Lonely Child Project

The Lonely Child project is a work-in-process that was initiated in January 2017. The core members of the project are Soprano Stacie Dunlop, Composer/Arranger/Musical Director Scott Good and Circus Artists Angola Murdoch (LookUp Theatre) and Holly Treddenick (Femmes de Feu Creations) and creative consultant Sara Porter. It is a three stage creation project:

For the first stage (March 2019) a new arrangement was created of Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child (originally composed for soprano and chamber orchestra) by composer/arranger Scott Good for singer (soprano Stacie Dunlop), pre-recorded instrumentals, and reimagines it in a dramatic setting by animating the role of the child sung by soprano Stacie Dunlop, while his dream world is brought to life through the choreography of aerialists Angola Murdoch and Holly Treddenick.

A stunning example of modernist composition, Lonely Child is an account of both affirmation and tragedy. A grant was received from the Canada Council of the Arts to support the initial exploration/creation stage of this project, with the first workshop stage being completed in March 2019. A second grant was received from the Canada Council of the Arts and to support the next stage of the projects development that will include the addition of 8 instrumentalists (string quartet, double bass, percussion and 2 accordion) and concentrate on refinement of the choreography and integration of the instrumentalists to the piece. The work for this stage began in February 2020 and was scheduled to culminate in a private showing in April 2020, but was postponed temporarily due to COVID-19 and is resuming in a newly visioned way, as a recording produced in isolation along with two intensive isolation residencies took place in Toronto and at The Bank Art House Welland in September and October, 2020. The isolation recording was produced at Big Smoke Audio in Toronto, produced by recording engineer Dennis Patterson.

In March 2022, a film of this second stage of the work was captured, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Now incentive. Once completed this version will be available to be produced with either recorded or live instrumentals. With this vision in mind, in it’s current iteration, the Lonely Child Project provides a wealth of potential as on its own as a digital or live presentation, it can function as a powerful performance piece suitable for festival presentation, as the reduced orchestration will allow for many more wide-ranging performance opportunities. Due to its nature of being both an icon of modern classical composition, and a powerful expression of aerial dance, this work will be a good fit for both music and circus presenters.

The third stage for this project is currently in development, with the support of a third Research and Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Once this stage of development is complete, it will see the individual work of Lonely Child at the core of a 70-minute production.

Total running time: 16 minutes