Additional Information
The album Voda (“water” in Russian) was released in June 2023 by harpist and composer Sarah Pagé, the subject of this review. This ambient work, eminently fluid, submersible in a figurative sense and truly immersive, involved harp, koto, dulcimer, double bass, percussion, violin, cello, electronics, and human voice. Its live performance is finally taking place at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville. Sarah Pagé collaborates with artists from No Hay Banda, a Montreal-based collective known for its exploratory and diverse sonic experiments.
Voda “is a dynamic journey that takes the listener adrift through inextricable knots and fluid eddies. Composed of nine long movements, Voda accumulates, builds up, and then releases tensions, revealing troubled depths and phenomenal tenderness.”
This work originated in 2014 when Sarah Pagé collaborated on a work by the Russian-Ukrainian dancer and choreographer Nika Stein, exploring the dynamic between the manifestations of life and those of death through the theme of water in Russian mythology and poetry.
A poem by the poet Mikhail Lermontov, The Siren, was a basis for Nika Stein’s choreography and its accompanying music, revisited a few years later by Sarah Pagé with new processes, materials, compositional tools and instrumentation.
So here we are 12 years later, with a work transformed into contemporary and immersive chamber music, highlighting a different instrumentation and different colleagues – except for Nika Stein who vocally embodies Voda.
Before heading to FIMAV, Sarah Pagé was contacted at her home in Morin Heights to tell us more.
crédit photo: Shannon Harris
WATCH THIS INTERVIEW!
Sarah Pagé, harp, koto
Ben Grossman, hurdy-gurdy
Jonah Fortune, double bass
Daniel Áñez, Ondes Martenot
Noam Bierstone, percussion
Nika Stein, vocals
