Medieval Inuit

Conductor: Mel Braun

Camerata Nova's Artistic Director, Andrew Balfour, has partnered with Inuk singer and songwriter Madeleine Allakariallak to celebrate a fascinating range of music. Medieval Inuit offers traditional Inuit songs and throat singing from Madeleine and her partner for this event, Sylvia Cloutier; songs passed down from generation to generation shared by elders Elisapie Ootova and the late Minnie Allakariallak, Madeleine's grandmother; medieval music coinciding with the time when Europeans and the Inuit first met; early Scandinavian and Icelandic folksongs and arrangements of Inuit folk songs by Balfour.

Medieval Inuit is also the name of a major new choral work from Artistic Director Andrew Balfour and will feature Inuit singing, viola and percussion. This premiere is based on the theme of the early encounters between the two cultures, their sounds and rhythms, and incorporates experiments in combining throat singing with rhythmic medieval chant.

The musical experience of Medieval Inuit will be enhanced by the projection of powerful Arctic images from the early 1900s. Fred Ford's grandfather was a fur trader and began a three-generation legacy of photographing the Inuit and their art, as well as life in the Canadian North. The image archives of the Ford family are rare and early witnesses of northern culture.