Bio
Kye Marshall is a professional composer, cellist and jazz and free improvisor with six CD’s to her credit: Standard Time, a compilation of jazz standards with Don Thompson (bass and piano) and Dan Ionescu (guitar), Pencil Blues, Say When and Winter’s End, her original jazz compositions with Don Thompson (piano), In The Moment and Chiaroscuro: spontaneous compositions with Tom Baker (piano). She released her latest CD of original compositions, Pencil Blues, May 2013.
Her compositions have been performed locally at such venues as the Glenn Gould Studios, Harbourfront, the Music Gallery, North York Performing Arts Centre, the Royal Conservatory of Music, Markham Centre for the Performing Arts, AGO Multisensory Ipad tours, on TVO, on CBC Radio and in the US, Italy Austria. She has written for Orchestra, a Concerto for Bass Trombone and for many different combinations of instruments including string orchestra, string quartet, brass quintet, piano, voice and choir. Kye has also written four film scores, thirty-six jazz compositions, and for theatre, dance and CBC radio drama. The Canadian National Conservatory of Music has published five of her piano pieces.
An eclectic musician, Kye has performed jazz music with the Kye Marshall Jazz Quartet/Duo in many venues around Toronto including at Mezzetta, the Montreal Bistro, Annex Live, the Trane, the Pilot, Four Seasons Opera House, Quigley’s, Le Select, Gate 403, Oscars, Free Times Café, at the Universities of Guelph, Toronto, and Waterloo and each year at the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival; classical music with ensembles including the O’Keefe Centre Orchestra and the New Chamber Orchestra (as principal cellist), the National Ballet Orchestra (as assistant principal cellist), the Epic String Quartet; free music with Sonora, the Baker / Marshall Duo and other groups in the Victoriaville Toronto Festival, Fringe Jazz Festival, Distillery Jazz Festival, Array Studios, Artword Theatre, the Rex, the Cameron, the Idler Pub, and Uxbridge United Church.
Marshall was the winner of the Ron Collier Composition Award and the CFMTA piano composition competition in 2010 and 2012, Nominee for best Jazz CD 2014 by TIMA, and has received awards, commissions and grants from all the major funding bodies (TAC, OAC, Canada Council, CAPAC, Socan and the Canadian Music Centre).
Associate Member: The Canadian Music Centre
Member: Association of Canadian Women Composers, SOCAN
List of Works
All scores are available through the Canadian Music Centre.
For a full list of works with recordings, please visit the composer’s website.
Opera
Pomegranate: An Opera (2023)
Performance with the Canadian Opera Company
Pomegranate: A Chamber Opera (2019)
Performance at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
Large Ensemble – Orchestral
Fusions: For String Orchestra (2017)
Première by "I Solisti Veneti",Veneto, Italy
Why Not Blues (2016)
Première by Scarborogh Philharmonic. Toronto
Two Movements for String Orchestra (2016)
Première with EurOrchestra, Bari, Italy.
Bossa Antiqua: Three Movements for String Orchestra (2010)
Commissioned by the Norman Burgess Fund.
Three Movements for String Orchestra (2002)
Commissioned by Hemispheres Orchestra through the Toronto Arts Council
Variations on a Canadian Theme (1986) (Junior String Orchestra)
Commissioned by Alliance for Canadian New Music through the Ontario Arts Council.
Concerto for Bass Trombone and String Orchestra (1982)
Commissioned by John Capon
Chamber Music
Hope (2024) For Viola and cello
Lullabye Liasons (2023)
Commissioned by the SPO (February 2022)
Hoedown (2021) – String Quartet
Covid Lullabye (2021)
Commissioned by Odin String Quartet (February 2022)
Louise: (Piano Trio)
The Return: For Velma (Piano Trio)
Premiere: Heliconian Club, Oct. 2020
Parched: for Solo Scordatura Cello
Heliconian Rag (2016)
Premiere: Heliconian Club
Two Movements for String Orchestra
Premiere: EurOrchestra, March, Italy 2016
String Quartet #3: Endangered Species (2016)
Commission by the Halcyon String Quartet.
