coviello Classics to international acclaim. The Canadian Broadcasting Company selected it as one of “10 upcoming Canadian classical albums to get excited about,” Fanfare Magazine praised it as “a five-star, real stand-out release,” and Classical-Modern Music Review commented, “these are extraordinarily, mutually attuned practitioners that deserve our acclaim.” Collectively, the members of the Iris Trio hold positions at Memorial University, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (New York City), and University of Louisville, and have performed around the world on major concert stages from Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Sydney Opera House. www.iristrio.com

Don McKay’s books of poetry include Birding, or Desire (1983), Night Field (1991), Apparatus (1997), Another Gravity (2000), Strike/Slip (2006), Paradoxides (2012) and Lurch (2021). Camber, a selected poetry, appeared in 2004. Five of his books have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, and two of them – Night Field and Another Gravity – received that award. He has been nominated for the Griffin Award three times and received it for Strike/Slip in 2007. Between 1975 and 2018 he served as co-editor and co-publisher with Brick Books. After teaching English and Creative Writing at the Universities of Western Ontario and New Brunswick for twenty-seven years, he now writes and edits full time. From 1991 to 1997 he edited The Fiddlehead, and he has served as a workshop leader for institutions and writers’ groups. He was the Associate Director for poetry at the Banff Centre for the Arts for 14 years. His abiding interest in natural history and the environment has led to four books on the poetics of wilderness: Vis à Vis (2001), Deactivated West 100 (2005), The Shell of the Tortoise (2011), and All New Animal Acts (2020). His collected poems, Angular Unconformity, appeared in 2014. Don McKay currently makes his home in St. John’s, Newfoundland. In 2009, he was named to the Order of Canada.

Born and raised in Germany, trained in New York City and now based in Canada, Juno-nominated jazz pianist and composer Florian Hoefner draws from a myriad of influences that culminate in his unique brand of modern jazz. Praised as a “composer-bandleader of insightful resolve” by the New York Times and a “harmonically daring pianist … reaching toward new sonic territory” by Downbeat, Florian Hoefner continues to make waves as an inventive creator and performer of exciting contemporary jazz. He has released 5 albums under his own name and many more as a sideman. His latest release “First Spring” with his Canadian trio with Andrew Downing on bass and Nick Fraser on drums has received 2 East Coast Music Awards in 2020 and was nominated for a 2021 JUNO in the category “Jazz Album of the Year: Group.” The trio is set to release its sophomore album, “Desert Bloom” on June 3^rd 2022 on Alma Records. As a touring artist he has played at venues and festivals on 5 different continents and has worked with artists including Kurt Rosenwinkel and Seamus Blake. He is the winner of 2 ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards and the Stingray Rising Star Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Florian currently serves as Assistant Professor for Jazz Studies at Memorial University in St. John’s, NL.

 Featuring a “Science Snapshot” related to the environment

This concert will be livestreamed and video recorded

 This concert is generously supported by incite Foundation for the Arts, McMaster University Alumni and TD Insurance