The most personal was the developing pregnancy of my first child. Initial drafts of this piece took place in the last few months of pregnancy, with substantial revisions after I experienced labour and birth. Two external influences were watching the 2018 winter Olympics and following the force of the #MeToo social media movement. My perception of the body, and especially the female body are explored in this piece.
Conclusions I’ve drawn: the body and society’s perceptions of the body both transform by cycles, patterns and repetitions, as well as abrupt and sometimes forceful alterations. The female body is a fierce creation, underestimated and disrespected throughout history. But the present and the future hold great promise and pride. Qualities of the feminine exist in all human bodies no matter the sex or gender, or the individual perception of what is ‘feminine.’ I wrote this text as inspiration for the piece as well as a rough melodic setting of the text.
In the marrow lives a woman
Strength disguised as softness
Under muscle, blood and bone<
Lies the feather and the egg.
A nest of memories and imagination.
The marrow rises up from where she was hiding
From where she was waiting
From where she was denied.
She knows her power can bring worlds crashing down
Before raising them up, ever more glorious than before.
Thanks to the Land’s End Ensemble for this commission, also thanks to Tim Borton and Vincent Ho. Dedicated to the Little One.
Carmen Braden is a WCMA-nominated composer and performer from the Canadian sub-Arctic. Her music+sound company Black Ice Sound is based in her hometown of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Hailed as “a talented, bold musician” (Up Here Magazine), Carmen is a life-long Northerner whose music has been described as “drop-dead gorgeous” (Ottawa Citizen). Carmen’s debut studio album Ravens was released by Centrediscs in 2017. Carmen’s vocal, instrumental, and electroacoustic music is greatly tied to her soundscape. She draws from the environment by examining natural phenomena through sonic, visual, sensual and scientific ways of understanding.
Her music has been performed across Canada by the Toronto Symphony, James Ehnes, the Elmer Isler Singers, the Gryphon Trio, the Land’s End Ensemble, and the Penderecki Quartet. Carmen’s works have been performed across Canada and internationally, including at the Toronto Summer Music Festival, the 21C Festival in Toronto’s Koerner Hall, the Stratford Festival, the ArtArctica festival (Finland), the National Arts Centre 2013 Northern Scene Festival, The Global Composition (Germany), the Shattering the Silence New Music Festival, the Land’s End Emerging Composer Competition (Audience Choice Award), and the University of Calgary New Music Festival, and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Her teachers have included Allan Gordon Bell, Laurie Radford and David Eagle (University of Calgary, MMus 2015), Derek Charke and Stephen Naylor (Acadia University, BMus 2009).
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