Canadian rock classics reimagined for string quartet

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This article was published 08/04/2020 (2310 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Kenny Shields died in July 2017, the inaugural edition of the Winnipeg Classic RockFest at Shaw Park a month later quickly morphed into a tribute to the late Streetheart frontman.

Musicians from Loverboy, Harlequin, Honeymoon Suite and the Pumps & Orphan shared the stage with the remaining members of Streetheart to honour their friend while entertaining the crowd with their respective catalogues of Can-rock classics.

Violin player and classical arranger Karen Barg was in the crowd that night, and on the way home, inspiration struck and she decided to try her hand at reimagining some of the songs she heard into arrangements for the string quartet she leads, Luminous String Quartet.

First, she tackled I Did It For Love by Harlequin, and then Miracle by Pumps & Orphan, working slowly and diligently to make her four-part arrangements sound as close to the originals as she could.

“I’m a purist that way; it has to sound as much like the original as possible, otherwise there’s no point in doing it,” says Barg, who has both been trained and taught at Suzuki Music Winnipeg.

“When I’m listening to the songs, if I can already hear four-part harmony… if I can already imagine the song in a string-quartet format just hearing the song on its own, I already know that there’s possibilities.

“If there’s too much going on, too overproduced, it becomes a bit too involved, so to speak, and it will be a bit more of a challenge.”

It was also important to Barg — who has performed with Canadian crooner Michael Bublé, Chicago metal band Disturbed, singer-songwriter Sarah Slean and popera group Il Divo, to name a few — to attempt to connect with as many of the bands and artists she was covering as possible; all but three of 11 Canadian rockers responded to her and gave their blessing to continue on with the project, though that wasn’t necessarily Barg’s intention when reaching out to them.

“It was more just so they knew this was happening and that it was being done with the utmost love and respect and that if they wanted to have say in it a little bit, that would be OK. I wanted to make sure they were happy with what they heard,” says Barg, adding Jeff Niell of Streetheart had a few notes about her arrangement for What Kind of Love Is This (for it to be slower and smoother) which she happily obliged.

During the past two years, Barg has arranged 11 tracks and collected them for an album, I Did It For Love: A Canadian Classic Rock Compilation, which came out March 27. The release party was cancelled owing to COVID-19 concerns, but physical CDs are available by contacting Barg through Luminous String Quartet’s website, www.luminousstringquartet.ca.

Despite the fact her release concert had to be nixed, Barg is thrilled she had the opportunity to not only arrange the songs, but work with the bands who originally recorded them, developing relationships and friendships that will continue long after the album has been released.

“The actual experience of putting this together has been invaluable and priceless,” Barg says.

“The education that I’ve received from a lot of these bands and artists in regards to ‘the biz,’ not to mention the connections that have occurred and the friendships that have been cultivated as a result, has been just amazing.”

Barg is already working on a second volume of quartet arrangements of Canadian classics, this time focusing on female artists such as Joni Mitchell, Shania Twain and Sarah McLachlan.

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel