We love the iconic painting of Joni Mitchell created by our friend Denyse Klette and we know you do too!
Did you know you can have a copy for yourself? We’ve got prints for sale! Stop by our info table in the lobby for an order form, or you can order online.
While you’re perusing the Dervilia art + design website you can also get your copy of the works from the composer series. All created by Denyse Klette, these beautiful works of art feature some of our favourite composers and as a bonus, a portion of the sale proceeds support your orchestra!
For Saskatchewan’s Centennial in 2005, Joni Mitchell created an album called Songs of a Praire Girl. To quote Mitchell:
“I rounded up from my whole repertoire the songs that made references to Saskatchewan.”
The album includes 13 tracks that were influenced by her time in Maidstone, North Battleford, and her hometown of Saskatoon. Having moved to Saskatoon at age 11, Mitchell spent many of her formative years here. It was at Queen Elizabeth School that her teacher, Arthur Kratzmann, told her “If you can paint with a brush, you can paint with words.” He was a great influence on Mitchell, and in the credits for her first album, Joni wrote: “This album is dedicated to Mr. Kratzman, who taught me to love words.”
Mitchell is an incredible painter of words, and we’ve selected some of our favourite prairie references in her lyrics from Songs of a Prarie Girl.
Urge for Going
Mitchell introduced Urge for Going as “a song that was inspired by the part of the country that I come from, a place called Saskatoon, Saskatchewan”
“In Saskatoon or in Saskatchewan – or on the prairies for that matter, that includes the American prairies – the winters and the summers are very radical, with the temperature varying as much as 150 degrees in a season. So when the winter sets in, it really sets in, and drops down to about 50 below and all the people sit around and complain a lot, but they never really do anything about it.”
He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in
Now the warriors of winter give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying all that lives is gettin’ out
See the geese in chevron flight
Flapping and racing on before the snow…
They’ve got the urge for going
And they’ve got the wings to go
All Saskatchewan residents know the “urge for going” when the seasons change from fall to winter.
The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)
Several of the songs chosen for this album include how Mitchell felt about prairie winters.
She plants her garden in the spring
He does the winter shovelling
But summer’s just a sneeze
In a long long bad winter cold
She says “I’m leavin’ here” but she don’t go
Cherokee Louise
Mitchell references Saskatoon’s iconic Broadway Bridge in her heartbreaking song Cherokee Louise.
Cherokee Louise is hiding in this tunnel
In the Broadway bridge
We’re crawling on our knees
We’ve got flashlights and batteries
We’ve got cold cuts from the fridge
Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac
Not only does this song describe memories of rolling around in her friend’s dad’s care, but Mitchell references some of her difficulties in school which caused her to drop out. She did go back and finish high school at Aden Bowman.
Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac
Rollin’ past the rink
Past the record shack
Pink fins in the falling rain
Rollin’
To the blue lights past the water mains
Let the Wind Carry Me
Mitchell wrote about the different relationships she had with each of her parents, and her urge to settle and start a family of her own. But as she writes, that urge doesn’t last long.
But it passes like the summer
I’m a wild seed again
Let the wind carry me
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
Mitchell considers Saskatoon to be her home time and often describes herself as coming from an “open prairie”.
I come from open prairie
Given some wisdom and a lot of jive
Last night the ghosts of my old ideals
Reran on channel five
Raised on Robbery
Mitchell opens this tune with a line about the Empire which used to sit on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 20th Street.
He was sitting in the lounge of the Empire Hotel
Paprika Plains
The title comes from the lyrics where Mitchell describes dreaming about “paprika plains” and “a turquoise river snaking”. Mitchell goes on to describe the people from the land of the living skies during a thunderstorm.
Back in my hometown
They would have cleared the floor
Just to watch the rain come down
They’re such sky oriented people
Geared to changing weather
Song for Sharon
Sharon in 2020
Mitchell’s Song for Sharon reads like a letter to an old friend. It’s dedicated to Joni’s best friend when she was growing up in Maidstone, Saskatchewan, in the 1950s, and it references the fact that Sharon had been planning a career as a professional singer, while Joni hoped to be a farm wife — but in adulthood, each realized the other’s ambition.
