Three ways to get the most out of music fest
It’s not as if Vancouver is starved for choices where new music is concerned. Our major ensembles and presenters have demonstrated a healthy mix of new music and old favourites is welcomed by audiences.
But hosting the International Society for Contemporary Music’s World New Music Days offers our city an opportunity to become — even if just for a week — a world nexus for composers and the exchange of new ideas.
Promoting new music was at the heart of the founding of ISCM many decades ago. Host countries work toward a week of showcase concerts, workshops, discussion panels and informal, but hugely important, schmoozing.
That the Canadian League of Composers, an organization dating to the 1950s, and Vancouver’s Music on Main could, and would, join to present World New Music Days is already something rather extraordinary.
When Canada hosted the event a generation ago, our relatively thin new music infrastructure made it prudent to share the event between Toronto and Montreal. That it can be done in a single locale in 2017 gives a dramatic demonstration of the growth of interest in new work, and the expertise in performing it.
Music Days administrative director Morna Edmundson said almost two dozen B.C. groups and individuals are involved in performing music from almost every corner of the globe. Music on Main’s David Pay made sure that while the event is local, the scope is national: groups from all over Canada will be part of the festivities.
This also creates something of a unique problem: What to choose in such a concentrated tsunami of music? What are the best survival strategies for bewildered wouldbe listeners in the face of so many concerts? Let me offer three.
For followers of Vancouver composers, the choice is perhaps easiest, as a very strong representation have work on display. John Korsrud premieres Riot, a work for 10 musicians, electronics, and three filmmakers about the Vancouver riot of 2011 (Nov. 3, 10:15 p.m. at the Roundhouse). Also catch Skywriting by Juno winner Jordan Nobles, part of 21st Century Guitars (Nov. 7, 1 p.m. in the atrium of the Vancouver Public Library).
A second strategy is to go with ensembles and particular repertoires.
Fans of choral music will want to hear the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Elektra Women’s Choir, and musica intima (Nov. 4, 3 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. in Christ Church Cathedral). Chamber music also features on the programs of the Bozzini Quartet (Nov. 3, 5:30 p.m. at the Roundhouse) and Victoria’s Emily Carr String Quartet (Nov. 4, 5 p.m., also at the Roundhouse).
Although large-scale orchestral music is expensive in this context, there are two full concerts to sample. The festival kicks off with the visiting National Arts Centre Orchestra’s Life Reflected (Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m., The Centre): Four newly commissioned works by four of Canada’s top composers, celebrating the lives of Canadian women. Included is Vancouver-based composer Jocelyn Morlock’s moving My Name is Amanda Todd. Vancouver Symphony Orchestra delivers a program that includes a new concerto for sitar and orchestra co-created by Mohamed Assani and John Oliver (Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m. at the Orpheum).
A third strategy is to explore works that would never make it here under normal circumstances. Consider the opportunity to hear Finnish superstar Kaija Saariaho’s Sept Papillons, part of a music for solo instruments show (Nov. 6, 5 p.m. in the Orpheum Annex). Or Serbia’s Isidora Žebeljan, whose Needle Soup: A Surrealistic Fairy Tale for Octet features on a joint program by the Ensemble contemporain de Montreal and the Turning Point Ensemble (Nov. 6, 7:30 p.m. at the Roundhouse). Or the festival’s closing concert, A Kind of Magic and The Art of Touching the Keyboard, by the first female Master of the Queen’s Music, Judith Weir, (Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m. at the Vancouver Playhouse).
This musical smorgasbord is lavish and diverse. Plan on going back for multiple helpings.