Tickets

Children's Book

August 8, 2005                                                                                  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Patria Music/Theatre Projects
and
Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve

 present

R. Murray Schafer's



August 24 - September 2, 2005

The Enchanted Forest, part 9 of pre-eminent Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s 12-part Patria Cycle, will be presented at Patria’s spectacular new outdoor ‘home’ The Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve from August 24 to September 2, 2005. The 60,000 acre reserve is located in the Haliburton Highlands of central Ontario.

 “Haliburton Forest is a quiet, meditative place, where audiences and performers alike can feel transported into a magical realm.  The natural lighting, sounds and acoustic environment, coupled with the smell of the fresh outdoors, will enrich the experience and make it unforgettable”, says Schafer, broadly acknowledged as Canada’ s leading composer of new classical music.  

The Enchanted Forest tells of the nighttime adventures of a brave group of children seeking a lost companion kidnapped by dark forces.  Mystical beings and strange encounters abound, as the audience is literally led by singing children through forest and lakeside trails to 12 separate performance locations in the 2 hour journey.

Despite its straightforward, fairy-tale construction, The Enchanted Forest is a production challenge.  Two sets of forest trails are required; one for the audience to travel along, and another for stage crew to leapfrog battery packs and other technical equipment ahead of the audience.  Rehearsals and construction are managed without the conveniences of running water or electricity.  A large number of performers and musicians supplemented by a children’s choir and a raft of local community volunteer performers make for an appealingly epic performance; but also for epic coordination efforts, beyond the range of computers, faxes, and telephones.  Although trail work begins a year in advance, technical work months in advance, the production is rehearsed and assembled in a mere eleven days.  Through it all, the natural environment plays a starring role. 

The professional cast of soloists and dancers, featuring internationally acclaimed performers Gregory Cross, Eleanor James, James McLennan and Zorana Sadiq, 17 musicians and the 32 voice La Jeunesse Choir join forces with 25 volunteer community performers to enact this spectacular tale of magic and enchantment.  

The production is directed by Robert Desrosiers and Susan Spicer with musical direction by Michael Newnham.  Longtime collaborators with Schafer, Jerrard and Diana Smith will design sets and costumes, and Chris Clifford will design the lighting.

A composer, writer, visual artist and music educator, R. Murray Schafer is a truly unique creator whose works are performed around the world.  A  deep respect and concern for the natural environment motivate much of his artistic output and so, despite the extreme logistical challenges of performing epic works in a remote location,  a partnership with the Haliburton Forest & Wildlife Reserve (Canada’s first “certified sustainable forest”)  has been created to perform one work each summer for the next five years.

The Patria Cycle

Patria (Latin for “homeland”) is composer R. Murray Schafer’s life’s work; a cycle of twelve related music dramas created and performed over the last thirty years.  Each play in the cycle has a common theme – the search of two lovers for one another through the many labyrinths of life on Earth.  Though many of the same characters reappear in different sections, the scale of the cycle is vast, unfolding across many cultures and drawing extensively from numerous world mythologies.  Many of these works are conceived for performance in unusual environments: on the surface of a lake, deep in the forest or even in a deserted mine.  Some begin at dawn, sunset or midnight and some last for as long as a week.   In these remarkable works, the arts court one another: theatre meets ritual, mythology fuses with art, and the line between performer and audience blurs.  These masterworks inevitably leave an indelible impression on the spectator/participant and repeat “pilgrimages” to see Schafer’s works, however remotely or inconveniently situated, are not uncommon.

Books on the Patria Cycle include The Theatre of Confluence (Arcana Editions), Patria; the Complete Cycle, (Coach House Press) in 2002, and the newly published children’s storybook version of The Enchanted Forest, written by Schafer and illustrated by Diana Smith.  An accompanying CD features Murray Schafer narrating the story, supported by La Jeunesse Choir under the direction of Marie Anderson, and soloists Eleanor James and Sarah Ormerod.

R. Murray Schafer

R. Murray Schafer is known throughout the world for his achievements as an educator, environmentalist, scholar, visual artist and composer.  His major books include the acclaimed The Tuning of the World, Ezra Pound and His Music, On Canadian Music, and The Thinking Ear: On Music Education.  He was the first winner of the Glenn Gould prize for Music and Communication as well as the Molson Award for distinctive service to the arts.  Written at his home in Indian River in 1993, The Enchanted Forest was first performed at Winslow Farm in Millbrook, Ontario in September 1994.
 

August 24 to August 28 & August 31 to September 2
Haliburton Forest & Wildlife Reserve
18 km north of Hwy 118 on County Road 7, West Guilford
Tickets available on-line at www.totix.ca or at Cranberry Cottage, 60 Maple, Haliburton
General admission $50 : $40 students and seniors + GST

Media Contact:  Nancy Wolfe 416-925-7187 n.b.wolfe@sympatico.ca
August 17 onward Paul Macerollo 416-893-5632 paulmacerollo@rogers.com
Downloadable high resolution images at www.patria.org/ef/media
 
 

Toronto, February 28, 2005

Patria Music/Theatre Projects and Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve Ltd. today announced a joint venture that will provide a new home for the large-scale environmental works of iconic Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer over the next five years. This is the first permanent home for Patria Music/Theatre Projects since its founding in 1987. Previous productions have been staged around the Ontario countryside, as well as in such centres as Peterborough, Banff, and various indoor Toronto venues. For the next five years, Patria will stage its performances at Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve located near Lake Kennisis and West Guilford, south of Algonquin Park, about 215 km. northeast of Toronto. The property, Canada’s first certified sustainable forest, features pristine lakes, forests and wildlife reserve.

The debut production in Patria’s new home will be a remount of The Enchanted Forest, ninth work in Schafer’s 12-part Patria Cycle. Eight performances will be given, August 24-28 and August 31-September 2, each running about two hours, from 7:30 p.m. Rain dates are August 29 and September 3, 2005.

Ticket information is available from the Patria office, 416-596-8585. Additional information will be available online at www.patria.org and at www.haliburtonforest.com.

The remaining four years will see four other productions from the Patria Cycle – The Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix (2001) in 2006, The Princess of the Stars (1981) in 2007, The Greatest Show (1988) in 2008, and in 2009, a revised version of And the Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon, the epilogue to the Patria cycle. The entire cycle features libretto and music by Schafer.

The Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve has been the setting for Patria’s annual Wolf Project, in which participants gather for a week-long ritual drama. It was also the site of the 1997
production of The Princess of the Stars. R. Murray Schafer, Canada’s pre-eminent composer, is enthusiastic about this new partnership

“A more beautiful location to present the Patria cycle would be hard to find,” he said. “It is a quiet, meditative place, where audiences and performers alike can feel transported into a magical realm. The natural lighting, sounds and acoustic environment, coupled with the smell of the fresh outdoors, will enrich the experience and make it unforgettable.”

Patria Board President Joseph Macerollo added, “Being in Haliburton at the end of August is a particular advantage in that we can expect to attract cottage-goers from around the area as well as full-time residents.”