“It seemed to me I was moving in a very particular way that most other people weren’t moving.”
Ryan Larkin, Ryan (2004)

LEFT TO CHANGE / RESTE À CHANGER, written with gratitude for the Quasar saxophone quartet, is a musical exploration of the brilliant, turbulent life and legacy of Canadian animator Ryan Larkin (1943 - 2007). Renowned for his films Cityscape (1966), Street Musique (1972), and the Oscar-nominated Walking (1968), Larkin’s rise as a pioneer of animation was tragically cut short by severe addiction, leading to decades of homelessness on the streets of Montreal. While stories often paint a linear portrait of a genius in decline, the reality is more a tapestry of "half-truths" (ou demi-vérités - merci à Denys Bouliane). Larkin’s artistic style directly mirrored the chaos of his personal life, as the traits that infused his animation with unprecedented freedom also led to intense personal confrontations and estrangement from his colleagues.

LEFT TO CHANGE / RESTE À CHANGER is divided into three distinct musical meditations that evoke his three major works; this composition is deeply personal, born from my own encounters with Larkin that began in 1996 and my own ongoing individual reflections on the fragile line between artistic brilliance and personal ruin.

LEFT TO CHANGE / RESTE À CHANGER and “illusions of truth” / “simulacres de vérité” While Larkin's depictions of the human form and landscape remained rooted in the realistic and modern, his films evoked a striking sense of post-modern “magical realism” - somehow familiar yet still foreign - blending traditional constructs with psychedelic, experimental elements.

A central theme in LEFT TO CHANGE / RESTE À CHANGER is the friction between rigid convention and Larkin's fluid, rule-breaking spirit. In 1968, Larkin’s masterpiece Walking famously lost the Academy Award to Walt Disney’s Winnie the Pooh, a work constructed upon the industry-standard "12 Principles of Animation:"

Squash and stretch 
Anticipation
Staging
Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose
Follow through and overlapping action
Slow in and slow out
Arc
Secondary action
Timing
Exaggeration
Solid drawing
Appeal

At various points the music sonically "illuminates" these principles, as compositional and musical tension emphasises the interplay between the highly structured "12 Principles" and Larkin’s deeply personal interpretations, which can be seen as the friction between modern and post-modern aesthetics.

Ultimately, LEFT TO CHANGE / RESTE À CHANGER serves as an homage to a unique and tragic figure in Canadian art history. By capturing both the kinetic, fluid movement of Larkin's animation and the "haze" of his later years, the piece invites the listener to question what truly remains when a life is irrevocably changed.
This work was made possible through the assistance of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.