Cellist leads the way in Boom’s sonic explosion
> BY ALEXANDER VARTY
Vancouver Pro Musica’s annual Sonic Boom Festival is unlikely to feature Scandinavian death metal, Bulgarian women’s choirs, or South African gumboot rhythms—although, a week before the event begins, it’s impossible to rule them out. Designed to promote B.C.’S flourishing contemporary-music scene, Sonic Boom takes a remarkably inclusive approach to what that might entail, as the festival’s composer in residence Dorothy Chang explains.
“When it began, there was no adjudication; they really wanted to accept everything,” the UBC prof recalls in a telephone interview from her home. “I think when I interviewed for the UBC job, I was brought to a Sonic Boom concert, and I remember that one had a piece for nose flute and maracas! But even though they have to adjudicate now because of the number of submissions, it’s highly valuable for its inclusiveness, which encompasses emerging composers all the way through to established composers.
“In fact, on this year’s program there are two former composers in residence of the VSO, but also many students,” Chang continues. “So you’ll get to hear a showcase of everything that’s being written now, across stages of career development, across genres and styles. There are people working on world music, in electronic media, or delving into serialism… Really, anything and everything is embraced.”
For a good example of Sonic Boom’s eclectic approach, check out the program that cellist Marina Hasselberg will present on the festival’s third night. Not only are almost all of its 11 works world premieres, but they come from sources as musically diverse as veteran composer John Oliver, Vancouver Island Symphony conductor Pierre Simard, and avantfolk musician Martin Reisle, late of cult band Maria in the Shower.
“He wrote this piece that looks really scary, because it’s full of 32nd notes, and it has two lines, even though it’s for cello, which usually only has one line,” Hasselberg says of Reisle’s At a Distance. “I have to play pizzicato with the left hand continuously, while playing with the bow and using the left hand also to change the notes that I’m playing with the bow. And it’s super long! My only reason to be calm about it is that he’s a cellist, so I know it’s playable—except that I saw him at a party, and I said, ‘So, don’t you feel tired when you get to the end of the piece?’ And he said that he actually couldn’t play it. So I hope that it will be fine!”
Hasselberg also praises Sonic Boom’s openness, calling the festival, now in its 30th year, “a fantastic opportunity for both composers and performers to collaborate and get to know each other and experiment.…i think it enriches the new-music community a lot, and that’s beautiful.”
Just how does it enrich the scene? Well, in Hasselberg’s case, this year it’s given her a whole new repertoire, with a particular focus on her emerging passion for adding electronics to her cello. “I have these 11 pieces that I’ll be able to play forever—and they’re tailored to me, because I told them what I wanted and what I can do,” she happily says. “So, for me, it’s like Christmas.”