Art of Time Ensemble: The Soldier’s Tale For Today

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Sankofa refers to a mythical bird prevalent in West African culture, usually portrayed with its feet pointing forward and its head leaning backwards. In the Twi language of Ghana, the word itself best translates as “to go back and retrieve what was forgotten”—a symbol that certainly appeals to Black communities reclaiming heritage and knowledge of a time when they were deemed lesser humans.

Sankofa, The Soldier’s Tale Retold, the new Leaf Music release by Andrew Burashko and the Art of Time Ensemble, tells the story of a Black man who enlisted in the Canadian army during the First World War. Like many Black officers he was enlisted in the No. 2 Construction Battalion, obliged to undertake backbreaking work, all the while facing significant racism and discrimination despite their essential, non-combat roles.

The text is written by Edmonton-based, Nigerian-born poet Titilope Sonuga who revisits Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale with fresh eyes. Burashko says the original work has stuck with him for many years. “Ever since I heard it as a student it was a bit of an obsession because it is one of the greatest—if not the greatest—musical romps that I know. It’s wild, and yet one of the most intricate pieces.

Thirteen years ago, Burashko, who founded The Art of Time Ensemble in 1998, discovered that there was another version written by American writer Kurt Vonnegut, then a POW who survived the Dresden firebombing during the Second World War. This inspired his own quest to rethink the work.

“To be honest,” he says, “I never liked the original story. I always found it weak, disjointed and convoluted. There are so few classical works that speak to social or political issues. I’m not a believer that politics should be part of music, but it was a way for me to reclaim this 100-year-old piece and give it new life, new meaning. It took a while to find the right writer. The only things I asked for was that it rhymed like the original, that it featured the same three characters (the devil, the soldier, the narrator), and that it observed the original structure.”

In line with these requirements, Sonuga imagined that the soldier wouldn’t sell his violin to the devil in exchange for riches, but instead that it be offered by the devil as a way of enabling the soldier to serve in a white man’s army, against all odds.

Although the original music remains unchanged, the Stravinsky estate didn’t approve of this adaptation, therefore limiting its distribution to the only two countries in which The Soldier’s Tale is in the public domain—Canada and Japan, making it a rare treat.