Concert Archive – 2011

Orchestral Evolution:

VICO Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Gala Concert 

With special guests Laudate Singers

Saturday November 12, 2011 at 8:00 pm

Norman Rothstein Theatre
(950 West 41st Ave., Vancouver)
Tickets ($28/$18) via www.vi-co.org or 778-881-5499, or in person at the Rothstein and Jewish Community Centre 

One of the city’s most innovative world music ensembles celebrates a successful first decade on November 12, by doing what it does best: creating and presenting new music by Canadian composers – music that builds bridges between ancient and modern sounds and styles, performed by some of Vancouver’s finest musicians on instruments from all over the world. It’s the grand scale of its artistic vision that has always set the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra apart, so it’s fitting that its 10th anniversary concert will feature the full 24-member ensemble with North Shore-based chamber choirLaudate Singers and Iranian-born tenor soloist Amir Haghighi: 50 musicians in total, who will perform the world premieres of major new pieces by Vancouver composers Jin Zhang, Edward Hendersonand Rita Ueda as well as works by Elliot Weisgarber, Mark Armanini and Moshe Denburg.

This global outlook will certainly be reflected in the featured repertoire for Orchestral Evolution.Edward Henderson’s new work for intercultural orchestra and choir, Drowned Out – a folk tale, is dedicated to the peoples of the Narmada Valley, India, who continue to protest the ongoing construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam system. It promises to be a moving tribute to the millions of displaced indigenous peoples around the world. Also featured is Dreams of the Wanderer, a major work for intercultural orchestra, tenor soloist and choir by Moshe Denburg, which incorporates settings of texts in Hebrew, English, Chinese and Persian.

Jin Zhang will take audiences on a journey to Yunnan (a region in southwestern China of extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity) with his new piece, which grew out of a research trip in 2010, during which he studied the region’s intricate folk music and brought several plucked and percussion instruments back to incorporate into his work.

Also on the programme: Yamato no Haru by seminal intercultural composer Elliot Weisgarber, in a new arrangement for intercultural orchestra by VICO co-artistic director Mark Armanini, and the premiere ofPrayer, a piece in Japanese for choir and percussion by Rita Ueda.


City Full of Sound:
ORCHESTRA ARMONIA with VANCOUVER INTER-CULTURAL ORCHESTRA

Classical Meets Intercultural
Sunday October 16, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Ryerson United Church (2195 West 45th Ave., Vancouver)
Tickets ($25/$15) & information: www.vi-co.org

In the second event of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra’s “City Full of Sound” series, VICO musicians Song Yun (erhu), Charlie Lui (dizi), Yu-Chen Wang (zheng), Lan Tung (erhu) andJonathan Bernard (percussion) will join acclaimed string ensemble Orchestra Armonia for an innovative evening of classical music with an intercultural slant. The programme will include pieces by Vancouver composers Mark Armanini, Jung Sen Tung, Dorothy Chang and Lan Tung.

“Vancouver’s 125th birthday is the perfect moment to celebrate our city’s multifaceted Asian heritage with a collaboration between the VICO and Orchestra Armonia,” says conductor John van Deursen. This joint concert is designed to build bridges: between ancient and modern sounds and styles…between the classical musical traditions of Europe and China… between two very different ensembles that share an affinity for Asian music and a propensity for taking artistic risks.

Erhu virtuoso Song Yun, a first place winner in China’s national erhu competition in 1983, will join the 13-member Orchestra Armonia for Night Bird Singing, a concerto for erhu and strings by Vancouver composer and VICO co-Artistic Director Mark Armanini. Armanini has been working with Yun to develop a new approach to the erhu, pushing at the boundaries of traditional styles and techniques and expanding the possibilities of the instrument.

The dizi (Chinese bamboo flute), played by Charlie Lui, will be the featured instrument in Spring Awakening at Mount Yangming by Vancouver-based Taiwanese composer Jung Sen Tung. Originally composed in the 1960s, the piece became famous when it was used as the theme of a popular daily TV show in Taiwan. Conductor John van Deursen was given special permission to orchestrate an accompaniment for string orchestra.

Lan Tung (erhu), Yu-Chen Wang (zheng) and Jonathan Bernard (percussion), well known in world music circles as Orchid Ensemble, will perform From a Dream by Dorothy Chang. Rounding out the programme are two works for string orchestra, Memories of HengChun by Bao Yuan Kai (China) andFuga IX by Fou Tong Wong (Taiwan). Finally, all five VICO musicians and Orchestra Armonia will join forces on Ba Ban Variations by Lan Tung, an original work written for improvising musicians. Inspired by Ba Ban or Eight Phrases, the root of hundreds of pieces in traditional Chinese repertoire, the piece explores the contrasts between tonalities and genres. It embodies the paradox of many opposite characters: chromatic and pentatonic passages, composed and improvised materials, contemporary and traditional forms…and as such, is a fitting showcase for the ground-breaking collaboration of Classical Meets Intercultural.


“City Full of Sound”
Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra Launches 10th Anniversary Season

The VICO celebrates a decade of creating and performing ground-breaking new Canadian music this fall, with a multifaceted concert series called “City Full of Sound: the Music of Intercultural Vancouver” that features world premieres by composers Edward Henderson, Rita Ueda and Jin Zhang, with special guests Orchestra Armonia and Laudate Singers.

Intercultural Vancouver in Music & Pictures
Tuesday October 11, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver)
FREE Admission

An informal lecture-performance event featuring VICO musicians, illustrating – via short works for solo, duo, and trio – some of the musical traditions that make up Vancouver’s cultural fabric. The presentation includes an overview of the history of intercultural music in Vancouver, and a photo exhibitcelebrating BC’s pioneering inter- and multi-cultural composers in classical music.


Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra presents
MUSIC OF THE WHOLE WORLD: VICO Investigates the Music of Yunnan

Tuesday May 17, 2011 at 7 pm
Vancouver Public Library Central Branch
350 Georgia St.
Alice MacKay Hall (Lower Level)
FREE Admission

For the fourth presentation in the 2010-2011 edition of our educational series “Music of the Whole World”, renowned conductor and VICO composer Jin Zhang and guest musicians will take audiences on a musical journey to Yunnan (south-western China), a region of extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity, where he traveled recently to research new directions in intercultural music making.


Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra presents
MUSIC OF THE WHOLE WORLD: The ABCs of Intercultural Music

Thursday March 3, 2011 at 7 pm
Vancouver Public Library Central Branch
350 Georgia St.
Alice MacKay Hall (Lower Level)
FREE Admission

For the third presentation in the 2010-2011 edition of our educational series “Music of the Whole World”, the VICO is proud to feature the future of intercultural music, in the making: student composers from Seycove Secondary School in North Vancouver will present new pieces they have written for tar, oud and santur, performed by VICO musicians. This event is part of “VICO in the Schools”, an innovative workshop program through which VICO musicians and instructors introduce students to a selection of non-Western instruments and impart techniques for composing intercultural music.