With its sixth inimitable album Ain't Got Long, the Art of Time Ensemble – Canada's genre-busting ensemble that fuses high art with popular culture – welcomes a distinctive gallery of guest artists to reimagine ten of the most arresting and unforgettable songs in the contemporary experience. Ain't Got Long is streaming worldwide.
Singers Madeleine Peyroux, Gregory Hoskins, Jessica Mitchell and Sarah Slean join the Art of Time Ensemble, led by its founder/artistic director Andrew Burashko, on the new recording, reinterpreting songs that range from the Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me" to Radiohead's "Exit Music (for a Film)." Composer Jonathan Goldsmith, who created the settings for each song, is also the album's producer.
"I created Art of Time with the aim of exploring where classical music intersects with other styles of music," Burashko says. "I wanted to celebrate great music, period – no matter what the style – and to present concerts without any barriers between the genres."
Ain't Got Long is just the latest collaboration in an odyssey that has established the Art of Time Ensemble as a vital element in the cultural life of Canada, both live and on television, and in the cutting-edge arts world of its capital city, Toronto.
Bringing together like-minded musicians and prominent figures in dance, theatre and other art forms, the ensemble has collaborated with singers and instrumentalists from across the musical spectrum, dancers and choreographers, actors, filmmakers and even the celebrated writers Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) and Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient).
"No one can put together music and musicians in a more dazzling, brilliant and moving way than Andrew Burashko and the Art of Time Ensemble," says the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, one of Canada's leading arts journalists and the nation's former Governor General. "Every concert is thrilling, inspiring, and leaves you longing for the next one. Surprise and accomplishment only begin to describe Art of Time Ensemble's achievements."
Ain't Got Long was inspired by "The Songbooks," a series of live concerts in which Jonathan Goldsmith joined Burashko and the Art of Time Ensemble to reinterpret a wide array of songs that qualify as "standards" in anyone's 21st-century appreciation of music.
"Whenever we have experimented with popular music, the challenge has always been to find that fine line between remaining faithful to the original in terms of melody and form," Burashko says, "and pushing the boundaries as much as possible in every other conceivable way. Over the last twenty years, we have collaborated with dozens of amazing arrangers, but Jonathan's charts were always the most adventurous and nearest to my heart. I've been wanting to make this album for many years."