When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon
I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses
And the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything
River
In the early 70s, Mitchell was living in Los Angeles. During that time she wrote and released her album Blue.
Coming from Saskatchewan December in California is a very different experience. In River, she writes about how Christmas holiday preparations make her long for a river to skate away on.
Oh, I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
Chinese Café/Unchained Melody
In another lyrical letter to a childhood friend, Mitchell reminisces over how childhood hangouts. She writes of how time has passed – Saskatoon is changing thanks to “uranium money”, Carol’s kids are grown, they look like their mothers, and she wishes she could have been there for her own daughter’s growing up.
Down at the Chinese Cafe
We’d be dreaming on our dimes
We’d be playing “You give your love, so sweetly”
One more time
Harlem in Havana
Mitchell writes about a late-night show at the Saskatoon Exhibition in Harlem in Havana that Auntie Ruthie would not have approved of.
At the far end of the midway
by the double ferris wheel
There’s a band that plays so snakey
You can’t help how you feel
Come In from the Cold
Mitchell was living in Saskatoon and turned 14 in 1957. Her lyrics evoke memories of school dances, and the awkward years of being a young teen just discovering the spark of attraction found in young love.
Back in 1957
We had to dance a foot apart
And they hawk-eyed us from the sidelines
Holding their rulers without a heart
And so with just a touch of our fingers
oh we could make our circuitry explode
All we ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
While there are so many incredible Mitchell tunes to choose from, our concert A Case of You includes Sarah Slean singing River. You can watch the whole concert by subscribing on ConcertStream.tv
Joni Mitchell’s songs, frequently confessional, sometimes obscure, always literate and musically adventurous, form one of the most striking bodies of work in the popular music of the last three decades.
She was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. Her mother taught school and her father was a grocer. While she was still very young, the family moved to North Battleford, Saskatchewan. At the age of seven years old, she convinced her parents to let her take piano lessons, but after a year and a half, the lessons came to an end. At the time, her most important creative outlet was art, not music. When she was nine years old, her family moved again, this time to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. These were the years of terrible polio epidemics, and Joan was one of that disease’s victims. She was one of the lucky ones, though–after a stay in the hospital, she succeeded in getting back the use of her legs.
When she was twelve, she was strongly influenced by an English teacher, Mr. Kratzman, who encouraged her to develop her writing talent. And then, in her teens, she became interested in folk music. She learned to play the ukulele and began performing at parties. After graduating from high school, she became a student at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, hoping to become a painter. While there, however, she began singing in a local folk music club, and in 1964, at the end of her first year of college, she decided to leave school and move to Toronto in order to pursue a career as a folksinger. Around this time, in addition to performing the popular folksongs of the day, she also began writing songs of her own.
In February of 1965, she gave birth to a daughter by a college ex-boyfriend. A few weeks after the birth, she married a Toronto folksinger, Chuck Mitchell. Shortly afterward, it became necessary for her to give her daughter up for adoption. Then, in the summer of 1965, the Mitchells moved to Detroit, where they performed as Joan and Chuck Mitchell. After a year and a half, the marriage broke up, and in. 1967, now known as Joni Mitchell, she moved to New York City. Initially, she considered returning to her artistic roots to pursue a career in design and clothing. However, she found herself rapidly gaining success as a folk singer. She became friendly with Elliot Roberts, who became her manager. With his help, she began to build a following not just in New York but all over the East Coast both as a singer and, even more, as a songwriter. Soon a number of well-known folksingers began recording her songs, including Tom Rush, Buffy Saint-Marie, and Dave Von Ronk.
Performing in Coconut Grove, Florida, Mitchell met David Crosby and towards the end of 1967, she left New York to move in with Crosby in California. Crosby persuaded Reprise Records to record her, and he produced her first album, entitled Joni Mitchell, which was released in March of 1968.
In December of 1968, Judy Collins scored a huge international bit single with a song written by Mitchell, “Both Sides Now.” As a result of this, when Joni Mitchell’s second album Clouds, which included her own version of “Both Sides Now”, was released in April 1969, it received a lot of attention. Another popular track from this album was “Chelsea Morning” (the song is said to have inspired the naming of President Bill Clinton’s daughter Chelsea). The album won her a Grammy as Best Folk Performance.
