Nicholas Fairbank

SEA CANTATA

for children’s choir (SA), adult choir (SATB) and orchestra

Concert I
When: Saturday, 9 April, 2011 @ 7pm
Where: St. Aidan’s United Church, 3703 St. Aidan’s Street, Victoria BC

Concert II
When: Sunday, 17 April, 2011 @ 2:30pm
Where: St. Elizabeth’s Church, 10030 Third Ave., Sidney BC

The Sea Cantata was written over the space of a couple of years, with the final notes being added in late 2010. The texts are taken from a variety of sources, but they all have to do with ships, the ocean, and people who live by them. My intention was to write something that was challenging for the singers, but enjoyable to sing as well as to listen to. There are seven movements, and the work lasts about half an hour.

The movements are as follows:

I. O Sea! (full) text: Carl Sandburg, Nicholas Fairbank 6’00″

II. The Silver Penny (SATB) text: Walter de la Mare 3’00″

III. The Waves (full) text: Robert Service 4’00″

IV. Interlude (orchestra) 3’00″

V. The Sea Spirit (SA) text: Lucy Maud Montgomery 3’30″

VI. Who hath desired the sea? (TB) text: Rudyard Kipling 2’00″

VII. Whewn first I went to sea (full) text: Wilfred Gibson, Geoffrey Scott 3’30″

orchestral scoring: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, piano, percussion, strings

For ticket information go to www.viachoralis.ca or www.vivachoirs.ca.

The Composer

Nicholas Fairbank lives and works in Victoria, BC, Canada. His music has been described as”carefully crafted”, “consistently elegant, and devoted to beauty as a vehicle for text…” – “a composer worth studying”. One of British Columbia’s emerging composers, his works have been performed across the country and in Europe by such groups as the Turning Point Ensemble, Hexaphone, organists Patrick Wedd, Martin Stacey and Valerie Hall, sopranos Catherine Fern Lewis and Elizabeth MacIsaac, pianist Richard Raymond and the Quatuor Molinari.

Vox Nü – a concert of new music for the voice by Vancouver composers

When: Saturday, April 9 @ 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Where: Ryerson United Church ( 2195 45 Ave W, Vancouver, BC)
Cost: Admission by donation

On Saturday, April 9 at 2pm at Ryerson United Church, eleven composers and thirty-two performers will come together to present Vox Nū, a concert of new vocal music. Presented by composer and soprano, Kathleen Allan, the concert will feature a programme of new vocal music written entirely by Vancouver composers, as well as a set of Allan’s own compositions, ranging from music for solo soprano with electronics to performances with full choir. Other composers featured on the programme include Scott Good (current VSO composer-in-residence), Benton Roark (of local band Rollaway), Alan Matheson (jazz trumpet master), Larry Nickel,  Farshid Samandari, William George, Iman Habibi, Nicholas Kelly, Steven Luksan, and Ryan Noakes.

Half of the works programmed on Vox Nū will be receive their world premiere performance at the concert.  Performers include some of Vancouver’s most respected interpreters of new music including pianist Christopher Bagan, flutist Mark McGregor, cellist Bo Peng, percussionist Brian Nesselroad, and members of the Vancouver Chamber Choir, of which Allan is a member.

Kathleen Allan, originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, is an active vocalist and composer now based in Vancouver, BC. She is a member of the Vancouver Chamber Choir, soprano soloist at Ryerson United Church, and performs regularly in premieres of new vocal works by Canadian composers. In 2007, she created the lead role of Ann in the premiere North American tour of Stephen Hatfield’s chamber opera, Ann and Séamus. Equally accomplished as a composer, Kathleen Allan’s works have been commissioned and presented across Canada, the US, and the UK by ensembles including the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Lady Cove Women’s Choir, Newman Sound Men’s Choir, Elektra Women’s Choir, Zing Children’s Choir, Atlantic Voices of Ottawa, and
Shallaway. Her choral works can be found in the catalogues of Alliance Music Publications, Inc., (Houston, TX), and Cypress Choral Music Publishing, (Vancouver, BC).

