Sunday Sessions: Traverse
Traverse.
Meanings of that word include making a journey, building a bridge, crossing a distance.
It is also the title Laura Risk has chosen for her album.
Scotland and Quebec, Northern California and Boston are all part of her backgorund, In varied ways they come into her style of playing and her ideas when she composes original music.
For some time now she has been based in Quebec
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Photo by Emmanuelle Roberge
“Traditional music arcs across generations by design,” she writes.
It has been a bit of time Risk made her last album. That, too, comes inot her music.
“Each of these tunes ask: what is a life well lived?
These document life passages and honour gifts received,” Laura writes.
She continues: “They mark people met along the journey and others lost. They stop for breathing space along the traverses of passin and passing on.
“This album is an invitation to enter into the story.
“To temper loss with hope.
“To bring joy.”
That is does. There are both quiet tunes, expansive one and other more concentrated. Each of them, and the whole jounrey Riak offers on Traverse is well worth letting the music and its stories sink in.
One of my favourite tunes is this one, a Quebecois piece written by Philippe Bruneau
Another favourite is Jerry’s Waltz, a tune Risk wrote for her father.
Joining Risk on the album are Nicholas Williams on accordion and Rachel Aucoin on piano. Mathieu Jacques sits in on trumpet on one track and Nic Gareiss adds the steps of percussive dance to several pieces.
You will want to read Risk’s sleeve notes, too. They are brief and insightful
Also…
During her time in Boston Risk produced several albums for fellow fiddle player and composer Hanneke Cassel
Risk is also a university professor with scholarly publications to her name
Another fiddle player to know about: Lauren MacColl, from Scotland
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