The Plains, a brand new album that releases at present (October 3, 2025) on Redshift Information, is the results of a collaboration, and friendship, between pianist Cheryl Duvall and composer Linda Catlin Smith. It’s the primary quantity of a brand new set of recordings of Duvall enjoying Smith’s full works for solo piano thus far.
Smith’s music has been gaining accolades lately, together with reward from worldwide media just like the Guardian, the BBC, the Wire, and Gramophone — together with a fee from the BBC Proms.
Unusually, The Plains consists of 1, one-hour lengthy work.
LV spoke to each artists concerning the challenge.
Composer Linda Catlin Smith
Linda Catlin Smith was born in New York Metropolis, the place she first studied composition and idea with composer and pianist Allen Shawn. She went on to additional research in composition on the College of Victoria in British Columbia. Her research in piano started on the State College of New York at Stony Brook, and continued privately in Victoria.
Smith made the transfer to Toronto in 1981, and have become Inventive Director of Arraymusic from 1988 to 1993. She taught composition at Wilfrid Laurier College from 1999 to 2020.
Her compositions have been carried out by a variety of ensembles and artists in North America and internationally, together with Goeyvaerts Trio, Psallentes, Tafelmusik, Victoria, Kitchener-Waterloo and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Continuum, Tapestry New Opera, Through Salzburg, Evergreen Membership Gamelan, Exaudi, and the Penderecki and Bozzini string quartets, and soloists akin to Eve Egoyan, Philip Thomas and Elinor Frey, amongst others.
Pianist Cheryl Duvall
Cheryl Duvall has developed a repute as certainly one of Canada’s premier interpreters of recent music. With an Honours BMus and Diploma of Chamber Music from Wilfrid Laurier College, and a Grasp’s of Piano Efficiency and Pedagogy from College of Toronto, she started to deal with the music of residing composers throughout her pupil days.
Cheryl co-founded Skinny Edge New Music Collective in 2011 with violinist Ilana Waniuk, and since then, the ensemble has commissioned greater than 70 new works from composers, have toured and held residencies internationally. Cheryl has additionally labored with choreographers, movie composers, and others on distinctive initiatives.
Linda Catlin Smith & Cheryl Duvall: The Interview
Linda Catlin Smith and Cheryl Duvall met as trainer and pupil, respectively, at Wilfrid Laurier College
“Cheryl was performing pupil compositions as a live performance sequence,” Smith remembers.
Duvall was taking a course in composition as a part of the speculation part in her diploma. Smith helped out with pupil live shows on the time.
“I bought to know her when she was a really fascinating composer within the first yr,” Smith says.
Their musical friendship continued, and some years later, Duvall would type Skinny Edge New Music Collective in 2011. Skinny Edge’s inaugural live performance included certainly one of Smith’s items. In 2023, the ensemble commissioned and recorded Darkish Flower from Smith, for which the composer netted a JUNO nomination. (Start watching under on the 51 minute mark or so.)
The Plains would be the first quantity of what’s going to turn out to be a group of Smith’s works for solo piano.
“The primary quantity is able to come out on the third of October,” Cheryl says. The remainder of Smith’s solo piano catalogue has already been recorded over a two-day studio session. “Once we recorded The Plains in December, I recorded three different items that day as effectively,” she says. Different works have been collected through the years, together with two that initially appeared on the Darkish Flower album.
“She stunned me with this concept,” Smith says. Naturally, the recordings solely embody what she’s written to date. “There is perhaps extra sooner or later.”
“We’re calling it the entire works from 1989 to 2023,” Duvall provides.
“Hopefully I’ve discovered a couple of issues in these years,” Smith laughs.
Smith’s repute has been rising by leaps and bounds throughout that point interval.
“It has for positive,” Smith says. “I feel it began when One other Timbre began placing out CDs. That appealed to sure followers,” she says. “I don’t suppose he anticipated the type of response. I feel that was a turning level,” Smith provides. “Who is aware of how this works?”
Fame and recognition weren’t on her record. “It wasn’t my objective,” Linda says. “It’s not about how many individuals hearken to it. It’s attempting to be true as you may, and hoping that somebody will prefer it.”
She provides that having musicians like Cheryl who wish to interpret new music is important.
Smith’s music is usually known as meditative or contemplative.
“There’s quite a lot of room for interpretation in my work,” Smith says. “There’s not a ton of data on the web page. It’s not micro managed by way of interpretation.”
Two pianists may play it fairly in another way, in different phrases.
“It’s extra satisfying,” Smith says. “Simply because I wrote it doesn’t imply I do know all the pieces about it,” she provides.
Her method contains the performer as a part of the method.
“That informs me,” Linda says. She says she learns one thing new with every interpretation of certainly one of her works.
As she notes, many composers have a really particular imaginative and prescient about what they wish to hear. “The performer has to rise to that technical feat,” Smith says. “That’s a really completely different type of music.”
It’s additionally, as she factors out, a comparatively current aspect within the realm of Western classical music.
“I consider myself extra about earlier music, the place there’s not a lot on the web page. It doesn’t have dynamics,” she says.
Cheryl Duvall performs Linda Catlin Smith’s The Environment (2014):
The Recording Studio
Duvall says that the sequence of albums will embody surprises for Linda Catlin Smith followers.
“I feel there’s fairly a couple of of the works which have by no means been recorded,” Duvall says. That’s even supposing they’ve been carried out in public. “I actually felt like quite a lot of freedom with the unrecorded ones. It was so thrilling to discover the colors, and the phrasing, and taking Linda’s musical directions.”