For a full programme and list of performers, please visit www.kathleenallan.com.

Programme:

A Key Out of Times – Benton Roark
soprano and microtonal chamber ensemble

flutter – Farshid Samandari
soprano, flute, cello, piano and electronics

Dueil Engoisseux – Scott Good
soprano and string quartet

stars within – Kathleen Allan
SATB choir

In Paradisum – Kathleen Allan
SATB choir

Distancia – Kathleen Allan
SATB choir

The Green and Salty Days – Kathleen Allan
men’s choir

Smelly Fred – Ryan Noakes
soprano, string quartet, marimba

Silvern Voices – Kathleen Allan
flute sonata

Singer in the Shadows – William George
soprano, flute, piano

A Garden in Vancouver – William George
soprano and violin

Psalm 133 – Larry Nickel
soprano, violin and piano

He is Gone – Kathleen Allan
soprano duet

A Birthday – Alan Matheson
soprano and piano

Sombre Songs – Steven Luksan
soprano and piano

The Bloom of Youth & Still, from Silent Awakening – Iman Habibi
soprano and piano

the rain falls sideways – Kathleen Allan
soprano and electronics

April Rain Song -Nicholas Kelly
soprano and piano

THE CHOIR
Jen Lewin, Hillary Young, Christine Robinson, Christina Cichos, Natasha Neufeld, Madeleine Lucy Smith, Marla Mayson, Brittany Bird, Jenny McLaren, Alicia Hansen, Blake Abbie, Haitham Haidar, Gordon Crozier, Mark Da Silva, Paul Westwick, Jake Gramit, Jono Lee, Ryan Noakes, Larry Nickel, Benton Roark

FLUTE Mark McGregor
PIANO Christopher Bagan
VIOLINS Molly MacKinnon, Llowyn Ball
VIOLA John Kastelic
CELLO Bo Peng
BASS Adam Jones
GUITAR Adam Tryczynski
PERCUSSION Brian Nesselroad
MICROTONAL KEYBOARD Jen Lewin

KOKORO DANCE & THE VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Essence, Music of Amber, I Sing – The Body

When: March 18-19, 2011 @ 8 pm
Where: Roundhouse Performance Centre, (181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver, BC)

Pierre Simard

Kokoro Dance

Conductor / Performers
Pierre Simard conductor
Kokoro Dance Dancers

The VSO and dance company Kokoro team up again for the Vancouver International Dance Festival. This concert will feature the premiere of a collaborative work between Kokoro and Waterhole, a new Vancouver band (with C.I.R. Scott Good) that defies traditional labelling. Working closely together, they will present a large scale new work inspired from Walt Whitman’s trenchant poem ‘I sing the body electric’ which explores the question: what is the soul, if not the body?

Repertoire
Michael Hynes Essence
Joseph Schwantner Music of Amber
Waterhole I Sing – The Body

Notes
Michael Hynes
b. Luxembourg / August 22, 1960

Essence
Essence was written specifically for the 1991 New Music Concerts national composition contest (for which it was selected as the winning entry).
Mr. Hynes says about Essence:

“This piece was written as an overreaction to a lecture I had just heard, the names of the parties involved herein redacted. As Harold Bloom has said ‘all art is a reaction to lack of or, conversely, an overabundance of something’ – I felt the need to divest myself of the… emotional stimuli.

The competition concerned Herr Mozart (part of the CBC’s Mozart celebration). I used as raw material a 100 millisecond sample of the Jupiter Symphony. I applied various electro-acoustic manipulations to said sample to arrive at a piece of about ten minutes in duration. The result I then orchestrated to fit the specifications of M. Aitken’s band. As I had really bad gear, noise and digital hiccups etc. were included in the orchestration.”

Joseph Schwantner
b. Chicago, Illinois / March 22, 1943

Music of Amber

Music of Amber is indicative of Schwantner’s colouristic and evocative music. He provides a short lyric as guidance into the mood and meaning behind the piece.

