Videos

Veda Hingert-McDonald (violin) and Marlena Pellegrino (viola)

The Scottish poet, David Cameron, with whom I have collaborated often, made the observation that the six female characters mentioned in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land seemed, in his view, to be rather narrowly defined. Cameron chose to write six poems in which he expanded on these characters, giving them deeper, more fully-formed images. The six Cameron poems that resulted are grouped under the heading, The Heart of Light. Cameron shared these poems with me, and I set them to music, for solo soprano voice, unaccompanied.

I met the Ukrainian piano virtuoso, Anna Sagalova not long after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when she came as a refugee to Canada. I discovered that Sagalova is a superb Mendelssohn specialist, and I asked her if she felt interested to have some contemporary Songs Without Words, which I offered to compose for her. She was very receptive to this idea. I then set about to compose six virtuoso piano pieces using these Cameron songs as the source material. The six piano pieces are:

1. Stay With Me
2. You Gave Me Hyacinths
3. Look!
4. Home at Teatime
5. I Can’t Help It
6. Marie! Marie!

The six pieces use different approaches to illuminating the melodies, pianistically. I am grateful to Anita Pari for giving the world premiere complete performance.

Sung by Vania Chan
Music by David Jaeger
Poetry by David Cameron

Ann Murdocca (clarinet) and Sonya Sim (piano) performing David Jaeger’s Diptych – Lament and Defiance from Ann’s ADP recital at the Glenn Gould School on May 13th, 2025.

Recorded at the Peggy Corkum Music Room, Halifax, NS, November 15, 2023.
Presented by Scotia Festival of Music.

Silvia Mandolini – viola

Noémie Raymond-Friset (cello), Michel-Alexandre Broekaert (piano)

Conjuring: Viola Music of David Jaeger
℗ 2023 Elizabeth Reid Released on: 2023-02-03