One-Page Score Project: Mary Burns/Soressa Gardner from Vancouver New Music on Vimeo.

Currents of Our Imaginary Ocean was composed by for Vancouver New Music and inspired by the graphic score by Mary Burns.

Artist Statement – Mary Burns
“Currents of Our Imaginary Ocean” (2020)
In our imaginary ocean currents carry the iciest salt water from the bottom to the sun warmed surface, but it is not as simple as cold meeting hot. Obstacles alter the ebb and the flow and storms can reverse the usual order. Within the main current a local one mimes shape and direction. Isn’t that always the way? 

Surface currents are water bugs shoving the water this way and that. Wavelets converse on shores we have not yet discovered. Galoup, galoush. For every comment there is an answer, sometimes a retort. Whirlpools, gyres. We cannot know all the matter that determines motion, the trenches, the mountains. Within the dissonance there is melody.

Artist Statement – Soressa Gardner
When presented with Mary Burns’ graphic score and accompanying text, I envisioned a vocal rich journey through shifting waters, dreamlike encounters with musical conversations, occasional trips to the surface for air, and eventual (but temporary) arrival in conventional melody. Mary’s words Galoup, Galoush reminded me of an imaginary language sacred song I wrote years ago which, reworked, became the basis of this arrival point.