Endangered Species Harp Duo (2015)
Commissioned by Duo Novus.
Heliconian Tango (2015) String Quartet.
Riffs on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Adaption) (2014) For Cello, Clarinet and Percussion.
Commissioned by Fondazione Donne in Musica.
Premiered Italy 2014.
Hanging Figure, Shop Girl, Souvenir’s D’Enfance, Mountain Landscape, Orioles/Owl, Grief, Seated Woman, Fire in St. Jean Quarter, Trees in the Sky, Marchese Casati, Chevreuse II, Morning Cloud (2012)
Art Gallery of Ontario: Multi Sensory Ipad Tours. For Cello &/or Synthesizer.
Geometrics: Trapeziums, Tangents, Transversals (2011) For 15 percussion players.
Premiered at The Markham Theatre for the Arts.
Elegy (2008) For Cello and Piano.
Premiered 2008. Montreal Bistro
Gossip Island for String Quartet (2010)
Premiered by the Epic String Quartet.
A Room of One’s Own: for Solo Cello (2001)
A group of compositions including Medea, She Is, Sarajevo Cellist. Premiered at University of Toronto
Reflections: Four Movements for Brass Quintet (2000)
Commissioned by the Trillium Brass Quintet. Premiered at the Music Gallery
Interact: Four Movements for String Quartet (1999)
Premiered at St. Edwards School. Commissioned by The Toronto Symphony E. P.
Canonac: Three Movements for Piano, Violin and Cello. (1999)
Premiered at the Sheraton Hotel Auditorium, Toronto.
We Make the Air: Elegy for Lina Chartrand (1997) For contralto and string quartet.
Commissioned by the Company of Sirens. Premiered at Bloor St United Church, Toronto
Themantics.(1996)
A full length composition for clarinet, piano and violin trio.
Commissioned by the Bob Misky Trio.
Premiered at the North York Centre For The Performing Arts.
Little Miss Easter Seals (1992) For Solo cello.
Commissioned by CBC Radio Morningside Drama
Moon Saga (1990) For flute, cello and piano.
Commissioned by Ardeleana Trio. Premiered at St. Andrews Church, Toronto
Fantasy For Solo Cello (1989)
Commissioned by Steven Green. Premiered at the Music Gallery, Toronto
Six Movements for Marimba with Violin, Cello, Flute and Oboe (1988)
Written for Beverly Johnson. Recorded in Toronto with Factor Grant.
String Quartet #1 (1979)
Premiered at the Pauline McGibbon Centre and CBC Radio.
Vocal
Hope (2024) Text by John Keats
For Mezzo, String Quartet, Fr. Hn. and Cl.
Pomegranate Song Cycle (2014)
For Harp, Soprano and Contralto. Libretto Amanda Hale.
Upon Rising (2012)
Soprano, Clarinet, Piano. Text Maureen Hynes.
We Make the Air: Elegy for Lina Chartrand (1997)
For contralto and string quartet. Commissioned by the Co. of Sirens
Wild Nights: Poems of Emily Dickinson (1999)
Set for choir. Commisioned by the Uxbridge Chamber Choir.
Discography
CD: “Pencil Blues End” (2014) — Original Jazz Compositions) Cello-ing, Pencil Blues, River Reverie, Summer Sizzle, I Remember Johann Sebastian, For the Birds, Round The Bend , LMB Blues, Scuttlebut, Interrupted Conversations.
CD: “Chiarascuro” (2011) — Spontaneous Compositions with Thomas Baker-Piano.
CD: “Say When” — (2008) Say When, Elegy, Libra, Rush Hour , Seguin Summer, A Blues in A, Radar Reef, www.com, memories of Toronto Way Back When, Bach to Bop.
CD: “In the Moment” (2004) — Spontaneous Compositions with Thomas Baker-Piano.
CD: “Winter’s End: (2002) — Original Jazz Compositions: TLC, Winter’s End, All of Us, Evensong, Mad Mary, Alimbo, Twilight, Ides of March.