Venue: Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Date: 05 April 2001
Reviewer: Cheryl Rossi
Veda Hille presented her new compositions in the same
room she'd recorded them with charming effect, Thursday, April 5.
Field Study was recorded at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre,
which Hille said feels like a home to her.
The theme of the first seven songs on the album is art and science,
"but secretly, it's about my family," she confided. Knowing we were in
her space of creation and the "secret" of her lyrics created an
enhanced intimacy. She asked us to hold our applause until after she
had played the compositions in succession.
Red molecules danced on a video screen behind Hille with the opening
notes of the first song, Carnage. Her second song,
Plants, exemplified the stated themes: "Wheat once did grow
wild as apples/ Some people are poisoned more easily than others/ We
once did grow wild as apples/ Some poisonous plants are very helpful."
After confessing her fascination with birds, she performed
Birdsong a cappella. She then went on to play the rumbling
Evolver, a song about her volcanic eight-year-old stepdaughter.
The second half of Hille's album is the Yukon Suite, songs
written by commission from the Yukon Arts Centre. Hille, in turn,
commissioned her friend, Shawn Chapelle, to create a complimentary
video. Purple pine needles faded in and out of focus. A flower filled
the screen with its long stamen, lone, like the singer at her piano.
Chapelle's images demonstrated his perceptive eye for natural beauty
and sensitivity to Hille's music.
Subjects of the Yukon Suite songs not only include nature, but
also sex workers who serviced gold miners in Yukon Ho!. Hille
recreated the sounds of tumbling water with one of her compositions
and charmed us by knowingly singing, "Don't miss the plums at autumn/
That's when they're ripe, my boy" in Song of the Little Wind,
written by Hans Eisler and Bertolt Brecht.
Listening without being able to express appreciation created a
tension and eventually, restlessness throughout the room. It was a
relief to finally shower Hille with applause.
Veda Hille has combined her appreciation of the natural world with
her insightful understanding of people and relationships to create an
enchanting album. She gave us a rare gift by presenting
Field Study in an uninterrupted sequence, which made for a
truly engaging performance.
© 2001, Cheryl Rossi