reFUSE

reFUSE is a musical movie in progress as of March 18th — very rough sound mix an independent more recent mix can be heard here: At the beginning of 1966, according to the Billboard Hot 100, the Beatles’ We Can Work it Out had just edged out Simon and Garfunkel, whose Sounds of Silence (15 years after John Cage debuted 4’33”) had dominated the charts since the beginning of the year. Tom Jones was at number 35 with the theme song to the 007 movie Thunderball, a respectable follow-up to the greatest Bond-song performance ever, Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger, the year before. This period forms the musical epicentre of my composition reFUSE. Edgard Varèse had just died the previous November, age 82. It had been 13 years since a 13-year-old Frank Zappa first read about Varèse. That was 1953, the year I was born. Thirteen years later, in 1966, I was listening to everything I could find on the radio and TV, and at the movies; and I had just begun buying LPs of the music I was reading about; strange stuff that never seemed to get played on the radio; not even on the international shortwaves. I bought Zappa’s first album, Freak Out! when it was released that summer. Back then I had never experienced live music. Everything was filtered through the media of broadcast and recording — and much of it sounded indecipherable and intoxicating. Half a century later, for this composition, I’ve quoted Varèse’s ascending octaves and fifths, and emulated Zappa’s rapid-fire collaging of disparate genres. There’s xenochrony in the juxtaposition of Frank the electric guitar maestro, and Varèse le chef des batteries. Refuse is a reverie, revisiting how I listened to and what I listened to in the middle of the swinging sixties. It refers to and directly quotes liberally from that period. —john oswald cast : Chung Ling Lo tympani, drum kit & vibes John Gzowski guitars & mandolin Rick Sacks miscellaneous percussion Wesley Shen keys Michael Murphy exotic percussion Emilie Girard-Charest cello Dave Pell trombones Bee Ungar bassoon Britton-René Collins unusual percussion Wallace Halladay bari sax Leslie Newman piccolo & flutes Sanya Eng harp Zuri Wells multitudinous percussion Jenn Stephen tuba Steven Woomert trumpets Chris Gongos horns Lori Freedman clarinets Ida Torinato bari sax Brian Current conductor Adam Scime contra & electric basses Jaron Freeman-Fox 3/4 of a string quartet Ron Cohen Mann oboe Thomas Hammerton b3 organ • musicians were also their own selfie cinematographers • with cameo appearances by Scott Thomson low F trombone Sandro Perri approximate keys Holly Small hand piano 007 the Saint Ben Cartwright & sons Samantha Stephens Thing Patty & Cathy Lane Mae Quest Raymond Burr & Edgard Varèse George Paul John & Ringo • reFUSE, of the genre known as the Rascali Klepitoire, was originally commissioned by the Turning Point Ensemble for 25 musicians to accompany a programme of chamber compositions by Edgard Varèse & expanded sinfonietta pieces by Frank Zappa . soundtrack album on FONY records coming soon project funded by the Canada Council’s Digital Now Program no animals were forced to appear in this production 2015 — 2022 for your eyes only •