Words meet music in FLOWN

by Debra Hornsby

Steven Ross Smith describes his first meeting with Wang Jie as “one of those happy accidents that happen all the time at The Banff Centre.”

Smith is the Centre’s director of Literary Arts and a noted Canadian poet and fiction writer. Wang Jie is an award-winning New York contemporary music composer. When the two met at a Banff literary performance in July 2008, it was a case of words meeting music. The result was FLOWN, which premiered in New York in February 2009.

“I had begun work on a new piece, a one-hour concert featuring a small ensemble,” says Jie. “I had a sense of the narrative structure, but no words… when I heard Steven read his poetry, I thought ‘this fits exactly into what I’m picturing and hearing.’”

“Although I had collaborated with musicians in spoken word performances, the idea of creating a libretto was new for me,” says Smith. “Jie gave me some recordings of her works, and I recognized there was a need for an economy of words. Her music is spare, but very dynamic. There needs to be room for that.”

The story Wang Jie created for FLOWN was simple — boy meets girl, boy and girl part. “She asked that the lyric not begin at the beginning or end at the end. She wanted a sense of hope, so that the parting would not be final or absolute,” says Smith.

“The theme is very subtle,” adds Jie. “It’s not operatic. The boy lives in the moment, and the girl speaks of love in the past, but there is hope.”

Smith’s contribution to FLOWN was the lyrics for In Wind They Cleave, scored for soprano, baritone, violin, cello, percussion, and piano. After their initial meeting in Banff, Smith and Jie worked together, exchanging texts via email and discussing the work by phone. “She explained to me that some words can’t be sung, and I talked to her about sentence structure, and rhythm,” says Smith.

Their collaboration culminated in two nights of performance at DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), New York, commissioned and produced by the Music-Theatre Group. “The performers were top-notch and the whole piece was very dynamic — reflective and intense at the same time,” says Smith. “Luckily, all I had to do that evening was bow.”

Wang Jie says she’d do it all over again if she could. “The unique artistic environment of Banff is ideal for interdisciplinary communication. I’d love to bring FLOWN back home to The Banff Centre at some point.”

Photo top: Steven Ross Smith and Wang Jie take flight at the New York premiere of FLOWN. Photo: © 2009 Stephanie Berger