Sonic Boom shatters stereotypes
Festival to include new compositions played on classical organ
Nothing demonstrates the lively diversity of Vancouver’s new music scene more succinctly than the annual Sonic Boom Festival.
Festival sponsor Vancouver Pro Musica has run the event for more than two decades, and Sonic Boom has reinvented itself with every incarnation. Yet some basics play out each year. Central is the idea of an inclusive ( and thus eclectic) festival, incorporating a plethora of composers at every stage. There are plenty of them and this year the composer biography section of the Sonic Boom website has more than a hundred contributors.
Recent Booms have featured a composer- in- residence. This year it’s Simon Fraser’s Owen Underhill, long connected with Vancouver New Music and now co- artistic director of the Turning Point Ensemble. There’s also an ensemblein- residence, the Vancouver Brass Project, and a student composition master class with trombonist Jeremy Berkman and pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa.
Every Boom includes the new and often unexpected: this year that is a pair of concerts at St. Philip’s Anglican Church, which is a lovely space for music — big to Vancouver’s new music community will go down well with his church constituency.
“People at the church really do get behind the music. I don’t need to do a lot of explaining about creating a centre of music for the community here, or why it is important that all sorts of music be celebrated.” he said.
“On the 23rd, I want to talk a little bit about each set of pieces I’m doing, and I assume this audience will take it all in stride.”
St. Philip’s will also be the venue for Sonic Boom’s guest ensemble evening when the Vancouver Brass Project performs March 22.
Four other events, including an electro- acoustic evening March 21, and mixed ensemble programs March 24- 25, are at The Western Front, all at 7: 30 p. m. The Front is also home to the Berkmann/ Iwaasa master class, at 10 a. m. Sunday morning. enough for a good sound, yet intimate enough to encourage experimentation and risk- taking. It has a good mid- century Casavant Freres organ, updated and tweaked in 2007, and is the home turf of guest artist Michael Murray.
Wait a minute: organ and new music? That’s a conjunction not often heard in these parts.
“Sonic Boom asked if I would be interested in participating,” Murray says. “The people from Vancouver Pro Musica wanted to do something for the organ just because it is usually overlooked by new music. We were surprised 13 or 14 composers turned up for the workshop.”
Murray says his instrument should be a natural for new music with its rich palette of colours and textures, and his March 23 program promises surprises and discoveries.
Murray is confident his outreach