Arctic Dreams I is a palimpsest; a work composed on top of a pre-existing work. The original source was Voices of the Land, the third movement of Footprints In New Snow, a radio documentary/composition about the Inuit and their culture, created by Christos Hatzis and Keith Horner in 1995 with the support from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Ontario Arts Council.
The work became the first in a set for different combinations of instruments with digital audio from the original radiophonic work. Subsequent works in the same series include (Light) Arctic Dreams II for children's choir, flute, vibraphone and digital audio, (Light) Arctic Dreams III for chamber choir, flute, vibraphone and digital audio, and Arctic Dreams IV, for trumpet or flugelhorn, obligato child's voice and digital audio.
Voices of the Land employs the same audio material as Arctic Dreams I with the addition of the haunting voice of Winston White, an Inuit Elder and broadcaster from Nunavut, in the foreground speaking about the north and its inhabitants.
It was my intention all along that this audio material would become part of a completely different composition. The opportunity did not present itself until seven years later when my wife, percussionist Beverley Johnston, and flutist Susan Hoeppner asked me for a work they could perform as a duo. They were engaged to perform at a Collaborations multi-arts series in Toronto. When Valerie Kuinka, the Artistic Director of Collaborations, visited us with her seven-year-old daughter Lauren Margison, at our home in mid April 2002, to listen to possible works for that program, I played the remixed tape from Voices of the Land. Val decided that she wanted to make this the centrepiece of her concert, which was to take place a couple of weeks later. Arctic Dreams I came into being in three days as a result of this meeting, and included an obligato singing part for Lauren Margison and Beverly Johnston. It was premiered on 26 April 2002 at the Collaborations concert at Isabel Baden Theatre in Toronto.
