Dark Flower
Thin Edge New Music Collective
Linda Catlin Smith

TRACKS
1. Wanderer (2009 rev 2022) clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion 
2. Duo for 2 Cellos (2015)
3. Dark Flower* (2020)  piano, violin, viola, cello 
4. Dreamer Murmuring (2014) piano, violin, cello
5. With Their Shadows Long (1997) for violin and piano 
6. Unbroken, for Howard Skempton (2017) piano

DIGITAL BONUS TRACKS
7. Blackwing, for Heather Roche (2018) bass clarinet
8. Galanthus (snowdrop), for Daryl Jamieson (2011) violin
9. A Nocturne (for Eve) (1995) piano

*Dark Flower was commissioned by Thin Edge New Music Collective with generous support from the Ontario Arts Council

Thin Edge New Music Collective: 
Cheryl Duvall, piano; Anthony Thompson, clarinet; Nathan Petitpas, percussion; Ilana Waniuk, violin; Aysel Taghi-Zada, viola; Amahl Arulanandam, cello (tracks 1-3); Dobrochna Zubek, cello, (tracks 2,4)

Dark Flower is available from:

Produced by David Jaeger
Recorded by Dennis Patterson at Noble St. Studios assisted by Mike Gnocato
Edited, mixed and mastered by Dennis Patterson at Big Smoke Audio
Liner Notes by Nick Storring
Artwork and Graphic Design by Kristin Messina
TENMC Photography by Shayne Gray
Hair and Makeup by Alba Feinaj and Angela Lee
Linda Catlin Smith Photography by Claire Harvey
Recorded at Noble Street Studios, Toronto, January 3-5, 2023

Thin Edge New Music Collective would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for their generous support of this recording. Special thanks to Linda Catlin, Dennis Patterson, and David Jaeger.

TK543 © 2023 Thin Edge New Music Collective

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Linda Catlin Smith grew up in New York and lives in Toronto. She studied music in NY, and at the University of Victoria. She taught composition at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario (1999-2020) and continues to teach privately and as a guest mentor with universities and ensembles (Arraymusic, Continuum and the Bozzini Quartet). Her music has been commissioned, performed and/or recorded by: BBC Scottish Orchestra, Cikada, Goeyvaerts Trio, Psallentes, Tafelmusik, Trio Arbos, Victoria, Kitchener-Waterloo and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Chamber Choir Ireland, Arraymusic, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Apartment House, Continuum, Tapestry New Opera, Via Salzburg, Evergreen Club Gamelan, Exaudi, and the Bozzini, Mivos and Penderecki string quartets, as well as by many soloists including Eve Egoyan, Philip Thomas, Richard Sacks and Elinor Frey. She has had performances at the Tectonics Festival in Glasgow (2017), Huddersfield Festival (2017), Principal Sound Festival (London, 2018) and Louth Contemporary Music Festival in Ireland (2019/2023). The BBC Proms commissioned a new orchestral work (Nuages) premiered in 2019 by the BBC Scottish Orchestra. Several solo discs of her music have been released: Thought and Desire, (Eve Egoyan), Ballad (Eve Egoyan and Andrew Smith), Meadow (Louth Contemporary Music Society); and five recordings: Dirt Road, Drifter, Wanderer and Among the Tarnished Stars (with Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time) and Ballad, with Apartment House on the UK label ‘another timbre’. Her works are available through Composers Edition and the Canadian Music Centre. http://www.catlinsmith.com

Founded in 2011, Tkarón:to (Toronto)’s Thin Edge New Music Collective has emerged as one of Canada’s foremost ensembles dedicated to presenting and commissioning composers of our time. Driven by an unquenchable curiosity, they’ve produced a vast array of innovative and intricate programs, while engaging in unique and ambitious collaborations. In addition to their annual concert season, TENMC are winners of the 2020 Friends of Canadian Music Award presented by the Canadian League of Composers/Canadian Music Centre. TENMC has performed on concert stages across Canada, Italy, Poland, Japan, Argentina, Germany, and Greece. www.thinedgenewmusiccollective.com

Mounted in 2016, the remarkable program Balancing on the Edge was touted by Musicworks as “provocative, thrilling and thought-provoking” and delivered cutting-edge music alongside evocative circus performance courtesy of co-creators A Girl in the Sky Productions. In fall 2018, they performed the Toronto premiere of Sarah Hennies’ fêted film-and-ensemble work Contralto, co-presenting the poignant and abstract meditation on transfeminine identity with TIFF. 2019’s Ongaku Festival offered a rich three-day cultural exchange that unveiled new works by Canadian and Japanese composers alongside community and pedagogical events. Raging Against The Machine saw them tour across the country with Montréal’s Ensemble Paramirabo culminating in a co-operative 2017 release on Vancouver’s Redshift Records described by George Grella of Bandcamp Daily as  “an exhilarating, gripping performance…” and “ among the finest versions of these pieces ever put on record.” More recently, the 2nd installment of Balancing on the Edge: Anthropic Traces (Crow’s Theatre, July 2022) was considered a ‘haunting nugget of brilliance…luminous and gone too soon.’ (Intermission -Aisling Murphy)

While engaging with internationally-revered composers such as Maria De Alvear, Linda Catlin Smith, Allison Cameron, Mick Barr, Elliott Sharp, James O’Callaghan, Anahita Abbasi, Barbara Monk Feldman, Jessie Cox, Anthony Tan and Anna Höstman, the ensemble continues to nurture emerging voices, who comprise a considerable number of their 80+ commissioned works.  It’s all part of their distinctly eclectic and community-oriented outlook—endeavouring to bring 20th and 21st century music to an ever-expanding listenership. www.thinedgenewmusiccollective.com