Janzen returns with Lent album

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This article was published 17/03/2019 (1865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For his latest album, pianist and composer Mike Janzen decided to explore a different sort of rhythm: the cadence of the liturgical church year.

The Juno Award-nominated performer, who grew up in Steinbach and studied music at Providence University College, released Lent on March 6.

The 12-song solo album, recorded at his home studio in Toronto, collects and expands eight demo recordings he released one at a time last year.

“I’ve really gained an appreciation for the flow of the different parts of the year. I maybe appreciate them more than I ever have,” he said Monday from Toronto.

Lent sees Janzen, a musical omnivore fluent in pop, classical and jazz, arrange everything from traditional hymns to African-American spirituals. “Vigil,” an original composition, is also included.

The songs, some of which Janzen first encountered at church, are intended to give listeners space in which to reflect, meditate, or pray. Janzen said he hopes the music will also encourage Lent practitioners as they make a conscious 40-day effort to evaluate their daily habits.

“Lent is this season where we choose to empty ourselves of appetites, desires, things that we usually go to to fill our days, and then put something else in (place of) them.”

The album marks the first professional recordings he’s released since he suffered a debilitating concussion after fainting at home in April 2016.

The subdued new material, he said, “mimicked my life, which has also been this Lenten season where I can’t do a lot of my usual things that I like to do.”

Janzen was forced to rein in his artistic drive and let neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to reorganize itself in the wake of trauma—decide the pace of his recovery.

“With my injury, I’d work on (songs) for 10 minutes, and then suddenly I’d get really dizzy so I’d have to stop,” he recalled.

Gradually, he learned to embrace limitation as an opportunity to explore more spacious arrangements and slower tempos.

“I was waiting for a long time to get healthy to record these pieces, because I thought then I could really nail them. But I wasn’t getting healthy fast enough. At some point, I just realized, maybe another way forward was to play these pieces and let my injury sort of come out in the music.”

As he worked, he drew courage from Keith Jarrett’s The Melody at Night, with You, a 1999 album the American jazz pianist recorded at home while he battled chronic fatigue syndrome.

Soon, Janzen was sitting at his grand piano for two hours per day. Today, he is able to work about 30 hours per week. The recovery process “showed me that music could heal my brain. It was pretty exciting.”

He still grapples with limitations, such as driving for no more than 20 minutes at a time, but is writing more, and last December delivered three Christmas performances.

“I’m very thankful. Things are definitely improving,” he said.

A Winnipeg performance is also on the horizon. On Oct. 25, Janzen will join Steve Bell and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for the “Beauty of the Infinite” concert. Tickets go on sale in September.

Digital and CD copies of Lent are available online at mike-janzen.squarespace.com.