FACULTY OF ARTS
UBC School of Music
Music Building
6361 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Tel: 604.822.3113
Fax: 604.822.4884
December 29, 2011
For more information:
Times Colonist
Vancouver soprano Simone Osborne paused at the stage door of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
She was only 21, Canadian and pursuing an undergraduate degree in opera performance at the University of British Columbia. But somehow, she had advanced to the finals of one of the top opera competitions in the world for young performers, many of whom were already industry professionals. The nerves were getting to her.
Osborne says her professor, Nancy Hermiston, grabbed her hand and gave her advice she's carried with her ever since.
"She said, 'Look, kiddo, almost every singer you meet has always dreamed of stepping on that stage. You get to do that today - and a lot of us never did,' " recalls Osborne. " 'And this may be the only time you do it, so just go out there and have fun.' "
Osborne's performance made her one of the youngest winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and launched her on a career path that has taken off in the four years since.
Job offers flooded in, and within a year, Osborne was performing in Europe and China. The 25-year-old has since joined the Canadian Opera Company's Studio Ensemble and performed under the likes of Diane Paulus and Robert LePage.
December 28, 2011
For more information:
Globe and Mail
The 12-week program, which is free for the singers, involves weekly rehearsals, workshops and a day retreat, as well as three concerts. The budget for the 2012 season is $40,000 and the calendar includes two public performances with Chor Leoni.
No one was sure what the response would be when they launched the program.
“I was worried,” admits Kevin Zakresky, program director of MYVoice and Chor Leoni assistant conductor. “I knew that Chor Leoni had invested quite a lot – we had some grants and some quite sizable private donations – and so we really wanted the program to work.”
In fact, about 70 young males signed up across both choirs – including one 10-year-old. “His big brother had joined and he was desperate to take part, so we thought, what the heck,” laughs Mr. Zakresky.
The MYVoice choirs truly reflect the region’s diversity, Mr. Zakresky says. “We’ve got waspy North Shore guys next to aboriginal kids from the east side, next to East Indian kids from the west side. It’s just the whole Lower Mainland in one singing microcosm.”
It was such a success, next year’s program has been expanded to a third choir in Langley, and Mr. Zakreski hopes the model could eventually roll out across the country. “Next year we would like to expand to the Interior and/or on Vancouver Island,” he says. “And I’m hoping that it catches the eye of potential sponsors who could help it go national.”
December 15, 2011
For more information:
ArtsWIRE
To commemorate Vancouver’s 125th anniversary, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation asked the general public to recognize 125 places, people and events that made this city a special place to live.
More than 200 attractions came in for nomination for Vancouver’s Places That Matter in spring 2011, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Grouse Mountain and Granville Island.
Topping the list with 1,009 votes was a free music series that’s been a Vancouver mainstay for 25 years. Out For Lunch, created by UBC Music sessional lecturer Gene Ramsbottom, brings in small groups of musicians on select Friday afternoons to perform popular selections for a noon-hour audience. This Friday, just before the program’s 715th concert, Ramsbottom will receive a plaque from the VHF commemorating his contribution to culture.
December 15, 2011
For more information:
Vancouver Sun
New to the project this year, but hardly new to Vancouver, is tenor John Bacon. Born in Chatham, Ont., Bacon came to Vancouver as a child, received his first degree from the University of B.C., and went on to further studies at the Vancouver Academy of Music with David Meek. Then, as with so many other gifted young professionals from our region, it became time to move on. A short stint in 2001 at the esteemed Brit-ten-Pears Young Artist Program at Aldeburgh, England gave Bacon his first exposure to the "thou-sands of brilliant things" going on in the U.K.
December 1, 2011
For more information:
UBC Reports
Although the numbers are daunting, Rita Irwin, associate dean of Teacher Education in UBC’s Faculty of Education, says overall the outlook is promising.
According to UNESCO, worldwide there is a severe shortage of teachers. Job opportunities exist abroad and teachers are always needed outside of the Lower Mainland.
