Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things to know about Elektra’s The Lost Words: A Spell Book

The multidisciplinary work centres on words related to nature that the 2007 Oxford Junior Dictionary left out in favour of tech terms

By Gail Johnson

Elektra.

Elektra presents The Lost Words: A Spell Book on March 8 and 9 at Pacific Spirit United Church

ELEKTRA’S THE LOST WORDS: A Spell Book is making a Vancouver comeback. Having premiered in 2022, the ambitious multidisciplinary project has become one of the local adult treble-voice choir’s most beloved pieces. Here are five things to know before you go.

#1

It’s based on a book of the same name by British writer Robert Macfarlane and illustrator Jackie Morris

Macfarlane and Morris created their best-selling title in response to the 2007 edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. Among more than 10,000 entries, some 40 common words had been removed, all related to nature—acorn, dandelion, bramble, heron, bluebell, and willow among them. Apparently, they were no longer being used enough by children to merit a place in the dictionary. They were replaced with tech terms such as blog, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voicemail.

Thousands of people signed a petition for Oxford University Press to reinstate the words referring to the natural world. Macfarlane and Morris then teamed up to create a “spell book”. The Lost Words features those aforementioned terms, which are celebrated through text and watercolour in hopes of bringing them back into children’s minds and lives.

#2

The project features works by 10 Canadian composers

Elektra’s interpretation of The Lost Words focuses on 20 of the 40 words, with 10 Canadian composers—five women and five men—commissioned to write two short pieces each. The artists are B.C.’s Ramona Luengen, Don Macdonald, Katerina Gimon, Rodney Sharman, Stephen Smith, and Nicholas Ryan Kelly; Carmen Braden, who’s from Yellowknife; Toronto’s Alex Eddington; Montreal’s Marie-Claire Saindon; and Brownsville, Texas–based Monica Pearce (who was born in P.E.I.).

#3

Morris’s paintings are projected

Making for a fully immersive experience, Morris’s watercolours will be projected on a large screen for audiences to gaze at during the show.

#4

The performance features readings from the book by local actor Laara Sadiq

Elektra artistic director Morna Edmundson (who was recently named a member of the Order of Canada) has enlisted Sadiq to read the spells before each composition is performed, so that audiences can fully take in the production without being distracted by having to read program notes throughout.

#5

There are six instrumentalists joining in

Accompanying the 50-member choir is a solid group of musicians, including Katherine Watson on flute and piccolo, AK Coope on clarinet and bass clarinet, Ray Wu on French horn, Domagoj Ivanovic on violin, Jonathan Lo on cello, and Katie Rife on percussion. 

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