AWAKENING (2026)
Montreal composer Brendan Kelly’s Awakening draws inspiration from the vivid Fauvist-inspired paintings of Canadian artist Emily Carr.
Each piano piece unfolds as a chapter in Carr’s artistic journey—her awakening to colour, nature, solitude, and spirit—tracing a life transformed by the untamed beauty of the Canadian landscape.
Piano Titles
01) Boats in Brittany
02) Le Paysage
03) Autumn in France
04) Potlatch Figure
05) Logging Camp
06) Au Debut de L-Automne
07) The Mountain
08) Scorned As Timber, Beloved As Sky
09) Woodland Study
10) Parmi Les Arbres
11) Sombreness Sunlit
"I felt the forests were alive,
something bigger than myself was there."
Emily Carr c.1911
Liner Notes:
01. Boats in Brittany - 1911 /
The first awakening...
Across the Breton shore, Emily discovers a new language of colour and light. The sea, the boats and the restless sky become her first steps toward freedom from the traditions she had once known.
02. Le Paysage - 1911 /
A new way of seeing...
The familiar world begins to loosen. Fields become rhythm, trees become gesture, and colour carries what ordinary vision cannot say. The landscape is no longer merely observed—it begins to breathe.
03. Autumn in France - 1911 /
The breakthrough...
Under the autumn light of Brittany, the landscape bursts into colour—golden fields, crimson earth and living green. Here Emily finds the courage to paint not what she sees, but what she feels.
04. Potlatch Figure - 1912 /
Coming Home...
France has opened her eyes, but British Columbia calls her home. Among the villages and sacred figures of the Northwest Coast, she begins to discover a subject that belongs not to Europe, but to the land of her own spirit.
05. Logging Camp - 1920 /
The changing wilderness...
The forest is no longer untouched. Against the vast green silence, men and machines arrive. Yet even among the camps and fallen timber, Emily searches for the enduring pulse of the wilderness.
06. Au Debut de L-Automne /
The quiet return...
Autumn gathers softly among the trees. Gold enters the green, light slips between the branches, and the forest becomes a place of solitude, memory and quiet renewal.
07. The Mountain - 1933 /
Nature becomes immense...
The trees give way to something greater. Mountain, forest and sky rise together in a vast, elemental presence—a world no longer contained by the human eye.
08. Scorned As Timber, Beloved As Sky - 1935 /
The wound in the forest...
The axe has passed, leaving silence where the forest once stood. Yet one solitary tree remains—scorned as timber, cherished by the sky—stretching upward like a prayer.
09. Woodland Study /
Into the heart of the forest...
Beyond the fallen trees lies another world: intimate, shadowed and alive. Every trunk, branch and shaft of light becomes part of a greater rhythm—the forest speaking in its own quiet language.
10. Parmi Les Arbres /
The forest sanctuary...
Beneath the trees, the outer world falls away. Green darkness gathers around shafts of light, and the forest becomes less a place than a state of being—quiet, mysterious and alive.
11. Sombreness Sunlit - c. 1938-40 /
The final revelation...
Darkness and light become one. Sunlight pours through the forest like spirit through matter, dissolving tree, sky and shadow into a single luminous movement.
