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The Bird Project is an ongoing exploration of artistic interaction with the natural world. Though unlikely to remain fixed on any one inspiration for too long, the current focus is avian: the bird as collaborator, messenger, muse, instructor, point of departure, devil’s advocate…The artistic director (read navigator) is Canadian musician Alison Melville.

It’s mostly music - composed and improvised, acoustic and electronic, mainly a blend of early and very new music, so for example you might hear Bach, Hotteterre, Messiaen and something written last month - but it also includes spoken word, poetry, video and photography. Juxtaposing various epochs, world views, technologies and cosmologies, the programming shifts to suit artistic considerations, audience, venue, technical considerations, etc., and evolves as new pieces are added to the mix. Performances happen in- or outdoors, in traditional and atypical locations: recent concert venues have included Toronto’s Music Garden, two 19th-century churches and a very 20th-century recital hall.

For we musicians this provides a welcome opportunity to adventure outside whatever boxes (cages?) we’ve unwittingly gotten ourselves into; we wish the same for those who listen!

Instruments: traverso, recorders and seljefløyte (Norwegian willow flute), played alone and in conjunction with keyboard, singing and spoken word, prepared sound, percussion, other wind instruments, and an endless list of other possibilities being explored.

The music comes from 17th-century Holland and England; 18th-century France, England and Germany; 20th-century Canada, France, Germany, Austria and the USA; 21st-century Canada, USA and Sweden…

Brand new music for this project comes from Ben Grossman, Linda Catlin Smith, Peter Hannan, Debashis Sinha, Alison Melville (Canada), Stephen Dirkes (Canada/USA) and others.

Poetry, as inspiration for the music or as spoken text, comes from Denise Levertov, Rolf Jacobsen, Tarjei Vesaas, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, W.H. Auden, W.B. Yeats, Basho and others.

And the visual component includes the animation short ’Bird Calls’ by Malcom Sutherland which can be viewed on this profile. You can see more of Malcolm’s work at http://www.oneiropod.com.

PIGEONS

The pigeons swing across the square,
Suddenly voiceless in midair,
Flaunting, against their civic coats,
The glossy oils that scarf their throats.

Vikram Seth

Since playing her first CBC recording gig at the age of 20, Alison Melville’s career has taken her across Canada and to the USA, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand and Europe. A member of Toronto Consort and a frequent orchestral player with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, she has appeared with many other ensembles and festivals across North America including Opera Atelier, Boston Early Music Festival, la Nouvele Sinfonie, Early Music Vancouver, Canadian Opera Company, Festival of the Sound, Aradia Ensemble, I Furiosi, Festival Vancouver and others. As a concerto soloist she has performed with Tafelmusik, the Toronto Symphony, Orchestra London, Aradia, the Niagara and Mississauga Symphonies; and as a performer of 20th- and 21st-century music she has appeared with Soundstreams, New Music Concerts, ArrayMusic and others. And besides playing venues like Tokyo’s Bunkamura Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall and Montreal’s Salle Pierre Mercure, there have been many memorable gigs in prisons, school gymnasiums, gardens, barns, ferries...

With extensive television, film and radio performance credits (CBC/Radio-Canada, BBC, RNZ, NPR and the Iceland State Broadcast Service and others), she has played for the soundtracks of CBC-TV’s beloved The Friendly Giant, films by Atom Egoyan, Amnon Buchbinder and Ang Lee, and the TV series The Tudors. She can be heard on over 45 CDs, including four critically-acclaimed solo recordings.

Alison is also a member of the Arctic fusion band Ensemble Polaris, in which she also plays the Norwegian seljefløyte (willow flute). As a creator of original music her work has been heard with Ensemble Polaris and in 999 Years of Music (dir. Peter Hannan), the Post-Medieval Syndrome project, Amherst Early Music in Connecticut and Vermont, and at the Oberlin Conservatory (OH).

Alison has been a professor at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music since 1999 and also teaches for the University of Toronto. She trained at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis for several years as the winner of numerous awards from the Canada Council, and was the first recorder player to receive an M.Mus.Perf. on full fellowship from the University of Toronto.

www.alisonmelville.com

Born in Riga, Latvia, Andrei Streliaev has been an active performer on piano, organ and harpsichord since moving to Canada in 2002. He completed his B.Mus. in piano performance with Prof. Arnis Zandmanis at the J. Vitols Latvian Academy of Music in 2001; while there he also studied organ with Vita Kalniema. He also holds a Master’s degree in performance on the organ (2005), for which he studied with John Tuttle, and an Advanced Certificate in Harpsichord Performance (2006), both from the University of Toronto.

Andrei has given numerous solo recitals and is a collaborative artists with many ensembles including the John Laing Singers, Exultate Chamber Singers, Toronto Masque Theatre, University of Toronto Percussion Ensemble and the McMillan Singers. He has also participated in numerous festivals and competitions, winning First Prize (Organ Category) of the Canadian Music Competition and Second Prize in the R.C.C.O.’s Competition for Young Organists in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Andrei is also one of the founding members of the Canadian branch of the Latvian Organists Guild in America (LEGA).

Currently Assistant Organist at St. Jude’s Anglican Church in Oakville, ON, and an accompanist at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and the Royal Academy of Dance, he also enjoys playing music for silent films, and has improvised accompaniment for movies in Riga and Toronto.

