Choral composition gets you right in the heart

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This article was published 27/02/2025 (522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As one of the busiest bass guitarists in Winnipeg, Ashley Au is known as a versatile, calm and collected player, as comfortable in the Golden Era hip-hop world of Super Duty Tough Work as in trumpeter Chuck Copenace’s freewheeling pocket.

But how would Au fare with a scalpel? Forceps? A microscopic needle and thread?

In November, the musician scrubbed up to see those instruments in action throughout a nine-hour triple-bypass procedure, peering over a white surgical mask to witness the intense, steady-handed focus required to repair the damaged thoroughfares of a beating human heart.

It was all part of Au’s research, though the musician is not considering a career change.

For February’s Heart Month — an annual opportunity to raise awareness about cardiovascular health — Au was commissioned by Hannah Godfrey, the curator of St. Boniface Hospital’s Buhler Gallery, to develop a piece of true-to-form chamber music grounded in Au’s experiences as a fly on the wall in the clinical setting.

“I spent a lot of time (at the hospital) watching things happen, listening to the sounds, taking in the sights, watching the rhythms of the people working there,” says Au, a freelance sound designer who also serves as the artistic director of the Cluster New Music + Integrated Arts Festival.

“The surgeons and the nursing staff are so in sync with one another. It’s a very tight-knit group of folks doing this work that’s so highly specialized.”

Those tendencies come to the forefront of Au’s composition, Figure of Eight, a 10-minute choral piece debuting at the Buhler Gallery Friday in a free public performance.

Sung by the SonoLux choir, Au’s composition is divided into three movements: threading, the fold and surge.

Beginning with a syncopated round of harmonized spoken word — “Take a breath, step toward, laying still, taking charge” — Figure of Eight is named for a type of suture, while also representing the dual-looped pathway of blood as it circulates throughout the human body.

The title also hints at the number eight’s significance in Chinese culture as an indication of prosperity, Au says.

At 7 p.m., following an artist talk, SonoLux will be joined in performance by St. Boniface staff for its performance of Figure of Eight, which will take place in the Buhler Gallery surrounded by Cardially, Yours, an exhibit developed by photographer Charles Venzon in collaboration with the cardiac sciences team.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com