At Portage and Main

In the late 1970's I wrote a number of pieces that included tuned percussion. This came, in part, from my knowledge and admiration of the imaginative and audacious use of percussion in the work of Percy Grainger who had substantial tuned percussion sections in his works from 1916 onwards, as well as writing for percussion alone.

At Portage and Main was written specially for Les Percussions Clavier de Lyon and is dedicated to them. The writing is informed by having worked with them for a number of years - I wrote a concerto for them with chamber orchestra, New York, and they have performed many times my other percussion quintet One Last Bar Then Joe Can Sing. The first and longest part is an extended song of a kind that developed from my work with Opera North Projects on "Mercy and Grand", dedicated to the music of Tom Waits. The last section is a kind of hymn to northern sensibilities like those expressed in Glenn Gould's The Idea of North.

Just as "Mercy and Grand" refers to a street corner in Waits' song Whistling Down The Wind, so Portage (Street) and Main (Street) is the intersection of these two streets in the centre of Winnipeg. It is right next to the hotel where I always stayed and 3 blocks from the Winnipeg Symphony's home at Centennial Hall. It is notorious as being the coldest street corner in North America as one of the streets, Main, runs due north and there is nothing between you and the North Pole when the wind blows from the north because the land above that point is entirely flat. When I was there the temperature was often around -35 degrees. There is even a sign at the junction prohibiting, by law, anyone from crossing the street at surface level in winter, as exposed facial flesh could freeze before one reached the other side... (Gavin Bryars)