Skopje, 14 February 2025 (MIA) — As part of the "Sighs Too Deep for Words: A Canadian Valentine" event in Toronto, the contemporary classical music piece "Zazoruva" ("Dawning") featuring Aco Shopov poems set to music by Michael Spiroff premiered Thursday and will have a reprise performance Friday, organizers said. 

According to the Aco Shopov Poetry Foundation in a press release, Spiroff's piece is inspired by traditional Macedonian rhythms and features four poems by Shopov: "Nightfall," "If there isn’t enough light for you," "The Poem and the Years," and “Awakening.” 

Shopov's poetry was performed in Macedonian.

According to the composer, the piece "follows a nocturnal transformation" through the four poems to arrive at "the boundary between sleep and waking."

"The cycle begins as a lullaby, tracing a journey from twilight consciousness, through dreams, to daybreak. In the dream-space, the protagonist moves from desperate offerings of self to a dissolution of time and being. When dawn finally breaks, the world emerges both familiar and irrevocably changed," Spiroff writes.

"Drawing from Macedonia’s musical heritage, the piece weaves together irregular rhythms and ornate melodic lines characteristic of traditional music with the distinctive pulse and sonic colors of the Macedonian language itself," he notes, adding that "the interaction between solo voice and chorus creates a dreamspace where individual experience meets collective memory."

"Dawning" was selected by Canadian composer, violinist and curator Larry Beckwith to be performed as part of the Confluence Concerts held at Toronto's Heliconian Hall, designated a national historic site of Canada in 2007.

Located in downtown Toronto, the venue has previously held two Valentine's Day concerts featuring the poetry of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, set to music by Canadian composer Omar Daniel.

"The centerpiece of those concerts—as it is tonight—was the Neruda Canciones by Omar Daniel," Beckwith wrote ahead of the Feb. 13-14 event.

"Surrounding this captivating cycle are works by a wide range of Canadian composers, including world premieres from two talented, young composers: Michael Spiroff and Francesca Hauser."

Beckwith said that Spiroff had chosen "four beautiful and dreamy poems by the influential Macedonian poet Aco Shopov," which were to be performed alongside "powerful poems from the likes of Anne Michaels, bp Nicol, Margaret Atwood, Milton Acorn and others," he said.

Michael Spiroff was born in Toronto to Macedonian parents. He is a graduate of McGill University (M. Mus composition 2022) and the Mannes School of Music (B. Mus composition 2018). His works have been performed in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. mr/