The demographics also suggest that the job market will improve in the next four years as more teachers start to retire and more children enter into the school system, says Irwin.
Student Jessica Lemes da Silva wasn’t aware of the local job market before deciding to move to Vancouver from California, where she worked in the film industry, to pursue an education degree. Nonetheless the future teacher remains optimistic.
November 22, 2011
For more informtation:
Places that Matter to Vancouver
An award ceremony on December 16, 2011 will recognize Gene Ramsbottom's "Out for Lunch" concert series as the number one voted "Places That Matter" in the contest sponsored by Heritage Vancouver run as part of the City of Vancouver 125 birthday celebrations. Gene Ramsbottom has been presenting concerts in his "Out for Lunch" series at the Vancouver Art Gallery for 27 years. A plaque (as above) will be presented at the ceremony and then installed permanently at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
November 28, 2011
For more information:
Georgia Straight
The title roles in this production are both taken by splendid voices: soprano Simone Osborne making her first appearance at VO, and lyric tenor Gordon Gietz. It was hard to believe how consistent this production is, from the handsomeness of the Gothic set (designed by Eric Fielding) and the colour palette of the costumes (Susan Memmott Allred) to the beauty of the singing.
For once we have a young Romeo and Juliet, reflecting what Shakespeare must have had in mind: Osborne could actually pass for 14, except that we know no 14-year-old produces sounds like that. She sang no less than exquisitely, hitting every high note, yet not trilling quite securely enough on a high A-flat. But for that she could be easily forgiven for her elegant and expressive style, her openness of sound, and her unaffectedly natural acting. This girl’s going places. Watch her.
November 27, 2011
For more information:
Vancouver Sun
Beyond willingness to explore an increasingly neglected byway of the repertoire, the best single reason for this particular revival is as a showcase for Canadian soprano Simone Osborne, making her Vancouver Opera Debut in the role of Juliette. Osborne’s career was launched in 2008 with a resounding success at the Metropolitan Opera auditions; in recent seasons she’s been heard in roles with Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company.
For a young singer in the early dawn of her career, the role of Juliette might almost seem to be typecasting; Osborne’s boisterous girlishness in Act One seems appropriate and natural. But vocally, Juliette is anything but an ingenue. The composer demands a soprano with both agility, good top notes, and considerable dramatic range. Osborne acquits herself admirably, achieving her personal best in her grand Act Four soliloquy.
November 15, 2011
Matthew Emery (2nd year composition) was awarded 1st place in the youth category of the Amadeus Choir 2011 Seasonal Song-Writing Competition for his work In the Holy Nativity of our Lord. Matthew shares first place with Felix Arifin of Toronto.
The Amadeus Choir, conducted by Lydia Adams will premiere the work December 17th in Toronto. This year the competition received submissions from Canada, the United States, England, Japan and New Zealand.
November 14, 2011
For more information:
The Georgia Straight
Yet the production, under the direction of Nancy Hermiston, is sound and it looks good. There’s an early-American vernacular in its appearance, if not always in the way the actors speak their lines.
As for acting and singing, there’s some very fine work coming out of UBC these days, as this production proves. Reverend Parris isn’t an especially big part but Tony Luca Caruso made it seem big, with every gesture and note perfectly placed, and he absolutely looked the part.
Ditto Heather Molloy as Elizabeth Proctor: this is a majorly promising voice, as are Eden Tremayne (Mary Warren), Heny Janawati (Tituba), and Francesca Corrado (Rebecca Nurse).
November 7, 2011
For more information:
The Georgia Straight
UBC Opera’s The Crucible is directed by Nancy Hermiston, with musical accompaniment provided by the UBC Symphony Orchestra. The story follows a vengeful teenager in Salem, Massachusetts, who accuses a rival of witchcraft. These accusations come to consume the entire village, isolated on the edge of America’s wilderness.