Sanctuary…
Deep forests
a play of Shadows
most ancient murmurings
from a dark millennium
the trembling fragrance
of the music of amber
– Joseph Schwantner

Waterhole
I Sing – The Body

I Sing – The Body is a reflection upon Walt Whitman’s poetic masterpiece I Sing The Body Electric. It is a celebration of the beauty of the human body, that dwells on its physicality and forms, its sexuality, and its divinity.

Program Notes © 2011 Scott Good

Original link: http://www.vancouversymphony.ca/co_concert.php?concertcode=10ROH02

DMA Lecture Recital – Erik Abbink, Saxophonist

When: Friday, March 4, 2011 @ 8pm
Where: Roy Barnett Recital Hall, UBC School of Music (6361 Memorial Road, Vancouver BC)
Cost: Free

Saxophonist Erik Abbink will present the final step toward fulfilling his Doctor of Musical Arts degree program at University of British Columbia. The lecture recital is based on the research from his thesis: Saxophone education and performance in British Columbia: Early history and current practises. Together with Nola Strand (piano) and Kris Covlin (soprano saxophone), Erik will perform works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Herbert L. Clarke, Anita Sleeman and Violet Archer.

Redshift presents

Undercurrents

The Music of Jordan Nobles, CD Release Concert

When: Saturday April 2, 2011 at 4PM & 7PM
Where: The Bloedel Conservatory, Queen Elizabeth Park (Off 33rd Avenue between Cambie Street and Main Street, Vancouver BC)
Cost: Regular Conservatory entrance fees apply – $5.60 General, $3.90 Senior/Youth, $2.80 Children, Under 3 Free (INCLUDES HST).

Don’t miss this unique concert experience that places live musicians amongst the exotic flora and fauna of The Bloedel Conservatory, creating a beautifully ambient and immersive world of sound under the triodetic dome. Concertgoers have a choice between a 4PM and 7PM performance, and are invited to move around the gardens to experience different perspectives of the drifting melodies and shifting musical colours. This event is a CD release concert that features music from the newest title in the Redshift Records catalogue, Undercurrents—an album recorded by the Toronto-based new music ensemble Contact Contemporary Music, dedicated exclusively to the music of Jordan Nobles. The first 100 audience members to arrive receive a free copy of the new CD.

The April 2nd concert will be performed by Redshift’s house band Negative Zed (Z<0 being the mathematical symbol for Redshift), a mixed chamber ensemble with an eclectic and morphing membership made up of Vancouver’s most respected interpreters of new music. This incarnation of Negative Zed will be a sextet of musicians with special guest Jerry Pergolesi, percussionist and artistic director of Toronto’s Contact Contemporary Music.

Undercurrents embraces the concept of “open score” and “open form” meaning there is no fixed instrumentation and musicians are often granted the freedom to choose whichever phrases, dynamics and registers that happen to inspire them at a particular moment. This unique demand for creative responsibility on the part of the performer ensures that most of these works are never performed the same way twice.

The April 2nd concert will be performed by Redshift’s house band Negative Zed (Z<0 being the mathematical symbol for Redshift), a mixed chamber ensemble with an eclectic and morphing membership made up of Vancouver’s most respected interpreters of new music. This incarnation of Negative Zed will be a sextet of musicians with special guest Jerry Pergolesi, percussionist and artistic director of Toronto’s Contact Contemporary Music.

Fast becoming one of the most performed composers in Canada, Jordan Nobles has built a reputation for mesmerizing, ethereal works that literally immerse the listener in the music. Undercurrents is the latest of many Redshift events that infiltrate unlikely public spaces and transform them into cathedrals of sound.

“It’s always seemed a little strange to me, this idea of sitting in a concert hall, facing a stage and having the music churn out at you from a single direction. I’d much rather be surrounded by music, and have it swirl and change around me.” – Jordan Nobles