Daniel Beland lists many favorite contemporary works and wonders why
they and their composers do not turn up in concert programmes.  A partial
answer: at least five of the composers on his list (Freedman, Kenins,
McPhee, Prevost, and Vivier) are CANADIAN.  Down here, we have strict laws
against performing, listening to, or even thinking about Canadian music.
It has something to do with the lumber wars, I think.

iF List-members will promise not to turn me in to the authorities, I
will whisper to you, in strictest confidence, the names of still other,
impressive composers from that mysterious place whence comes the Winter
weather, packaged herrings, one of our Nobel laureates in literature, and
Captain Kirk.

They are: Jaques Hetu, Linda Bouchard, John Rea, Brian Cherney, R.
Murray Schafer, Jean Coulthard, and Malcom Forsyth.  All are thoroughly
modernist (but not electronic, stochastique or 12-tone) except for the
last two.  Forsyth's music, in particular, is conservative, lyrical and
sometimes unabashedly beautiful, and some has actually penetrated South of
the border.  [Maybe American listeners confuse him with Aaron Jay Kernis.]
For the others, one must either cross the border, patronize used CD shops
near the border, or look up: www.cbcrecords.cbc.ca.

Cheers////JON GALLANT  ([log in to unmask])