November 7, 2011
For more information:
UBYSSEY
UBC Opera tackles socio-political unrest this month as they light up the stage with Robert Ward’s operatic rendition of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Written during the 1950s, The Crucible is an allegorical play about McCarthyism, an extreme anti-Communist movement in the USA at the beginning of the Cold War. The play was later adapted to opera by Ward in 1961, and the opera itself garnered the Pulitzer Prize for Music one year later.
November 2011
For more information:
Opera news
Photo: Teiya Kasahara as Britten's Tytania in Aspen
November 3, 2011
For more information:
The New York Times
"...the ways the concert mirrored the Bay Area. “The Age of Anxiety” will feature the acclaimed pianist Sara Davis Buechner, his longtime friend and colleague, who was once David Buechner."
October 28, 2011
For more information:
Seattle Piano Competition
Congratulations to DMA candidate Bogdan Dulu for winning the 1st prize in the 2011 Seattle international Piano Festival & Competition in the professional category.
October 27, 2011
For more information:
Vancouver Sun
University showcases student talent with series of free noon-hour concerts.
Concert life on campus has never been in better health: Events in the renovated Roy Barnett Recital Hall and the new "old" Auditorium, not to mention the Chan Centre, make Point Grey a regular destination for music lovers prepared to deal with the drive and the parking. The UBC School of Music already runs a successful series of Wednesday noon concerts, but recently a regular audience member asked what it might take to bring students downtown to perform. Don Black, director of community programs for UBC Continuing Studies, worked out the logistics and, with the generous help of an anonymous donor, a new free series was born.
October 3, 20112
For more information:
LeMonde Fr
Tours Envoyé spécial - Les mélodies en français de compositeurs étrangers ne sont pas rares. Le français a été la langue de l'élite internationale : le Russe Piotr Illitch Tchaïkovski (1840-1893) correspondait dans un français parfait, et l'Américain Samuel Barber (1910-1981), élégant francophone lui aussi, se paya le luxe linguistique et gigogne de mettre en musique des poèmes en français de Rainer Maria Rilke.
A l'inverse, le corpus de mélodies françaises écrites sur des textes en langue étrangère est moindre. Autant dire qu'on a écarquillé les yeux lorsque fut annoncé un récital de ce répertoire, par le baryton Tyler Duncan et la pianiste Erika Switzer, dans la grande salle de l'hôtel de ville de Tours, en un premier dimanche d'octobre caniculaire.
September 2011
For more information:
Opera Canada article
The 2011 Opera Canada Awards will honor Nancy Hermiston.
September 29, 2011
For more information:
www.celebratevancouver125.ca
Fourteen Vancouverites who have made significant contributions to the creative life in our city are the recipients of the 2011 Mayor’s Arts Awards.
Mayor Robertson will present the awards at a ceremony on October 6
September 29, 2011
For more information:
The Georgia Straight
At the Modulus Festival, Vancouver’s Couloir will show that the harp and the cello can make beautiful sounds together.
September 28, 2011
For more information:
Toronto Star
Simone Osborne (Gilda), 25, soprano, from British Columbia. The lone Canadian lead is a member of the COC’s Ensemble Studio training program for young artists. She has already appeared at the COC mainstage in The Magic Flute.
September 20, 2011
For more information:
24hrs
THE MUSICIAN | Clara Shandler, a classically trained and punk influenced cellist, stopped playing for a year as she recovered from surgery to relieve the tendonitis in her wrists – a condition from years of incorrect posture.
September 16, 2011
For more information:
ArtsWIRE
The UBC Faculty of Arts has jumped on the popular ‘big ideas’ concept and given it a decidedly Arts-focused bent. Six professors have just 10 minutes each to present an idea that changed their world. Everything from Music to Economics, Philosophy to Political Science and First Nations Studies to Psychology are included in this thought-provoking forum.
