Naden Band premières composer’s work
What: Naden Band Where: Royal Theatre When: Friday, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $18 available at 250-386 6121 or rmts.bc.ca
He has been a rock and roller. He’s arranged songs for Michael Bublé, Aerosmith and Bryan Adams. And he’s composed for ReBoot, the internationally popular TV series.
Yet Vancouver’s Robert Buckley says having his music recorded and performed by Victoria’s Naden Band is where his heart truly lies.
“My first love has always been contemporary orchestral music. That’s really what I started off to do and I got seduced by other things along the way,” said Buckley, best known as a composer, arranger and producer for film and TV.
On Friday, the Naden Band offers the world première performance of Buckley’s Undercurrents. The seven-minute composi- tion is the centrepiece of the Royal Canadian Navy ensemble’s concert marking its 75th anniversary.
Buckley said he composed Undercurrents specifically with Victoria and the Naden Band in mind.
“It’s about nature and birds and ocean and fish and whales. You can hear the fish swimming, you can hear the whales jumping out of the water. You can hear the seagulls swooping around. It’s very much a portrait of Victoria.”
Undercurrents plays to the strengths of the Naden Band. Buckley said because the ensemble contains so many virtuoso players, the composition is replete with showcases for soloists, duos and trios.
The Naden Band is preparing to release a full album of Buckley’s music, also titled Undercurrents. The composer is mixing the tracks recorded at the Royal Theatre several weeks ago. Buckley said the disc will be distributed to the public at no charge this fall (“it’ll be a gift”).
He first encountered the Naden Band a year ago at Ladner BandFest, a community band festival. Buckley was so impressed with the Victoria band, he approached its music director, Lt. Matthew Clark, to express his appreciation. To the composer’s surprise, Clark said the Naden Band already had Buckley’s music in its repertoire.
The conversation led to Buckley being hired to arrange Christmas music for the Naden Band. And that, in turn, led to the Undercurrents project.
Collaborating with the Naden Band isn’t Buckley’s sole Victoria connection. He also composed the opening and closing music for the 1994 Commonwealth Games staged in this city. (His wife is dancer and choreographer Marlise McCormick, who has worked with Cirque du Soleil and choreographed several Kaleidoscope Theatre productions.)
Buckley has scored TV shows and films for Disney, Alliance, ABC, FOX, CBS, PBS, CBC and the Cartoon Network. One of his greatest successes was composing for the animated series ReBoot.
His resumé includes creating string arrangements for hardrocking acts such as Bryan Adams and Our Lady Peace.
“One was for Aerosmith. I can’t remember the name of that album, but I do know it had a dump truck on the cover,” Buckley said.
“Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of the heavy-metal bands would put a ballad on their album, because that’s the only way they could get radio play.”
For the first two decades of his career, Buckley juggled work as a rock keyboardist with composing music for TV (including the shortlived CBC game show Talk About). As a member of the rock bands Straight Lines (CBS Records) and Body Electric (A&M Records), he released five albums containing several Top 10 singles.
It has been an eclectic and impressive career. And Buckley said his recent collaborations with the Naden Band are among the highlights. “It’s really quite unprecedented, I think, in Canadian military history to record a whole CD of one composer’s music. It’s a real honour.”