Métis composer’s piece performed in Tokyo

In October, Nicholas Howells’ piece, Crowfoot, was performed at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. Milton Schlosser, Howells’ former instructor, gave the solo performance comprised of piano, drums and speaking voice.

“Milton had approached me just over a year ago, and he wanted me to write a piece . . . that explored my Métis background. He had come across the quote from Chief Crowfoot. As soon as (I finished) reading it, I thought yes, I have to use this. I find it very reflective of my own life,” said Howells.

The quote that drew both Schlosser and Howells was, “A little while and I will be gone from among you, whither I cannot tell. From nowhere we came, into nowhere we go. What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

“You hear in the piece, the opening theme, it’s sort of stating this question from the quote from Chief Crowfoot, ‘What is life?’ And then the piece sort of goes on this journey, and there’s a lot of tension. It’s constantly just push and pull throughout,” said Howells.

A tension Howells felt growing up. Raised in Cremona, he said he often hid his Cree background from people because of fear of being stereotyped.

“That actually carried on into my late teens,” he said. “So in writing this piece, I had to spend some time, sort of looking back at those feelings and trying to figure out where they came from and why I was reluctant to accept that.”

Because the piece was an exploration of his heritage, Howells had to do some digging, including researching historical family documents.

“That was quite a great journey, because I sort of got to repair some of these things that had been happening when I was young. And so that became the real big inspiration for this piece. The journey of accepting my heritage.”

It took Howells three months to compose Crowfoot, a relatively quick period of time by his standards.

Howells approached his composition in a unique manner.  He wrote it for the piano, which is a rarity for Aboriginal-themed music. And then he played with one of the basics, noting that early books often had the same pieces, usually called the Indian Dance or Indian Drums.
In Crowfoot, Howells built upon that theme. “Rather than having the left hand act as a drum, I decided to put actual drum in and free up the hands to actually play the music and provide the drum for the rhythm.”

Howell is no stranger to having success in composition. After working his way through the Royal Conservatory-style of teaching as a youngster, he entered a composition in the Kiwanis Music Festival and won.

Howells springs from a creative family. One of his sisters is a singer, and the other two are professional glassworkers. His brother is a guitarist and both his parents play piano. “Those were some of my earliest memories of hearing the piano, with my dad actually writing music.”

Crowfoot debuted Sept. 21 at the University of Alberta’s Augustana campus in Camrose, from which Howells was a 2010 graduate.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better premiere. It was fantastic. The sound isn’t particularly good, when playing in my little studio in my house. And so, you have to use your imagination of what might this sound like in a bigger setting. So that’s quite relieving to hear it performed and to have the initial conception come to life,” said Howells.