CBC listeners will recognize his voice. Concert audiences will also recognize his works. T. Patrick Carrabre’s The Dark Reaches has been nominated for a Juno in the classical composition category.
Written for the Gryphon Trio by the University of Western Ontario alumnus (MMus’83), it was released last fall on the CD Firebrand from the Canadian Music Centre’s Centrediscs label.
Carrabré studied composition at Western with Peter Paul Koprowski. Today, He a professor at Brandon University in Brandon, Man. Since 2001, he has also been Composer-In-Residence for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He is co-curator of the orchestra’s New Music Festival. Also active in the media (host of CBC Radio’s The Signal) and as a conductor, Carrabré recently completed a four-year term as Artistic Director of the Brandon Chamber Players.
“It feels good. It’s nice that it might bring more attention to the music and to the performers, who are all great,” Carrabré says of the nomination. “These are live recordings—the two piano trios that I’ve written for the Gryphon Trio are on there as well as a piano quintet that I wrote for the Winnipeg Chamber Music Society. The nomination came for the newer of the piano trios.”
Carrabré was nominated in 1990 for his composition Sonata No. 1, The Penitent for violin and piano. His best known compositions include Inuit Games, for throat singers (katajjak) and orchestra, which was a recommended work at the 2003 International Rostrum of Composers, and Creation Stories – an Oratorio concept piece combining orchestra with the Canadian Mennonite University Chorus, Michael Esquash Sr., the Spirit Sands Singers, Inukshuk Aksalnik, NAfro Dance and Amanda Stott.
The 2009 Juno Awards will be presented March 28 and 29 at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver, B. C.