Rena Sharon – Music
“Art Song – Rescuing an Endangered Musical Species”
The urge to fuse words to musical pitches – to sing a song – is universal. Our stories are captured and passed through generations of song. But what if a global archive of songs was at risk of disappearing? What is lost when a whole species of song vanishes?
September 15, 2011
For more information:
The Georgia Straight
Kathleen Allan and Iman Habibi: Duo of composers delivers double duty
September 10, 2011
For more information:
Vancouver Sun
In many orchestras, mentoring is still something of a rarity - but not for the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, starting its ninth season this Sunday with a concert at Burnaby's Michael J. Fox Theatre.
September 8, 2011
For more information:
Westender
Vancouer Opera will present Charle's Gounod's sublimely tragic and romantic "Romeo and Juliet" featuring the exquisitly talented and Canadian soprano Simone Osborne as the ill-fated heroine.
September 1, 2011
For more information:
Vancouver Sun
The Turning Point Ensemble was considering a program focused on 125 years of music in Vancouver (and 125 years of Vancouver music).
August 24, 2011
For more information:
Vancouver Sun
There’s a sort of symmetry to it: Chor Leoni’s June Bard on the Beach show Bard Boyz acted as the transition from main season music to our increasingly full summer; now Operas and Arias, the showcase for the UBC Opera Ensemble, closes out the too-short weeks of a Vancouver summer. The project this year is Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, at Vanier Park.
August 11, 2011
For more Information:
Vancouver Sun
Spurred on by Vancouver's 125th birthday, soprano Martha Guth and pianist Erika Switzer put together a late afternoon recital of homegrown songs at Christ Church Cathedral.
August 4, 2011
In September 2011, John van Deursen will become the conductor of the Concert and Jazz Bands, as well as teach low brass, at Douglas College.
He will continue to teach courses at UBC and will teach low brass at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
July 26, 2011
For more information:
www.oead.at/home/EN/
Congratulations to UBC Music student Kimberly Beck Seder (Ph.D Musicology) for winning an Ernst Mach Grant from the OeAD (Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education & Research Centre for International Cooperation and Mobility, financed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Science. The grant supports four months of research in Salzburg, Austria, January 2012 - April 2012.
July 14, 2011
For more information:
www.socanfoundation.ca
Congratulations to UBC Music Alumnus Jared Miller (BMus 2010) for winning the 20th Annual SOCAN Foundation Award for Young Composers!
July 7, 2011
The Georgia Straight
By Jessica Werb
Link to article here
Vancouver-based pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa’s debut solo piano CD has been nominated for a 2011 Western Canadian Music Award.
Iwaasa’s Cosmophony, nominated for Classical Recording of the Year, is a collection of contemporary Canadian work that takes listeners on a journey through the cosmos. It opens with Denis Gougeon’s invocation of the sun, Piano-Soleil and then moves past each of the planets, from Mercury to Neptune, with works written especially for Iwaasa by composers Rodney Sharman, Marci Rabe, Alexander Pechenyuk, Jocelyn Morlock, Christ Kovarik, Jeffrey Ryan, Stefan Udell, and Jennifer Butler. Works by Jordan Nobeles and Emily Doolittle are also featured.
July 6, 2011
www.operacanada.ca
Link for more information here.
The Opera Canada Awards (The Rubies) were established in 1999 to recognize and honor outstanding individual achievements on stage and behind the scenes.
UBC Opera Director, Nancy Hermsiton will be honored with Russell Braun and Jacqueline Desmarais. The awards will be given out on October 5, 2011 in Toronto.
July 1, 2011
The Vancouver Sun
by Felicity Stone
Link to article here
Mark Donnelly, who has sung Canada's national anthem at events from the Vancouver Olympics to Canucks games, is known and loved for his trademark gesture of inviting the crowd to join in. Tonight, when he performs at Surrey's Canada Day celebration, will be no exception.
June 30, 2011
North Humberland News
Link to article here
CAMPBELLFORD - Warkworth figures prominently in this weekend's performances of "Albert Herring" at Westben by the UBC Opera Ensemble.
