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“I am looking for perfection”

by on May 16, 2012 in Audio, General

This week, Honens Prize Laureate Georgy Tchaidze was at The Banff Centre to make a recording as part of the 2009 Honens career development prize. Audio work study Emma Laín was involved in the whole process:

Audio engineer Emma Laín (left) and musician Georgy Tchaidze, in the booth in Rolston Recital Hall. Photo: Kim Williams.

Being an audio work-study at The Banff Centre, you get to work with some of the most talented musicians in one of the most inspiring locations. This week I’ve been engineering a CD recording with Russian pianist Georgy Tchaidze, music by Russian composers Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, and Medtner. Beautiful music, but especially, beautiful playing!

Rolston Recital Hall has complex acoustics, so finding the right sound takes some time. For the audio guys, this is usually a pleasure – we enjoy the challenge and getting involved in the technical and audible details. But for a musician, this requires some patience. Georgy worked with us to achieve a sound we’re all happy with, that we hope will bring his playing to life for the listener.

We started with the fourth sonata of Prokofiev: very dark, moody Russian music, played by a Russian pianist, while just outside the window the Canadian spring sunshine was heating up. It was quite surreal…only in Banff.

Recording sessions are always hard for musicians, especially with an approach like Georgy’s: “I am looking for perfection“ he would say. More than once he would jump up from his piano stool and grasp his hair in middle of a take. He would come to the control room to listen to his playing and say “This is trash, and that is trash….” Then he would go back to the piano and play an outstanding take.

A frequent visitor in the session was Bert Picknell, The Banff Centre’s piano technician. Pianos have a life of their own, but during long recording sessions they seem more alive than ever. If it’s not a tone that’s out of tune, it’s a note that’s lost brilliance. Every couple of hours doctor Bert comes by with his tools and makes sure the piano is happy.

Rolston Recital Hall, with its curtains pulled back on a view of Cascade Mountain, has inspired many musicians, and Theresa Leonard, who produced the session, always looks for the “goose bump effect“ when recording. This scene, this sound, and Georgy’s inspired playing certainly delivered.

Emma Laín was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. She graduated in 2011 from the Tonmeister program at the University of Music in Detmold (Germany). She did her first session in The Banff Centre’s Audio work study program in 2008, and in the last two years has freelanced as a recording engineer and editor for labels including BIS (Sweden) and Audite (Germany). She’s currently back at the Banff Centre as a Music Producer work study.

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The Gryphon Trio: live in your living room

by on May 9, 2012 in Audio, Music & Sound, Podcasts

Podcaster Camara Miller speaks with former CBC host Eric Friesen about the Gryphon Trio. Photo: Don Lee.

Quartet for the End of Time, by Olivier Messiaen, is a powerful and spiritual piece of chamber music; recounting the point of view of a man who had no idea whether he was living through the end of the world, as he knew it. A haunting, but not hopeless impression left by the French composer and soldier.

It was first heard on a bitterly cold January evening in 1941, by a group of prisoners and guards in Stalag VIII-A, a POW camp in Germany. Wednesday night, people at The Banff Centre and around the world got hear the piece live from the Rolston Hall.

The Gryphon Trio, along with clarinetist James Campbell, have returned to work on their latest recording at the Centre and were rounding off the trip with an intimate concert. This isn’t the first time they’ve come to create an album up on the hill. Having played together for 20 years, they’ve stopped by many times before to play and teach.

Former CBC host Eric Friesen was also here for the concert. His time at the CBC gave him an excellent chance to get the know the players over the years, and he’s host and facilitator for the evening as the quartet plays the repertoire from their new album.

Friesen took a few minutes to chat about the Gryphon Trio, as well as the haunting details about the premiere of this piece, in an interview earlier in the week.

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The live stream sounded great and was enjoyed by many both online and at the Rolston. If you missed it, a podcast of the show along with an interview with Eric Friesen will be up soon.

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Kings without Queens

by on May 3, 2012 in Audio, Podcasts

Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson from Blackie and the Rodeo Kings at the Eric Harvie last week. Photo: Kim Williams.

Whether it was the familiar faces, familiar scenery, or delirium from being on tour, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings had some fun as they took a few moments before their show to chat about being back in Banff and their latest album.

Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson talked about breaking up the boys club while recording the collaborations for their 2011 album, Kings and Queens. For each track they paired with talented women like Amy Helm, Serena Ryder, Lucinda Williams, Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, and many others.

First came the songs, and then Colin Linden had to match each tune with potential vocal collaborators.

Without its queen, here’s the track Black Sheep, recorded during last week’s show in the Eric Harvie Theatre. Before the show, Stephen Fearing also gave me some insight into the dynamics of this record.

To hear Black Sheep with it’s reigning monarch, Serena Ryder, visit Blackie and the Rodeo Kings’ website.

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Stay tuned: we’ll be posting the full interview with Blackie and the Rodeo Kings as a podcast.

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Total request with Joel Plaskett

by on April 25, 2012 in Audio, Podcasts

Podcaster Camara Miller backstage with Joel Plaskett. Photo: Kim Williams.

We’ve all experienced a first day on a new job, and it can be tricky. Take notes in a meeting or make thoughtful eye contact? Bring a lunch or plan to go out and meet some colleagues? How far can I stretch the ‘casual’ in ‘business casual?’

Luckily, my first day here was not only successful, but also simply a great day. I’m the newest member of the audio work-study team and my first task was getting some questions ready for my inaugural interview with Joel Plaskett: singer-songwriter, Canadian gem and one of my favourite artists.

The interview went splendidly, and once I turned off the microphone, I told him that I love the old Thrush Hermit song Before You Leave, but I especially love his rarely played acoustic version of the tune. It’s a beautiful song about heartache and, after almost ten concerts I’ve followed Plaskett to, I’ve never heard it played live.

He told me that he wasn’t sure if he could play the tune, but admitted that he does enjoy performing it. I left the request at that and thanked him for the interview. By the time the acoustic set of his show rolled around I had forgotten all about our chat and was enjoying each song.

 Then I heard this…

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Stay tuned: we’ll be posting Camara’s full interview with Joel Plaskett as a podcast.

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Maud Mary and the Titanic: A boat to be missed

by on April 11, 2012 in Audio, Film & Media, General, Videos

Maud Mary & the Titanic poster. Film by Geraldine Carr.

Filmmaker Geraldine Carr’s latest film, Maud Mary & the Titanic (6 min.), has been described as “a sweet, short film about a late, great lady who missed the boat and sailed into history!” Through this animated and live-action film, Carr captures her great-grandmother’s story of missing the Titanic with her three children and changing their fate. Searching through the British archives at the Liverpool record office, Carr worked with Rat Creek Designs to develop a moving story board with powerful, historic images of the Titanic and her great-grandmother Maud.

With the narration complete and music composed by former Banff Centre work study Nathan Hilton, Carr arrived in Banff last fall ready to develop the missing pieces of her film – the sound effects and the foley. Trying to create the right effects for the sinking Titanic was a challenge.  Initially, the team worked with the sound of a heartbeat. “The sound of a heart was too subjective,” she says. ”The audience wants to be objective.” Instead, they tried to create a more boisterous scene but “it was just too much wind -  it was a calm night. The audio team was really great. We really did a lot of sculpting.”

Maud Mary & the Titanic screens Monday, April 16 at the SOHO International Film Festival NYC  during the Titanic‘s 100th anniversary. The film has also recently been nominated in the Short Subject category at this year’s Golden Sheaf Awards at the 65th Yorkton Film Festival.

A 2010 director with the Women in the Director’s Chair Workshop (WIDC) and presenter at the Rice Studio Talks series, Carr’s most recent Banff Centre residency was for audio post.

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Podcast: An interview with Jill Barber

by on March 26, 2012 in Audio, General, Leighton Artists' Colony

Jill Barber, in the Hemingway Studio, Leighton Artists' Colony. Photo: Kim Williams.

For the past three weeks, singer/songwriter Jill Barber has been working on new music in The Banff Centre’s Leighton Artists’ Colony. In the circular Hemingway Studio in the woods, Jill isolated herself to write songs for the followup to her 2011 album, Mischievous Moon.

In the final days of her stay, Jill took time out of writing and recording to talk with me about love, inspiration, being married to CBC Radio 3 host and author Grant Lawrence and touring across Canada.

What is love? In a word, everything.

Listen to the interview now and keep your eyes on the blog for a video we shot in Jill’s studio.

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