“There you have it: zombie.” Zombie Blizzard is the latest release from soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, so I was surprised to hear novelist and poet Margaret Atwood’s deadpan croak upon pressing “play.” Each of these seven new settings composed by pianist Aaron Davis is preceded by a recitation of a poem by Atwood over a jazz trio, hinting at the musical material to come. Though billed as concert arias, Davis’ pieces bring to mind contemporary musical theatre: The brass-heavy, almost campy jazz performed by the trio and the Hannaford Street Silver Band is laden with piano ostinatos, while Brueggergosman-Lee adds percussive diction, theatrical slides, chesty low notes, and a shimmery upper register.
Princess Clothing, a set of seven poems about the politics of women’s clothing—and women’s bodies—captures Atwood’s signature dark humour with a recurring rising-and-falling triplet piano figure, plucky bass, and trumpet echoes. Shadow sets a decidedly darker tone. Brueggergosman-Lee’s previously playful performance turns crooning, even gritty, on lines such as “Gutter or pedestal? / That’s how it is with bodies / that someone wants.” The speaker’s frustration—that of a woman existing in a world where she can do no right—builds alongside a cacophony of muted trumpets to wailing heights before collapsing into a subdued moment of grief.
While some of the selected poetry is thematically (and therefore musically) repetitive, the ensemble finds a rare, earnest tenderness in the melancholy waltz of Blizzard, as both the poet and the composer navigate the grief of losing a mother.