Warkworth native Nancy Hermiston, head of the opera ensemble at the University of British Columbia, directed the groundbreaking comic opera; Neil Graham, chairman of the Warkworth Business Association, helped designed the set; and Warkworth itself serves as the backdrop.
June 30, 2011
Yota Kobayashi (2nd yr M.Mus in Composition) was awarded an ICICS Graduate Scholarship! These scholarships are awarded to outstanding graduate students who are beginning their second year at UBC.
Congratulations Yota!
June 24, 2011
Georgia Straight
Link to article here
By Lloyd Dykk
A UBC Opera production. At the Old Auditorium on June 23. Continues to June 26.
Benjamin Britten’s East Suffolk–village comic opera Albert Herring is peculiarly English and a favourite with student singers. It finds lightness in a composer not known for it...
This production, directed by Nancy Hermiston at UBC’s Old Auditorium, is a lot of fun and right on top of the music, which parodies everything from Tristan und Isolde’s love-potion music when Albert drinks rum-laced lemonade to a theme from Lucrezia Borgia. There are fugues and canons galore, and the opera ends with a stellar—and for once serious—nine-part threnody, with each voice adding a personal thought on the end of life to the ravishing repeated melody “In the midst of life is death” over a pedal B-flat.
The production may be the most musically accomplished one I’ve heard, and every principal in the large cast deserves mention: Aaron Durand, Evanna Chiew, Margo LeVae’s organ-voice-of-England-like Lady Billows, Courtney Bridge, Anne-Marie Macintosh, Jordan Collalto, Alan Macdonald, Saygin Ozgu, Lauren Solomon’s splendid Mrs. Herring, and Joseph Bulman’s charming and vocally very fine Albert.
June 23, 2011
The Wetaskiwin Times
Link to article here
By Submitted
It's a homecoming of sorts for a classically trained musician with roots deep in Wetaskiwin County.
Nicole J. Brooks performs a free concert this Sunday, 7 p.m., at the Maclab Center for Performing Arts, 4308 50 St., in Leduc.
The 21-year-old has just finished her first year of an undergraduate degree with the University of British Columbia, where she is pursuing a Bachelors of Music, majoring in opera performance.
"As part of the UBC opera ensemble, I performed as a chorus lead in the spring production of Cendrillon (The Cinderella Opera) by Massenet," said Brooks in an email to the Wetaskiwin Times.
June 21, 2011
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
Link to article here
By Zoe Kemmerling
At new music concerts, I will admit, I am an avid reader of program notes. Although I’ve had my debates with colleagues who insist that good music should prove its own merit, my constant hope is for an intellectual lifeline to keep me from drowning in what I fear, down in my insecure performer’s heart, may be an ocean of sophistication and nuance. And how else to prepare for what director Stephen Drury of NEC’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice gleefully refers to as an evening of “strange sounds”? Thus I was pleased when I sat down to Monday night’s SICPP kick-off concert with a tidy page of notes, but slightly wary when the page in question included references to Pablo Neruda, Kissinger, Masonic/Crowley mysticism, the many meanings and allusions of the word “still,” Sol LeWitt (who?), the evolution of a squiggle, clues to a possible question, and a title comprised of uncapitalized, archaic French and three dots. I feared that I might have to capitulate to the argument that composers, in their earnest attempts to communicate inspiration, too often alienate their audience with a barrage of esoteric minutiae.
However, the stellar performances given by Drury, Corey Hamm, and the Callithumpian Consort, combined with the clearly well-planned programming and inherent quality of the pieces themselves, left me feeling vindicated as a new music fan, musician, and thinker. Although the three pieces performed, two for solo piano and one for chamber orchestra, were markedly different in construction and often in character, the concert revealed a remarkable level of cohesiveness. The overall impression was of power, beauty, and sense.
