Some of the unexpected things I learned about reading R. Murray Shafer’s autobiography. He kept journals all his life, he’s an interesting visual artist, he writes about his lovers and trysts that probably endangered innocent peoples’ lives when he was a guest in Hungary, Budapest and Yugoslavia in the late 50s. But the best surprise was hearing Harry Somer’s North Country Suite, which impressed the Bulgarian Composers Union most when Schafer was asked to play them music from Canada. He supplied music by himself, John Weinzweig and Harry Somers. I like the colouring, the surprise when second voices enter, the organic bouncing around and splashing this way and that, like following which way a squirrel works or blue jays fly. I like how there isn’t a tonal centre until I wonder if I hear it, only to realize it sounds perfectly alive without one. I like what Somers says about his musical life, that he wrote for three audiences. One; the community or schools, two; films or television and how they need to serve a different collaborative aesthetic, and thirdly; himself and without caring what others can or can’t hear.