For this instalment of Earmark we chat with Associate Composer Coreen Morsink about the early wonders of music, the importance of asking questions and pursuing answers, and the rich collaborative experiences that have taken place despite the pandemic.
Canadian Music Centre: How have you been adapting to the pandemic?
Coreen Morsink: As a natural introvert the pandemic did not stop me from writing music and playing the piano!
CMC: What got you excited about music at a young age?
CM: My father wasn’t a professional musician (he was a city forester) but there were weekends when he would just sit and play classical music and jazz improvisations on his Spanish guitar. These occasions made me feel in awe because it was like he was in another spectacular world where he would leave all his worries behind. After his serious stuff then he’d sing and play funny songs with me like “Ice Cream You Scream”.
CMC: What is an important music concert you attended?
CM: My parents would take my sister and me to Brunch with Bach which was once a month or so on Sundays at the Detroit Institute of the Arts across from Windsor, Ontario where we lived. I developed a great love of baroque flute music and baroque music in general from those concerts combined with seeing the art and fragments of sculptures at the museum/art gallery. I used to wonder why the artists would make sculptures without heads and arms. Perhaps that was a subliminal influence on my eventual move to Greece, and on my piece Andromache for alto flute?
CMC: What have you been listening to lately?
CM: I started listening to Peter Sheppard Skaerved’s extraordinary Lockdown Playlist back in 2020 and now I can’t stop listening to his latest recordings. I’m always wondering what he is going to record next! During Lockdown 2020 I asked him if I could write a piece in collaboration based on his drawings from that time and he agreed. I created The Lockdown Sketches for solo violin which he has premiered and played several times in 2021 (part of that is on this playlist somewhere!)
CMC: What is a significant insight that a mentor shared with you that has guided your practice?
CM: There are so many that it’s hard to name them all but here are a few! Composer Roger Redgate who helped me find my ‘voice’ in composing and never forced me to write in a way that was not my own; Martin L. West, the classics scholar who politely did not laugh at my rather silly questions relating to ancient Greek music and the rhythmic accents in ancient Greek; Andrew Balfour of Cree descent who helped me express myself and gave me direction in the PIVOT programme for emerging Canadian Composers, particularly in how to re-shape my ideas of music in Canada after being away from Canada for so long.
CMC: What is the most important lesson you would share with your younger self regarding your music?
CM: You don’t have to be dead or male to be a composer!
CMC: Tell me about a project/work of yours that you are particularly proud of.
CM: I take pride in my composition A Stack of Human Dilemmas for violin and cello which was performed by Carol Fujino and Paul Widner of the Continuum Contemporary Music Ensemble as part of PIVOT. They helped to shape the composition by giving creative suggestions of sounds that would work with my ideas. For their help and inspiration, I am very thankful as well as for all the musicians who were involved in PIVOT who were so kind and helpful.