Frank Horvat: Discovering Meaning and Fellowship Through Challenges

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

Frank Horvat is an acclaimed Canadian composer and pianist whose music has been featured on over 20 albums. In this episode you’ll hear how he has forged meaningful collaborations with a wide range of musicians internationally, and found and given solace to audiences through his focus on themes of mental health, the climate crisis, and social justice. We start this episode with his Arctic Circle Residency.

Frank Horvat is so prolific and involved in so many diverse projects, with music in many styles, that we could only focus on a few of his works in this podcast episode, including with the SHHH!!! Ensemble, the Odin Quartet, flutist Christopher Lee and soprano Meredith Hall. We talked about his Music for Self-Isolation, and his wonderful initiative, the Piano Therapy Virtual Tour, that pairs his music with his personal mental health challenges and coping strategies. I also asked him about The Green Keys Tour, in which he performed his work Earth Hour in dark halls across North America, travelling in a sustainable way. We also got into some of his current projects, Trees.Listen with Sharlene Wallace inspired by the work of Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger , and More Rivers, commissioned by Christina Petrowska Quilico and inspired by the work of Ann Southam.

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Frank Horvat website: https://frankhorvat.com/

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You can also watch this podcast on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ViolinLessonOnline

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(02:22) Arctic Circle Residency

(15:00) SHHH!! Ensemble

Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene, creative process and excerpts

(24:51) Frank Horvat composing in different styles, finding new inspirations

(28:48) Music for Self-Isolation, music performed by Christopher Lee

(40:50) please support this podcast! Thanks

(41:26) Piano Therapy Virtual Tour, talking about mental health

(54:54) Odin quartet excerpt from the Four Seasons in High Park

(55:07) Frank’s start as a composer

(58:00) The Green Keys Tour

(01:01:13) excerpt Orbital Tour of CIties at Night from album Fractures with Meredith Hall

(01:04:140) new project Trees.Listen with Sharlene Wallace, Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger

(01:11:19) More Rivers, Christina Petrowska Quilico, Ann Southam