iMuseum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA) · Junction Triangle
The South Stairwell Sound Series plays a recently recovered c.1986 song by Canadian composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland, from the Keyboard Fantasies era.
Somewhere between floors, a voice sings "by the guiding stars, the cosmic veil, we are ever coming home to the light of the heavens" over a bed of synthesizers. It's Beverly Glenn-Copeland, on a song he recorded around 1986 while living a quieter life on the Canadian Shield. It was recently recovered from his archives, and he calls it "a gift from my past".
There is nothing to walk around. It's one 7:24 recording on a loop in MOCA's South Stairwell, the latest in the museum's sound series, and you hear it as you climb. It comes from the same era as Keyboard Fantasies, his 1986 album that was rediscovered decades later and turns 40 this fall. Most songs from 1986 reach you through a Shoppers Drug Mart ceiling speaker; this one got a whole stairwell.
It makes a short stop between Bharti Kher's Bones and Delcy Morelos's Ombligo. Adult admission is $14, under-18s are free, and Fridays run until 8pm.
The closing lyric
Listen for his tender, measured voice singing "we are ever coming home to the light of the heavens" over a shimmering blend of synthesizers.
A Keyboard Fantasies-era recording
A spare synth song from around 1986, untethered to any album, made in the same period as the record that later earned him the Polaris Prize Heritage Award.
You want something to look at: this is a single looped song playing in a stairwell.
Under-18s get in free, and under-15s must be with an adult at all times.