Working instantly with the composer is rewarding in lots of respects. The brand new album builds on their musical relationship, which incorporates recordings of Smith’s music made with Skinny Edge.
“We might at all times seek the advice of with Linda about interpretation of the piece,” Duvall remembers. “I really feel like there’s this historical past,” she provides. With Linda current within the studio, these consultations continued. “Inevitably, after we have been within the recording studio, I used to be in a position to take these concepts, and likewise to be very current with the instrument.”
It creates a singular efficiency of Smith’s work.
“The interpretations are very particular,” Duvall says. “They’re distinctive to that piano and that room.” The method was each reactive and collaborative.
“Loads of the takes we selected have been the primary ones,” Cheryl notes.
Smith says the forwards and backwards allowed for each views. She may sit again and current a extra goal viewpoint.
“I feel Cheryl and I have been fairly on the identical web page about what a recording expertise is.” It’s not about reducing and enhancing to a seamless polish. “It’s extra of a lived expertise.”
The Fazioli
The piano they used, a Fazioli, provided its personal distinctive character for the challenge.
“The piano — that Fazioli is such an uncommon beast,” Smith says. “Pianos are very fascinating as a result of every one has its personal character,” she provides. “Fortunately she’s performed that piano a couple of instances.”
“I feel the primary time, after we have been doing the Darkish Flower recording, it was the primary time I performed that instrument,” Duvall says. As she did, she realized it was the right piano for Smith’s music. Different pianos require a distinct method.
“It takes much more work to make what I wish to have occur,” Duvall says.
She notes that the piano she premiered The Plains on as a dwell efficiency was a distinct instrument. Her efficiency was a full six minutes shorter than the recorded model.
“It didn’t resonate the identical approach,” she says. The Fazioli makes the distinction. “I didn’t must go as quick to make the phrase alive. There’s quite a lot of extra delicate and nuanced colors that you just want, moderately than a bombastic assault.”
The Fazioli presents a hotter and extra intimate sound.
“It’s full — nevertheless it additionally has a gentleness that I really feel just isn’t at all times simple to get on each instrument.”
An Hour Lengthy Piece
Smith says it took a couple of yr, on and off, whereas engaged on different initiatives, to finish The Plains.
“This seems like this can be the hour lengthy piece,” she remembers pondering. “It was simply an concept that Cheryl put in my head.”
An hour lengthy piece permits her to extra absolutely discover her compositional concepts. “I made a decision to pursue that. When that you’ve an hour, what it does for me is it permits me to discover a bit extra,” Smith explains. “I really feel like I can wander within the materials. What occurs if I do that, and experiment? How lengthy does it wish to be?”
That line of pondering led to the title of the work.
“You may need a big subject, however inside that subject, you may need flowers,” Linda says. The piece is giant, however brims with small, telling particulars. “Titles are actually late with me.”
Smith appears to have developed a style for longer works. She says she’s at the moment writing one other hour-long piece for the Skinny Edge Collective.
“I’m again on this planet of prolonged pondering,” Smith provides. “It’s good to have simply that complete expertise I can form from starting to finish, and to permit these longer ideas.”
It is available in distinction to the zeitgeist, in fact, which says that focus spans are getting shorter.
“I really feel like I’m coaching myself to have these longer ideas,” Smith says.
Cheryl’s curiosity in performing longer items goes again a number of years.
“I began a challenge for myself in 2019, the place I did fee six hour lengthy works,” Duvall says. The Plains was an offshoot of that initiative. Linda had come to a live performance to listen to the premiere of one other piece, and Duvall put the thought to her.
“We talked,” Duvall remembers. “I had truly performed Linda’s longer cello ballad with different pianists,” she provides.
“The expertise I had of enjoying these items between 2014 and 2019 was what made me wish to sink my enamel into these longer works,” Cheryl says. “My expertise of enjoying by no means felt like an hour,” she remembers. “That so intrigued me that I wished to dive deeper into it.”
Suggestions from audiences informed her that their very own expertise additionally had a timelessness high quality.
“It was by no means, oh that felt so lengthy,” she stories.
Studying it wasn’t a lot of a stretch. “The interpretation is type of the identical as studying a big sonata,” Duvall says. “Like a giant Beethoven sonata — it’s lengthy. You must perceive it as a macro, and see a map of it. However you additionally must see the micro,” she explains.
“I approached it equally to how I used to be skilled to interpret engaged on my Masters,” she says. It’s about understanding the entire, however creating every second as they arrive up.
“You’re in two locations directly. You’re guiding the viewers via the expertise. the top, they don’t,” Cheryl provides. “I cherished decoding it. It was only a pleasure, and pushed me in superb methods.”
It’s a distinct type of expertise than the type of flashy method that is perhaps anticipated from a Chopin or Beethoven, or different work within the historic canon. Contact, steadiness, color, phrasing, and connecting the phrases takes on a distinct high quality.
“The type of virtuosity that it takes to play nuanced, refined and spacious music, nonetheless music (it’s laborious to provide you with the right adjectives, to be trustworthy) is its personal distinctive problem.”
“It’s not technically troublesome,” Smith provides. “However, the technical issue is controlling the color. It’s simply large focus. I think about it’s fairly tiring in the long run. It’s a bit extra tightropey.”
“That’s what makes it rewarding,” says Cheryl. “And that’s what makes it really feel such as you’re sucked out of time.”
“Music adjustments time,” Smith notes. “I wished to write down music the place you may hear all the pieces.”
- Purchase the digital album The Plains [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
