Most of us, certainly those of us in North America, experience war from a safe distance, through what we see on television and read in the media, while the reality of war happens far away. Poet Suzanne Steele, however, gained a unique firsthand perspective on war. As Canada’s first War Poet, Steele joined the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in 2009 during the war in Afghanistan, documenting her experiences in her poetry and at warpoet.ca. She saw the fear, the belief, and the sacrifice. She met people who did not come home alive. She met people who did come home, but broken, to a life shattered by post-traumatic stress disorder. She met their families, mourning, powerless. Her writings and experiences–stories we do not see on television or read in the media–provide the foundation for this hour-long concert work with music by Canadian composer Jeffrey Ryan.

When we recorded this album, in March 2022, no-one could have imagined that it would be Bramwell Tovey’s last recording. Chandos Records would like to dedicate this recording to the memory of Bramwell Tovey, with whom the company had collaborated for over a decade; a versatile musician highly accomplished as both a composer and a conductor, immensely personable and humorous, who possessed an innate understanding of the qualities of his fellow orchestral musicians and quickly earned their respect and devotion. He shall be very sorely missed.