June 20, 2011
UBYSSEY
Link to article here
By Taylor Loren
“Think of the British, multiplied by ten. It’s pushing the limits of humour of ridiculousness,” said Andrew Robb.
Robb’s role as the title singer in the upcoming UBC Opera Ensemble Albert Herring may have been written in the early twentieth century, but it certainly isn’t typical of the time.
Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring is a comedic response to the expectations of a Victorian society. When a small English village is unable to find a chaste woman to be crowned May Queen, the timid greengrocer Albert is chosen to be May King for the Spring Festival. Instead of celebrating his new found title, Albert embarks on a drunken adventure, escaping his moral upbringing as he finds his adult self.
June 18, 2011
The Vancouver Sun
Link to article here
By Francois Marchand
In more ways than one, vocal group the Canadian Tenors and wine go hand-in-hand.
Just ask Clifton Murray who, before joining the Tenors in late 2008, was working as a wine delivery man for B.C.-based distributor Foremost Wines Domaines.
June 16, 2011
UBC Artswire
Link to article here
By Katie Fedosenko
The last production in the 10-11 UBC Opera season nets comedic village life and a young man’s coming-of-age.
Monty Python, East Enders, The Office…..Albert Herring? While you may not think of “Albert Herring”, the Benjamin Britten opera, as British comedy, audiences are in store for an evening of laughter. “It’s very funny and typical of British village life,” said director Nancy Hermiston. Running from June 23rd-June 26th, “Albert Herring” is a great summer show that you don’t want to miss.
June 14, 2011
UBC Artswire
Link to article here
By Katie Fedosenko
A celebrated choral conductor, educator and composer, Loomer founded three internationally recognized and award-winning choirs: Elektra, Chor Leoni and EnChor. While always surrounded by music, Dr. Loomer’s conducting career was long in the making. With roots in education, connections to the community and a passion for song, Loomer rose to the top of the Canadian Choir music scene.
June 13, 2011
New York Times
Link to article here
By Steve Smith
Mr. Glass’s quartets provide evidence of a mostly graceful transition. The First, from 1965, is like a sliver chipped from one of Morton Feldman’s imposing glaciers; three more quartets, unnumbered, count among his juvenilia.
In the violinists Maria Bachmann and Tim Fain, the violist David Harding and the cellist Matt Haimovitz, Mr. Glass had performers well versed in his style and keenly aware of what precedents he meant to evoke. If the group did not yet sound like a polished ensemble in its account of Mr. Glass’s genially restless Fifth Quartet, it compensated with deliriously beautiful sound and expressive spirit. (In a sense, this was a premiere: in the interview Mr. Glass said that he had fixed a wrong note present since the work’s inception in 1991.)
June 9, 2011
Vancouver Sun
Link to article here
By David Gordon Duke
The Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI) is really a three-ring circus of activities. It’s in full spring blossom this week and the problem, as ever, is how to get to everything that’s of interest. I’m already booked on Saturday evening (Mahler 1, at the VSO) and so will have to give one of the more experimental of the VISI concerns a miss.
June 8, 2011
CBC2 | Saturday Afternoon at the Opera
Link to article here
By Matthew MacFarlane
We continue our Opera Valedictorians series profiling recent opera-school grads with Kathleen Allan, a young soprano from St. John's, Newfoundland who's just wrapping up her bachelor's degree at the University of British Columbia. The premise of our series is simple: Kathleen gives us a special "valedictorian address," as though she's speaking to her graduating class at UBC.
June 6, 2011
Vancouver Sun
Link to article here
By David Gordon Duke
I got to know composer/pianist Jared Miller courtesy of UBC’s exemplary mentoring program, a project which connects advanced students with community music pros. It’s been no surprise at all to see how he has advanced.
He was back for the summer from Juilliard and, anxious to demonstrate what he’s been up to, presented a “New York Tasting Menu” recital—musical bits of this-and-that to evoke the Big Apple—this weekend.
