A New Digital Recording from the Canadian Art Song Project is Now Available
The Canadian Art Song Project is proud to announce the digital release of The Long Walk Home, a contemporary song cycle by composer Peter Tiefenbach (music) and writer James Ostime (text), performed by baritone Nathan Keoughan with the composer at the piano.
Originally premiered in 2015, The Long Walk Home now receives its first commercial recording — a decade after its debut — ensuring its lasting presence in the Canadian art song repertoire. The album is now available on streaming platforms and Bandcamp.
About the Work
A contemporary song cycle for baritone and piano, The Long Walk Home traces a single winter night’s journey through longing, vulnerability, humour, and self-recognition CASP-Long-Walk-Home-Booklet. Structured as an interior monologue, the cycle follows a solitary protagonist navigating a cold urban landscape — a modern “walk of shame” inspired by cabaret, musical theatre, operatic recitative, and the Lieder tradition.
Across its eight connected movements the work charts an emotional arc from anticipation and optimism through disillusionment and self-doubt, arriving at quiet consolation.
Ostime and Tiefenbach revisit the solitary journey at the heart of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (Op. 89), reimagining his setting of Wilhelm Müller’s poetry within a contemporary urban context. Here, the frozen Romantic landscape is replaced with city streets, food trucks, unanswered text messages, and the uneasy intimacy of modern connection. The piano functions not only as accompaniment but as narrator and environment, evoking late-night solitude and fleeting moments of connection.
Track listing for The Long Walk Home:
Peter Tiefenbach composer, James Ostime writer / librettist
Nathan Keoughan baritone, Peter Tiefenbach piano
1. Prologue – 00:32
2. Too Good… (To Be True…) – 03:55
3. Outta There – 03:28
4. Message Received – 05:34
5. The Hunger – 02:27
6. Nearly Home – 02:40
7. The Busker – 01:57
8. Epilogue – 01:02
The recording runs approximately 21 minutes and 35 seconds.
Purchase or stream the recording
Download the digital booklet.
We are deeply grateful to John Wright and Chung-Wai Chow, whose original support made the 2015 commission possible and whose continued generosity helped bring this recording to fruition. Their belief in this work has ensured it can now reach audiences far beyond its premiere.