Cantabile Chamber Singers – Saman Shahi: Fragments

On Fragments, Toronto composer Saman Shahi is joined by the Cantabile Chamber Singers and the Ton Beau String Quartet, under the direction of Cheryll J. Chung, for a twenty minute work about displacement, memory, and the parts of a life that get left behind.

Fragments explores the subconscious of a displaced person: their anxieties, their memories, their dream world, and parts of their being left behind perhaps forever. A twenty minute work for SATB choir and string quartet, it was commissioned and premiered by the Cantabile Chamber Singers in 2024. The powerful and symbolic poem was crafted by Nika Khanjani through her interviews with several refugees of different backgrounds who shared stories of identity, memory, and loss. The words for climactic moments in the piece come directly from quotes captured in the interviews.

In addition to Fragments, this album includes Saman Shahi’s a cappella work I Heard a Fly Buzz, set to poetry by Emily Dickinson. Her poem brilliantly depicts the moment of death albeit absent of the expected hyper-romantic language. Instead she depicts the mundane, the silence, and a fly buzzing around the room, which can be clearly heard in the music.

TRACKS
1. Fragments: No. 1
2. Fragments: No. 2
3. Fragments: No. 3
4. I Heard a Fly Buzz

Music by Saman Shahi. Poetry by Nika Khanjani (Fragments) and Emily Dickinson (I Heard a Fly Buzz).

CREDITS
Cheryll J. Chung, conductor

Cantabile Chamber Singers
Sopranos: Allison Arends*, Maureen Clark, Erica Frederiksen, Lindsay Newman, Lena Schloss
Altos: Mary Chiu, Guneet Kalra, Laura Karkouti, Ysabelle Rubis, Hazel Wallace
Tenors: Luke Armstrong, Kevin Chen*, Timmy Mo
Basses: Kyle Cabeling, Stewart Cruikshank, Joshua McFaul, Paul Newman
* Soloist

Ton Beau String Quartet
Violins: Patrick Goodwin, Felipe Luzuriaga
Viola: Alex McLeod
Cello: Sarah Steeves

Recorded at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Kingston, Ontario, August 2026
Recording Engineers: Lucas Ruddell, Thomas Loguisto
Producer: Saman Shahi
Editing, Mixing and Mastering: Pouya Hamidi
Artwork and Album Design: Mahsa Majidian

Saman Shahi was selected as a 2026 IMAGINE Arts Incubator Artist, a program hosted by the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts at Queen’s University, which supported the recording and commercial release of Fragments.

Special thanks to the staff and production team at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts and to Bader Philanthropies Inc. for their support of this project, and to the IMAGINE Arts Incubator Program, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Ontario for generously providing additional financial support.

Fragments is available for pre-order from

FROM THE COMPOSER

This piece is a nod to all those who have to leave their homes in search of hope.

If Paradise is no longer safe, you must leave Paradise.