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Stories   >   Andrew Burashko talks with ludwigvan about ending the Art Of Time Ensemble and reworking Stravinsky's 'A Soldiers Tale'

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Andrew Burashko talks with ludwigvan about ending the Art Of Time Ensemble and reworking Stravinsky's 'A Soldiers Tale'

Posted: August 22, 2024

ludwig van's Anya Wassenberg writes….The Art of Time Ensemble will be ending its season, and its programming life as an organization, with a reworking of Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale. In Sankofa: The Soldier’s Tale Retold, the story has been reworked to focus on the experiences of a Black Canadian soldier during the Second World War, using a real historical context.

We spoke to AoT artistic director Andrew Burashko, who’s acting as music director for the production.

Andrew Burashko was born into a family of musicians in Moscow, but began his music studies in earnest in Toronto at the Royal Conservatory of Music. From there, he went on to study in Vancouver with Lee Kum-Sing, came back to Toronto to work with Leon Fleischer, and then Bella Davidovich in NYC.

Along with a career as a soloist and chamber musician that kicked off with his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at 17, he was a collaborator on an ongoing basis with iconic Canadian dancer Peggy Baker for more than two decades.

He created the Art of Time Ensemble in 1998 with the goal of creating a versatile chamber ensemble that would place art and pop culture on an even keel, blurring genres and gaining new audiences for orchestral music. Andrew has collaborated with conductors Sir Andrew Davis and Marin Alsop, and musicians like Branford Marsalis and Madeleine Peyroux, along with a who’s who of Canadian talent.

In May 2023, Burashko announced the 25th anniversary season lineup, along with the culmination of the Art of Time Ensemble itself.

Finishing AoT’s run with Sankofa: The Soldier’s Tale Retold wasn’t necessarily the original intention, according to Artistic Director Andrew Burashko.

“It was a combination of things,” he explains. “I think it was a fortunate accident. It wasn’t initially supposed to be part of our last and final season.”

It was intended for the 2023/24 season instead, but waiting on key personnel pushed the project too late to program last season.

“We were waiting on the director we’d approached,” he explains.

The director in question is Toronto theatre artist Tawiah M’Carthy, a Dora Mavor Moore nominated actor and playwright who uses both Western and African theatre traditions in his work. His pieces often combine dance, music, storytelling and poetry along with the structures of theatre. In recent years, he’s led acclaimed productions at the Stratford Festival (Death and the King’s Horseman, 2022), and Canadian Stage (Topdog/Underdog, 2023), among others.

“I think it’s an opportune situation, because it will be great to end it on such a strong note,” he says. “This project embodies everything that Art of Time stands for.”

Stravinsky published his Histoire du soldat, or Tale of the Soldier, in 1918 with the instructions that it was a work to be “read, played and danced” (lue, jouée et dansée) by three actors. One or more dancers, and a septet of musicians, including clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, percussion, violin and double bass, accompany the story. The music is challenging, with frequent changes of time signature, among other elements.

The original libretto was based on the Russian story about The Runaway Soldier and the Devil as it was published in a collection of stories by Alexander Afanasyev.

The project itself will be the happy ending of a long process. “It was a combination of many, many things — a confluence,” he says, “coincidences. I’ve always had a deep fascination with this piece.”

Along with the dramatic possibilities, it was Stravinsky’s score that stood out. “I’ve always loved this piece of music particularly,” Andrew says. “For years, I wondered how to do something new and fresh with it.”

Photo: John Lauener)

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