Introduction

Photo 1. – From left to right: Jesse Plessis, Melody Courage and Ariel Carrabré

(cliché Jade Yang, care of Müzewest Concerts)

The musicians

Originally from Brandon, Manitoba, Ariel Carrabré is an accomplished Métis cellist with a Bachelor's degree from McGill University and two Master's degrees from the University of Ottawa. He has won multiple competitions, performed extensively, and most recently completed his doctoral studies in performance at the University of Montreal, focusing his research on injury prevention for string players.

Métis soprano Melody Courage is a nationally acclaimed artist, and her most recent roles include The Native Girl in Marie Clements and Brian Current's opera Missing (City Opera Vancouver and Pacific Opera Victoria), First Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute (Vancouver Opera), Chrisann in Calgary Opera’s production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, and Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin/Gállábártnit, presented by Soundstreams Canada and Signal Theatre in Toronto, directed by Michael Greyeyes/Cole Alvis, composed by Melissa Hui/Britta Byström.

Jesse Plessis is a Canadian/Métis pianist and composer. His teachers include Doug Lyon, Arne Sahlen, Allen Reiser, Deanna Oye, Arlan N. Schultz, Megumi Masaki, Patrick Carrabré, Paul Stewart, Norma Fisher, Edith Fischer, Jarred Dunn, and Philippe Leroux. He has performed across Canada and Europe, and his compositions have been commissioned and performed across Canada by prominent soloists, chamber groups, and orchestras, and broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (cbc). He has received awards from the Canadian Music Centre, Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition. He holds a doctorate in piano performance from the Université de Montréal, which was supported by the Fonds Denis Angers, and is currently a candidate for a second doctorate in music composition at McGill University, supported by the Schulich Excellence Fellowship. Following on from his interest in Flora Aurima Devatine’s poetry, Jesse Plessis is also currently working on the soundtrack of a film dedicated to her life and work entitled Flora Aurima Devatine: les étoiles de l’aurore. Te feti'a taiao 'averau, that I am co-directing with Tokainiua Devatine and Matahi Tutavae, and is produced by 'Ārere media.

A note by Jesse Plessis: All of the artists in this program are members of an Indigenous group in Canada called Métis, which has its roots in the intermarriage between European (mostly French) and Indigenous peoples (primarily Cree, Ojibwe, and Saulteaux) in the Red River region of present-day Manitoba. We have distinct cultural practices, traditions, and a shared history stemming from the fur trade era and agricultural practices in the 19th century. The Métis developed a unique identity, language (Michif), and way of life characterized by a blend of European and Indigenous influences, and this concert was conceived of as an exploration and extension of that very blend.

Interview

The following interview is specifically about the Concert “Nos Voix” that was held in Vancouver and included À l’autre bout de la nuit (photo 2). It was conducted over emails in May 2024.

Photo 2. – “Our Voices’” concert programme at Müzewest

(cliché Jade Yang, care of Müzewest Concerts)

EC: Why did you decide to work on Flora Aurima Devatine's poetry? How did you come across her work?

EC: How did you approach composing songs on her poems? How did you select the poems from Au vent de la piroguière - Tifaifai you wanted to work on?

JP: Usually with collections of poetry I will flip around the book in any order that suits me, but I wanted to take in Au vent de la piroguière - Tifaifai slowly and completely, so I ended up reading it front to back. The three poems I ended up selecting – “Un cri dans la nuit”, “Où est-il le chemin”, and “Ma frêle embarcation” – follow each other in the book and seemed to me to belong together narratively in some way, so I connected them all on one musical work called …À L’AUTRE BOUT DE LA NUIT… (which is the final line from the poem (“Ma frêle embarcation”). I found the content of the poems so heartfelt, and also the structures to be classically informed but thoroughly modern, and remarkably strong – like poems carved out of granite. In the composition the most important thing to me was taking great care to preserve the structure, rhythm, and pacing of the poetry in its transposition into the realm of music, and the instrumental parts, I hope, support the poetry as much as the poetry supports the music. There is also a bit of Tahiti hidden in the piano part of “Ma frêle embarcation”: the Institut français de Recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (ifremer) has many collections of data available for free on their website, so I took some data points from a buoy off the coast of Tahiti and transcribed two waves and wrote them into the piece as transitions between the two sections of the poem.

EC: Had you composed songs on poems before?

JP: I have indeed had the pleasure and fortune to write for a few wonderful singers over the years, and have set to music poetry by John Black, Lewis Carrol, Federico Garcia Lorca, Gaston Miron, Thomas Ayouti, and of course now Flora Aurima Devatine.

EC: The concert in Vancouver on 9th May included world premieres by you and Patrick Carrabré. Can you tell us a bit more about these works and your collaboration with Melody Courage and Ariel Carrabré leading up to the event?

JP: As I alluded to earlier this project was about the crossroads between Indigenous and French perspectives, which one might say is the heart of Métis identity, which the four of us share. Patrick’s piece Red River (Sonata for Cello and Piano) was particularly exciting because his son Ariel and I have been playing together for years, and Patrick was my composition professor at Brandon University, so it was really beautiful to have those old ties honoured with such a beautiful piece of music. We paired that with the Sonata for Cello and piano of Claude Debussy, which made a contrast we found very beautiful; where Patrick’s sonata is spacious, broad, and gradual in its transitions, the Debussy sonata seems to be rifling through a lifetime of musical mastery and ideas in just eleven minutes. Another pair of works featured in the concert was Jocelyn Morlock’s Halcyon with my piano piece For Jocelyn. Jocelyn was a friend and a mentor of mine, and when she died in March of 2023 I wanted to honour our connection with a piano piece which made use of birdsongs, which she loved. The final pair was … À L’AUTRE BOUT DE LA NUIT… with Maurice Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan from his piano suite Miroirs, which of course takes the ocean as a shared theme, and is also a gesture of friendship – it was composed for his close friend, the painter Paul Sordes.

Estelle Castro-Koshy is a scholar of Indigenous Literatures and Cultural Studies from Australia and French Polynesia. ospapik is funded by the European Union (erc, ospapik, 101088403). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.