Turning Point Ensemble (TPE) opens its 2026/2027 season this weekend with Discoveries & Rediscoveries on October 17, at 7:30pm and October 18, at 2:30pm at The Annex (823 Seymour St). The concert presents two world premieres written for TPE, rarely heard works by Icelandic composer Jón Leifs and the late Canadian composer John Burke, and music by some of today’s most compelling compositional voices.
The program includes six works: Remove the Springs (2025, World Premiere) by Moldovan composer Snejana Pislari; Psychography (2026, World Premiere) by Vancouver composer Taylor Brook; Quintetto, Op. 50 (1960) by Jón Leifs; Remember your Power (1998) by John Burke, featuring TPE pianist Jane Hayes; Aequilibria (2014) by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir; and Ninaivanjali (2011) by Quebec composer Gabriel Dharmoo.
“Turning Point Ensemble has always been about discovering and rediscovering,” says Owen Underhill, Artistic Director. “We strive to unearth music from the past hundred years that is crying out to be heard again live, and to build new repertoire for the future. Opening the season with works that span more than six decades, including two brand-new pieces written for us, captures the heart of our mission.”
Two World Premieres are written for TPE; Pislari’s Remove the Springs and Brook’s Psychography. The former takes its title from American theatre director Robert Wilson’s call to “remove the springs [from the sofa of the opera].” Pislari embraced that same freedom from constraint, she fuses romantic melodic idioms with repetition and rhythmic drive.
Brook’s piece uses psychography – the ability to write unconsciously, often framed as channeling a spiritual force – as an entry point to explore intuition, belief and perception as musical and aesthetic phenomena.
Jón Leifs is heralded as “the most important and original composer of Icelandic music in the twentieth century,” yet his music remains rarely performed. The Vancouver audience gets the chance to hear his work live in Quintetto, Op. 50. One of the finest Canadian composers of his generation, John Burke (1951-2020) composed Remember your Power, included in this program, for TPE’s Jane Hayes in 1998. Completing the program, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Aequilibria offers audiences her mesmerizing, layered sound world, while Gabriel Dharmoo’s Ninaivanjali echoes the melodies, rhythms and drones of South Indian Carnatic music.
Turning Point Ensemble’s Discoveries & Rediscoveries plays October 17, at 7:30pm and October 18, at 2:30pm at The Annex, 823 Seymour Street. For more information and tickets, visit turningpointensemble.ca