June 6, 2011
Vancouver Sun
Link to article here
By David Gordon Duke
Institute's SongFire Festival takes the art song to new heights
or a notably wet, cold evening in what is supposed to be late spring, the turnout for Learn to Love Lieder at VPL's Alice Mac-Kay Room is good. UBC's maven of collaborative piano, Rena Sharon, who is also the founder/director of the Vancouver International Song Institute, asks the audience some warm-up pre-lecture questions.
June 6, 2011
www.ywcavan.org
Morna Edmundson (BMus 1981), is the recipient of the 2011 YWCA Women of Distinction award in the Arts, Culture and Design category. The award was presented at an event May 31, 2011. Recognized nationally as one of Canada’s most prestigious awards for women, the YWCA Metro Vancouver Women of Distinction Awards honour women whose outstanding achievements contribute to the well-being and future of our community. The Awards also honour businesses and organizations that support the wellness and diverse needs of their employees. The Women of Distinction Awards began in 1984; since then YWCA Metro Vancouver has honoured over 200 deserving women and workplaces.
June 6, 2011
www.vancouversymphony.ca
Vince Vohradsky (MMus 2007) has won the 2nd trumpet position with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and starts officially in September 2011. “I am definitely over the moon to have won a position in my home town orchestra.”
June 2, 2011
The Victoria Times Colonist
Link to article here
By Kevin Bazzana
Eine Kleine Summer Music, whose 24th season begins Sunday, certainly counts as one of the great local success stories in classical music. Indeed, the series has only grown more popular with time. Last year all four of its concerts sold out, and ticket sales this year are already very strong.
The locals will include three who have all recently made impressive appearances in concertos with the Victoria Symphony: violinist Terence Tam (the orchestra's concertmaster), violist Kenji Fuse and pianist Lorraine Min. And the two visitors have long ranked among Canada's most admired concert and recording artists: pianist Jane Coop and cellist Shauna Rolston.
Coop, who has been based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver for more than 30 years, will be featured in the opening concert, in two big Romantic works: Brahms's Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108, with Tam; and Schumann's Piano Trio No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 110, with Tam and cellist Laura Backstrom.
June 1, 2011
www.nyoc.org
Gabrielle Thielmann violin, Catherine Chen viola and Ron Mann oboe will take part in the NYOC's seven-week intensive training program with 90 of Canada’s most talented orchestral musicians, aged 16-28.
This summer rehearsals and training sessions will take place on the campus of University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario; followed by a three-week tour of Ontario, Quebec, New Hampshire, and Nova Scotia. The conductor for this summer is Jonathan Darlington.
Major repertoire includes Strauss Der Rosenkavlier, Mahler Symphony No. 5 and Shostakovich Symphony No. 15.
June 1, 2011
The Chief
Link to article here
By Steven Hill
Squamish-raised composer/pianist Jared Miller is back home for the summer from studying abroad, but he must already miss his new home in New York City.
The 22-year-old presents a New York-themed evening of music and more at Tom Lee Music Hall on Granville Street in Vancouver next Friday (June 3).
“It’s called A New York Tasting Menu,” Miller said. “I spent the past year studying composition at the Juilliard School in New York, and I thought I’d bring back a bit of New York City for this recital and reception.”
On the joy of piano and lifelong learning: Magdalena von Eccher, Master of Music student, shares some final words before finishing her Masters degree.
May 31, 2011
UBC Arts Wire
Link to video
By Katie Fedosenko
After performing at the Baccalaureate concert and solo for her graduation recital, pianist Magdalena (BMUS ’07, MMUS ’11) was exhausted but thrilled. As the end of her studies approaches, Magdalena reflects on her passion for piano and shares some advice for current students.
After graduating from the University of Lethbridge, Magdalena came to UBC to pursue her Masters of Music, studying under Jane Coop. “She was so supportive and always encourages her students to do their best,” said Magdalena.