Toronto-born Katherine Hill is a specialist in medieval music as a singer and fiddler (rebec, vielle), and has also studied Swedish traditional music with a special interest in kulning (cow calling). She is frequently heard as a member of the Toronto Consort and with numerous other Canadian groups including Ensemble les Fumeux, I Furiosi, Sine Nomine, Duo Seraphim, Aradia Ensemble and many others.

From 2000 to 2006 Katherine was based in Amsterdam, where she studied early music as the two-time winner of awards from the Canada Council. During her time in northern Europe she performed with such groups as Sequentia, Concerto Palatino, Scivias, Ensemble Elyma, Super Librum, La Compagnietta and the Collegium Vocale of Ghent.

She is co-founder of Ensemble nu:n, a medieval music/improvisation group, and Fata Organa, a medieval music/location theatre troupe. She is regularly heard on CBC Radio and has recorded for many labels including Naxos, Dorian and Marquis. Besides her work in early music, Katherine is a member of the Arctic fusion band Ensemble Polaris, has appeared with the Arabic ensemble Doula and has collaborated with indie rock artists for the Kelp Records label in Ottawa.

Born in Toronto, Kathleen Kajioka began her musical career as a modern violist, pursuing studies as a scholarship student at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. Upon her return to Toronto, she began to widen her field to encompass both Early and Middle Eastern music. The recipient of several arts council grants, her studies of Baroque, Medieval and Middle Eastern music have taken her to the US, France and Egypt. She has achieved a reputation as a musical multilinguist, moving between worlds with agility and uncompromising depth, and has appeared regularly as a baroque violinist and violist with world renowned Tafelmusik, as a modern violist with the critically acclaimed Via Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, and as an Arabic violinist with Maryem Tollar, and the Middle Eastern ensembles Doula and Maza Mezé. Always open for a swing through the pop world, Kathleen has recorded for the likes of Jesse Cook, Dolores O’Riordan, and K-os. Kathleen is the weekly host of "In The Still of the Night" on The New Classical 96.3 fm.

Debashis Sinha is a Toronto-based percussionist who specializes in the drums of the Arab world, Greece, and Turkey. His ability to uncover the rhythmic threads in a wide variety of musical styles have earned him a place in the forefront of Canada’s new generation of traditional musicians, appearing with such acts as autorickshaw, Mernie!, Marilyn Lerner, Leela Gilday, the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, Trichy Sankaran and others. A founding member of Juno nominated world music ensemble Maza Mezé, Debashis has performed with them and other ensembles on stages across Canada, the US and as far away as Cairo. Equally at home in world music and free improvised contexts, Debashis’’ approach to percussion ranges from the deeply traditional to the cutting edge of modern sensibility. He has studied South Indian rhythmic theory with Trichy Sankaran, Arabic tambourine and doumbeck at the Helwan University Faculty of Music in Cairo, and has traveled to the US to take lessons from tombak master Pejman Hadadi. He has been awarded grants from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and the Chalmers Foundation for a wide variety of projects, including projects that are part of his growing catalogue of new media and audio art works. A fixture on Toronto’s dance scene, he has collaborated and performed with Peggy Baker, Dancemakers, Hari Krishnan, Anita Ratnam, and Winnipeg’s Fusion Dance Theatre. On CD Debashis can be heard in various solo projects as well as recordings with Maza Mezé, autorickshaw, Doula and others. Also an emerging video artist, Debashis’s film ‘skin’ has been selected for inclusion in SAVAC’s upcoming international short film and video festival MONITOR 4.

Ben Grossman is a vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy/Drehleier) player, percussionist, composer and improviser based in Toronto, Ontario. He grew up playing electric guitar, listening to Bartok, Satie, Varèse and Reich, and building homemade synthesizers and effects in his parent’s suburban basement. He later became interested, at various times, in traditional Irish, Balkan, French, Turkish and Arabic music. Ben has studied Turkish music in Istanbul and, since taking up the vielle, has done workshops and lessons with Valentin Clastrier, Matthias Loibner, Maxou Heintzan and Simon Wascher. Ben has over 70 CD credits, and has performed and recorded with many ensembles over the years including La Nef, the Toronto Consort, GaPa, Ensemble Polaris, The Altan Yildiz Orkestar, Ima Ensemble, Duo O’Connor-Grossman. BT, James Keelaghan, Bobby Watt, Basic Elements, Aradia, Loreena McKennitt, Fools Dance, Oliver Schroer and the Stewed Tomatoes, Laurel MacDonald, Brandon Scott-Beshara, Anne Lederman, Pilgrim’s Trail Mix, Pat O’Gorman, Laridenn, Kitty’s Kitchen, Ensemble Ben Trobar, Doula, Rhea’s Obsession, Loretto Ried and Brian Taheny, and Joyce’s Folly. His playing can also be heard on many film and television soundtracks, performances with the Toronto Consort, Maryem Tollar, BT, Loreena McKennitt, and in various solo and ensemble improvisational events. Ben toured recently with electronic music pioneer BT and is currently engaged in Spinning Wheel, an international collective compositional, recording and performance project which brings together six cutting-edge hurdy gurdy players from around the world. His first solo album, Macrophone was released in 2007 and features a unique two CD form for simultaneous, aleatoric playback.