David Crosby had introduced Mitchell to Graham Nash, and soon after the introduction, Mitchell moved in with Nash in Los Angeles. She began touring as an opening act for Crosby, Stills, & Nash, who soon had a major hit with Mitchell’s composition “Woodstock”.
In 1970, she came out with her third album Ladies of the Canyon. This was a breakthrough album for her, with such songs as “For Free”, “Big Yellow Taxi”, “The Circle Game”, and her own version of “Woodstock”. It was her first gold album. Then in 1971, came Blue, an intensely introspective album that became a great success both with the critics and with the public. This album marked the beginning of a shift to a more rock-based style in Mitchell’s music. Around this time, she moved to British Columbia, staying with her friend David Geffen whenever she was in Los Angeles. In October 1972, For the Roses was released, once again with great critical and popular success. One of the songs from this album, “You Turn Me On., I’m A Radio” became a hit single. This was followed in 1974 by Court and Spark, in which her style evolved into a more popular but still sophisticated direction. “Help Me” from this album became a top ten single. Shortly afterward, she moved back to LA (while still keeping her British Columbia home), sharing a house with John Guerin, her drummer on Court and Spark.
By this time, Joni Mitchell was well-established as one of the most original voices in popular music. She broke up with John Guerin in 1976 and stayed for a while a Neil Young’s house. She scored another major popular and critical success with that year’s album Hejira.
In 1977, the legendary jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus, who was already seriously ill with the disease that would kill him less than two years later, got in touch with Joni Mitchell and initiated the collaboration that led to her 1979 album Mingus, and also to an increased presence of jazz in her music.
In 1982, Joni Mitchell married bass player Larry Klein. Beginning with 1982’s Wild Things Must Run, Klein was an important presence in Mitchell’s work, both as a player and as a co-producer. Although they separated amicably in 1993, they continued to work closely together, and Klein assisted her in the production of 1995’s album Turbulent Indigo, which won Mitchell a Grammy for Best Pop Album.
The true mark of a great songwriter, Mitchell’s words and music are so versatile and lyrical that her compositions have been recorded by artists from every genre, including Bob Dylan, Percy Faith, Amy Grant, Chet Atkins, Frank Sinatra, Dion, Andy Williams, Glen Campbell, Tori Aos, The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash, James Taylor, Michael Feinstein, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson, and Bing Crosby. Over the years, she has shown great skill as a recording artist in choosing the musicians she would work with on each project. These have included, at different times, Stephen Stills, James Taylor, guitarist Larry Carlton, fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius, and fusion saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
Joni Mitchell has received numerous Grammy awards and nominations. She was the recipient of Billboard’s prestigious Century Award for “distinguished creative achievement” in 1995 and in 1997 she was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Due to technical difficulties, we didn’t go live from the McNally Robinson Booksellers Travel Alcove on Tuesday, October 17th at 7 pm. Instead, we had a lovely in-person chat and filmed it!
Legendary Russian-American composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff left Russia after the Communist revolution of 1917. He was born on April 2, 1873, on a big estate near Novgorod, Russia. From the age of four, Rachmaninoff studied music with his mother; he continued his studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory under the guidance of professors Arensky, Taneyev, and Tchaikovsky.
Rachmaninoff’s concert performances were legendary, and he was recognized as a great pianist with unmatched power, emotion and technical excellence. He could reach a twelfth, or an octave and a half, or, for example, from middle C to high G, thanks to his huge hands. Rachmaninoff frequently used musical references from folk ballads, jazz, oriental music, and more into his own pieces. He wrote music with unusually wide chords and intensely romantic melody lines.
In 1934, Sergey Rachmaninoff performed the solo part for the world premiere of his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, in Baltimore, Maryland. With its virtuosity, emotional range, and creative twists on Niccol Paganini’s classic theme, this enduring composition continues to be a favourite of the piano concerto repertoire.
The “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” is written for piano solo and orchestral accompaniment. However, Rachmaninoff personalizes this piece with creative twists by using a pre-existing theme from Paganini’s Violin Caprice No. 24 as the foundation of this composition. This provides thematic material for a hauntingly beautiful melody, that serves as the musical backbone of the entire work.
