Shirantha Beddage brings a new quintet and a one-day recording experiment to Departures
Shirantha Beddage with musicians and recording engineer during the session for Departures. From left: engineer Andrew Mullin, Beddage, drummer Jim Doxas, pianist Florian Hoefner, bassist Jodi Proznick and trumpeter Kevin Turcotte.
Photo credit: Dinitha Vithanage
Toronto-based baritone saxophonist and composer Shirantha Beddage will release his fourth album as a bandleader, Departures, on October 16 through Rhea Records, following a Toronto CD-release concert at Jazz Bistro on October 15. The recording brings together five jazz musicians for a project Beddage approached with an unusual constraint: assembling a new group, rehearsing as little as possible and recording the music live in a single day.
Beddage, who is also an assistant professor of saxophone and jazz at the University of Toronto, selected musicians who had no previous experience performing his compositions and gave them limited rehearsal time before entering the studio.
“This process forced me to feel the sense of urgency that I always enjoy in a live setting,” Beddage wrote in an August essay introducing the album.
The recording features Beddage on baritone saxophone, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet and flugelhorn, Florian Hoefner on piano, Jodi Proznick on bass and Jim Doxas on drums. Beddage says the musicians recorded the material live off the floor with minimal editing, leaving the spontaneous decisions of the session central to the finished work.
The album's title draws on several changes in Beddage's life, including the death of his mother, a new job and family travel. He discusses those experiences in his accompanying notes, which trace the origins of individual compositions through Canada, Sri Lanka and places he has visited abroad.
Two pieces, “Musaladi Vannama” and “Ukusa Vannama,” are arrangements drawn from Sri Lankan traditional music. Beddage writes that he encountered “Ukusa Vannama” during a 2022 residency at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. During that visit, he also reconnected with his great-great-uncle Rohana Baddage, whom he identifies as a singer, actor and teacher of traditional music.
Other compositions grew out of specific events. “Circling,” originally written for big band, was composed for a 2025 symposium celebrating the music of Kenny Wheeler in Saskatoon, where trumpeter Ingrid Jensen premiered it. Beddage subsequently rearranged the piece for the Departures quintet, giving Hoefner an unaccompanied piano passage.
The title track came from a particularly stressful family journey through Singapore's airport. Beddage describes trying to translate the experience of rushing toward a boarding gate, luggage in hand, into music. “The Pickled Herring Blues,” meanwhile, dates to a 2022 composer residency in Visby, Sweden, and includes a featured solo by Proznick.
“Hey, Jimmy!” has a less lighthearted origin. Beddage says he wrote the piece following an encounter with an intoxicated festival attendee in Ireland who singled him out because of his skin colour. He connects the resulting composition to his frustration over the incident and says its musical character reminded him of jazz clarinetist and saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre.
The album also includes Beddage's interpretation of Vernon Duke's “Autumn in New York,” informed by his experiences living in New Jersey in the early 2000s and visiting New York City. His notes describe an enduring mixture of admiration for the city's music and discomfort with its intensity.
Departures follows a recording career that has earned Beddage two JUNO Award nominations, for Identity and Momentum. In addition to his recording and performance work, he teaches jazz saxophone at the University of Toronto.
The October 15 concert at Toronto's Jazz Bistro will feature a slightly different quintet from the album. Beddage and Turcotte will perform with pianist Nancy Walker, bassist Mike Downes and drummer Jim Doxas. Beddage is scheduled to play baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, with music from Departures and additional selections.
The concert runs from 8:30 to 11 p.m., with a $20 cover charge. Reservations are recommended through Jazz Bistro. Beddage will also present the album at London's Vortex Jazz Club in the United Kingdom on October 27, followed by a November 27 performance at The Jazz Room in Waterloo, Ontario.
Royal Winnipeg Ballet opens its 2026–27 mainstage season at Winnipeg’s Centennial Concert Hall on Oct. 8 with Stravinsky Stories, a double bill that brings Alexei Ratmansky’s The Fairy’s Kiss to the company alongside the world premiere of a new Firebird by choreographer Houston Thomas.