ensemble polaris

The genre-bending music of Canada's ENSEMBLE POLARIS has earned them enthusiastic and wide-ranging admiration, succinctly summed up by one reviewer with the comment, “I dare you not to love this music.”

Based in Toronto, POLARIS was founded in the spring of 1997 to explore the music of the north: Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Scotland, and Canada. Comprised of Canadian musicians from a unique array of musical backgrounds, the band reworks traditional tunes from Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Scotland and Canada in innovative, categorization-defying ways, blending various techniques of improvisation and arrangement. Over the past few years the band has also been creating completely original repertoire, sometimes using northern musical forms as their inspiration and point of departure. Primarily an instrumental ensemble with an unusual array of sounds and colours, their frequent guest singer Katherine Hill joined the group as a member in late 2006.

POLARIS first performed at the 1997 Northern Encounters Festival and many subsequent shows in Toronto, Montreal, Guelph and elsewhere have been heard across Canada in numerous broadcasts on CBC-Radio 2. Their first CD Midnight Sun (Dorian) won international critical acclaim including a Disc of the Month rating in Britain's Classic CD magazine. Choreographer Carol Anderson used several tracks from Midnight Sun for her creation Shore, which was performed by the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre.

In 2001 POLARIS received a grant for repertoire development from the Canada Council and much of that music can be heard on their second CD, Not Much is Worse than a Troll, released as an indie in late 2004 (available at CDBaby.com) and also enthusiastically reviewed. Tracks from their discs are regularly heard on the CBC, NPR, BBC and other European radio networks.

POLARIS just recently received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council for the development of two new programs, which will be heard in concerts slated for January and later in 2008.

"While there's nothing precious about their approach, Ensemble Polaris take a holistic view...Ancient songs with extraordinary words, laments and dances, are all reworked here for modern ears. The arrangements are absolutely spot on..." Classic CD (UK)

"...Incredible variety is all respects and a collection of sounds that is strongly rhythmic or gorgeously melodic - predominantly an early instrumental music sound, but with various influences of celtic, klezmer, middle eastern and blues!" A fan from Amazon.com

Not Much is Worse than a Troll is available from
http://cdbaby.com/cd/ensemblepolaris
or digitally from
http://payplay.fm/ensemblepolaris