In 2008, I arranged the 15th-century chanson O Rosa Bella for Rosabel Choi, Jake Leckie and Adam Kinner. The idea sprang from conversations with Rosi about improvisation and creating a framework in which she would feel comfortable with it in performance. We were both very enthusiastic about the experience, especially the feeling of creating and inhabiting the musical world of this ancient song. Jake Leckie and Adam Kinner were both seasoned improvisers, so they were guides in navigating the map of the O Rosa Bella score.


Recorded at Rosabel Choi’s home in Phoenix, January 2012.
Rosabel talks about playing with Jake Leckie and Adam Kinner.





TRANSCRIPTION:
Rosabel Choi: I also really like playing with a player who’s based in jazz, like Jake. I feel his style of listening is so different from a classical musician and it’s really inspiring for me to play with someone who has that level of listening, and I experienced that even when I was playing your piece with Jake and Adam because they listen so intently. I hadn’t experienced that before.


“Awkward nightbird” and “heavy melancholies” should fit into the groove that the trio of Rosabel Choi, Jake Leckie and Adam Kinner played in O Rosa Bella.


O Rosa Bella, recorded at the Banff Centre in December 2008.





NIGHT TIME is about how familiar things seem altered and distorted in the half light and half waking of dreams, about fantasies and about obsessions.