The piece is based on the hauntingly beautiful 24th Caprice from Niccolò Paganini’s Caprices for Solo Violin, which provides the thematic material for the variations that follow. Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody is a stunning display of technical brilliance, emotional depth, and musical ingenuity, making it one of the most beloved works in the piano repertoire.
Rachmaninoff’s skill in transforming a musical idea into a variety of moods and emotions, from fun and whimsical to somber and dramatic, is demonstrated by his clever use of the Paganini theme throughout the variations.
Rachmaninoff writes cryptically on the first page of the manuscript, “This main theme occurred to me upon the arrival at the station of the ceremonial train from Pest in 1884.” Czechs were travelling from Hungary to Prague for a performance at the National Theatre, which was followed by a pro-Czech political demonstration.
The immediate issues of the 1880s had long-standing causes; for centuries, the Czech territories had been governed by the Austrian Hapsburg monarchy, and the Czech people were frequently treated as inferiors within the empire.
Over a low rumbling from the basses, timpani, and horns, the cellos and violas introduce the theme. A brief pastoral horn solo follows. A beautiful theme for flute and clarinets follows, and as it is passed to the violins, it becomes more intense. The opening theme makes a strong comeback at the movement’s climax. Following a dramatic coda, the movement comes to an end with one more appearance of the opening theme.
A calm, hymn-like chorale serves as the opening to the quiet second movement. A lyrical horn melody appears before taking an abruptly dramatic turn. The primary theme returns in the cellos after a series of powerful, contemplative developments, setting up the violins to lead an emotional passage. The hymn-like chorale from the beginning returns on the oboe over pianissimo, tremolo strings as the movement comes to a close.
The violins begin the third movement with a Czech furiant as the cellos and bassoons simultaneously play a Viennese waltz underneath it. This uneasy dance of two themes sets the tone for the whole work. This could be interpreted as a metaphor for Dvořák’s pursuit of great Czech music employing traditional Austro-German forms.
A furiant is a rapid and fiery Bohemian dance in alternating 2/4 and 3/4 time, with frequently shifting accents; or, in “art music”, in 3/4 time “with strong accents forming pairs of beats”
The finale opens with an ominous melody full of chromatic inflections that give it a Slavic character. This main melody develops into a number of increasingly frenzied march-like themes until a contrasting, lyrical melody appears.The music hurtles toward a rafter-shaking plagal cadence, the chords traditionally used for the word “Amen,” and ends with a resplendent D major chord, offering a glimmer of hope at the end of this intense musical journey.
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, near Prague, where he spent the majority of his life. In the late 1850s, he studied music at Prague’s Organ School and played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra through the 1860s.
Dvořák served as the National Conservatory’s director in New York City from 1892 until 1895. Wealthy socialite Jeannette Thurber, who created the Conservatory, desired a renowned composer as director in order to elevate her organization. She wrote to Dvořák, asking him to accept the position, and he agreed, provided she was willing to meet his conditions: talented Native American and African-American students who could not pay tuition must be admitted for free.
Dvořák became acquaintances with Harry Burleigh, who went on to become a significant African-American composer when he was the Conservatory’s director. Burleigh spent countless hours singing classic American spirituals to Dvořák while the composer educated Burleigh about composition. Burleigh went on to compose settings of these Spirituals which compare favorably with European classical composition.
Dvořák was a colourful character. In addition to music, he had two other particular interests: pigeon breeding and locomotive engines. He finally made his way back to Prague, where he served as the conservatoire’s director from 1901 until his passing in 1904. He was buried in Prague’s Vyšehrad cemetery.
Born in Montréal, Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has been acclaimed for her “stylish and refined performances” by Gramophone magazine, “combining vigor and suppleness with natural eloquence and elegance” (Le Soir).
She made her debut at the age of ten with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Charles Dutoit subsequently invited her to be a featured soloist during the MSO Asian Tour in 1989. Since then, she has performed an extensive concerto repertoire spanning from Bach to Adams with over 70 leading orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Flemish Radio Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerífe, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Staatskapelle Weimar, Philharmonie de Lorraine, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Belgrade Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, KBS Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Dallas Symphony, UNAM Philharmonic (Mexico), Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires, MAV Symphony (Budapest), Lithuanian National Symphony, Israel Chamber Orchestra as well as all the major Canadian orchestras, including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Calgary,Winnipeg and Métropolitain, among others. She has appeared with conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Vladimir Spivakov, Vasily Petrenko, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Stéphane Denève, Peter Oundjian, Gerd Albrecht and Charles Dutoit.
As a recitalist, she has performed in over 35 countries in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., Spivey Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional, the Great Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Seoul Arts Center, and Sala São Paulo. Festival appearances include the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Incontri in Terra di Siena in Italy, MDR Sommer Festival in Dresden, Lübecker Kammermusikfest, Salon-de-Provence Festival, Santander International Festival and Gijón International Piano Festival in Spain, Felicja Blumental Festival in Israel, Music@Menlo, Mainly Mozart, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Montreal International Festival, Ottawa Chamber Festival, Bard Music Festival in NY, International Keyboard Institute and Festival in NYC, Chang Chun Festival in China, and the Bravissimo Festival in Guatemala.
In 1989, she was recognized on the international scene as the First Prize winner at the Stravinsky International Piano Competition. She won Second Prize at the 1992 Montreal International Music Competition, at which she also won a Special Prize for the best interpretation of the unpublished work. In 1993, she received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Governor General of Canada and in 1994 won the Second Prize at the First International Franz Liszt Competition in Weimar. In 1999, she was awarded the prestigious Virginia Parker Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Before turning twenty, she graduated from both the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where she studied with Seymour Lipkin. She decided to further her studies in London with Maria Curcio-Diamand, Schnabel’s protégée, at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and received the Konzertexam Diplom from the Hochschule “Franz Liszt” in Weimar, where she worked with the late Lazar Berman. She was the first non-Italian recipient of the honorary title of “Master” upon graduating from the Accademia Pianistica “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola, Italy. She also worked with Joaquín Achúcarro at Southern Methodist University, where she held the Johnson-Prothro Artist-in-Residence endowed position. Ms. Chung is the recipient of the Honors Diploma at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy and was named Honorary Professor of the Jilin Arts College in China.
Lucille Chung has been hailed as “a considerable artist, admirable for her bold choice of music” by The Sunday Times for her recordings of the complete piano works by György Ligeti on the Dynamic label. The first volume was released in 2001 to great critical acclaim, receiving the maximum R10 from Classica-Répertoire in France, 5 Stars from the BBC Music Magazine, and 5 Stars in Fono Forum in Germany. The final volume, which also contains works for two pianos, was recorded with her husband, Alessio Bax and once again received the prestigious R10 from Classica-Répertoire. Her all-Scriabin CD won the “Best Instrumental Recording” prize at the 2003 Prelude Classical Awards in Holland as well as the coveted R10 from Classica-Répertoire in France.
She also recorded the two Mendelssohn Piano Concerti on the Richelieu/Radio-Canada label, which was nominated for the Prix Opus in Canada. In August 2005, Bax and Chung recorded Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with the Fort Worth Symphony and Maestro Miguel Harth-Bedoya with narration by Michael York. In 2007 she released a solo album for the Fazioli Concert Hall Series. Lucille then embarked on an exclusive contract with Disques XXI/Universal: Camille Saint-Saëns Piano Transcriptions and Mozart & Me. 2013 marked the release of a piano duo disc with Alessio Bax, presenting Stravinsky’s original four-hand version of the ballet Petrouchka as well as music by Brahms and Piazzolla for Signum Records. In 2015, she released an all-Poulenc album for Signum Records, which was chosen as the “Recording of the Month” on MusicWeb and most recently in 2018, her 14th album titled Liszt Piano Works was released to great acclaim. Her upcoming album for Signum Records will feature works by Debussy and Ravel.
Lucille is fluent in French, English, Korean, Italian, German, and Russian. She and husband, pianist Alessio Bax make their home in New York City with their daughter, Mila, and are artistic co-directors of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation, which seeks to further the careers of young pianists.
For Saskatchewan’s Centennial in 2005, Joni Mitchell created an album called Songs of a Praire Girl. To quote Mitchell:
The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)
Mitchell opens this tune with a line about the Empire which used to sit on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 20th Street.
Born in Montréal, Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has been acclaimed for her “stylish and refined performances” by Gramophone magazine, “combining vigor and suppleness with natural eloquence and elegance” (Le Soir).