something moving something still, by clarinetist and composer Elizabeth Millar, consists of a video score divided into three movements with verbal instructions. The video features images and photographs from two of the composer’s favourite places: the area where she grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough where she lived in Montréal. This composition invites the musicians to respond to the two main themes presented: movement and immobility. The piece also calls on the performers to pay attention to the rhythms and routines of our movements in the spaces around us and in everyday places. Stability and activity are superimposed and intertwined throughout the three movements, with images of clouds, fences, and staircases, parks where joggers pass or children play, and wide boulevards where cars zip by. The video is also divided into several screens that come to life, overlap, or disappear, providing cues for the performers to intervene and form subgroups within the ensemble.

— Elizabeth Millar [English translation: Isaiah Ceccarelli, xi-23]

Premiere

• November 1, 2022, Zigzague & Colore, Espace orange — Édifice Wilder — Espace danse, Montréal (Québec)