For Arcana, Robyn Driedger-Klassen learned an almost-lost Egyptian language.

Impeccable breath control, a strong sense of pitch, and a flair for the dramatic are among the attributes of any great singer. But to be a great classical singer, it’s also necessary to have a working knowledge of the major European languages, including Italian, French, German, and, increasingly, English. Such linguistic ability isn’t generally an issue for Robyn Driedger-Klassen, who’s perfectly comfortable jumping from Johannes Brahms’s lieder to Giacomo Puccini’s arias to more contemporary art songs. But when she guests with the Turning Point Ensemble in a rare performance of R. Murray Schafer’s Arcana, she’s going to be faced with what could well be a once-in-a-lifetime challenge: performing in the almost-forgotten language of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

As usual, though, there’s a method to Schafer’s madness. Arcana was composed for a 1973 singers’ competition, and with that in mind, the near-legendary innovator decided to level the playing field in typically unorthodox fashion.

“He didn’t want any one person to have an advantage in language over anyone else,” Driedger-Klassen explains, reached at her Vancouver home. “That’s why he wrote it in a language that nobody knew.”

It’s not as if the singer has been immersing herself in Egyptology, however. For her performances with Turning Point—at Ryerson United Church on Friday and Sunday (October 2 and 4)—she’s learning Schafer’s text phonetically. Still, it hasn’t been easy.

“This is unlike anything I’ve ever done before,” she allows. “The score is very daunting to look at: it’s hand-written, it’s enormous—it barely fits on the piano—and it’s in hieroglyphs. But the more I work on it the more it makes sense to me, both musically and dramatically. I think it’s going to be a very exciting piece.”

Arcana will be presented as part of Of Time and Place, an all-Canadian program that Turning Point coartistic directors Owen Underhill and Jeremy Berkman have assembled in honour of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Canadian Music Centre. Also on the bill will be Alap & Gat by long-time Montreal resident José Evangelista, a strong supporter of the music-resource centre’s efforts.

“I have the feeling that the centre has allowed Canadian composers to grow up, to become known outside Canada, to be operational in a professional way, in a serious way,” Evangelista says, on the line from his second home on the Spanish island of Minorca. “So it’s been quite vital, I would say, for the development of Canadian music.”

Just as important in his own musical development, however, are the various nonwestern musical idioms that the 66-year-old former physicist began studying in the 1960s.

“Here, I am more of a classical composer trying to grasp an idea from the Indian melodic tradition,” he explains of Alap & Gat, adding that it embraces the familiar South Asian pattern of a slow, expressive introductory section followed by a fast-paced set of variations on the original theme. “For me, it was a challenge to avoid a too-straightforward treatment of the raga idea. So I tried to compose music with a melody that was not at all something that you could associate with Indian music, but that would become, theoretically, the raga—my own private raga, on which I would work.”

Although Driedger-Klassen sings only on the Schafer piece, she’s genuinely enthused about the other works on the bill, and she has her own take on why the CMC is worth celebrating.

It seems that she’s already attended one birthday party for the organization, during which she was regaled with stories about neophyte listeners falling in love with contemporary Canadian art song. “So at first I thought that this concert would not be for the faint of heart, but I don’t think that anymore,” she says. “Actually, I don’t think anyone needs to be afraid of it [contemporary music]: it’s fascinating, and it’s not difficult to get into.”