May 16, 2011
UBC Trek Magazine
Link to article here
By Unknown
Canadian-born lyric coloratura Nancy Hermiston has performed throughout Europe and North America. She has worked as voice teacher, stage director and coordinator with the University of Toronto’s Opera and Performance divisions.
In 1995 she joined UBC’s School of Music as the Head of the Voice and Opera divisions, and established the UBC Opera Ensemble. In 2004, Nancy was named the UBC University Marshal and in 2008 the university awarded her the Dorothy Somerset Award for Performance and Development in the Visual and Performing Arts. She received the Killam Prize for teaching in 2010.
Nancy is a favourite guest for master classes throughout Canada, China and Germany. Her UBC Opera Ensemble tours regularly to the Czech Republic, Germany, Ontario, China and throughout BC.
May 12, 2011
Pacific Rim Magazine
Link to article (not available online)
Link to magazine site here
By Mina Deol
UBC's Michael Tenzer is one of only a handful of North American experts in an Indonesian art form known as Gamelan. Now he's sharing his love of the intricate musical sound with curious Vancouverites.
May 6, 2011
The Out for Lunch Noon Hour Concert Series received 1009 votes. The next highest vote count was 879 for the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Created in1986 to celebrate Vancouver’s 100th birthday, the Out for Lunch Concert series has brought a tremendous variety of classical music and performance to local audiences from a range of international and local musicians including UBC School of Music ensembles, faculty, student and alumni soloists and chamber musicians.
The popular concert series has been hosted and supported by the Vancouver Art Gallery since its inception.
Find out more about the nominated Places That Matter project at www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org/projects/placesthatmatter.html
April 18, 2011
Link to article here.
For those who are not familiar with the Japanese language:
Prof. Sara Davis Buechner talks about her experiences in Japan, her struggles learning Japanese, rooting for the Hanshin Tigers, and a bit about the charity concert she organized to support relief efforts after the Japanese earthquake. Over $24,000 was raised for the victims of the Japanese disaster.
April 6, 2011
Details about competition here.
Matthew Emery, 1st year student in composition, has been awarded Second Place in the Jubilate! Chamber Choir's National Composers Competition for his choral work A Western Shore. The prize includes $750 and a premiere performance of A Western Shore by Jubilate! Chamber Choir on May 7, 2011. The concert will be held at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at Simon Fraser University’s new School for the Contemporary Arts (also known as SFU Woodwards) in downtown Vancouver.
March 2011
Composition student Farshid Samandari (DMA) has won the Canadian League of Composers 2011 CLC and CUMS Student Composition Competition. His winning work coming home for flute, double bass and percussion, will be performed in Sackville, NB by the Motion Ensemble as part of the CUMS annual meeting on June 3.
Samandari's piece will also be performed in Toronto by Esprit Orchestra at a concert tentatively planned for May 13, 2011.
23 March 2011
Globe and Mail
Link to article
By Alan Hustak
Paul Marshall Douglas was a classical composer who played the flute, an early leader of Vancouver's Baroque music scene and a teacher at the University of British Columbia for 26 years...
"He was well rounded, a musician, a composer, a conductor, he had a background in all this stuff that added richness to the teaching program," said Jesse Read, former director of UBC's school of music, who is also a former conductor of the Vancouver Philharmonic. "He was a good conductor who was not only interested in his own area of expertise but in all symphonic expression. He wanted to explore. He took a burgeoning community orchestra and pulled it all together. He was extremely passionate, positive and supportive. He touched a lot of his students."
22 March 2011
Link to website
Link to video
UBC student Paul Hung flute was one of 101 musicians from over 30 countries who performed in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra Grand Finale concert at the Sydney Opera House. The musicians met for a week-long celebration of music leading up to the Grand Finale that was conducted by YouTube Symphony Orchestra Artistic Advisor Michael Tilson Thomas.
19 March 2011
Taiwan News Channel
Link to article
By Sunny Chang and Christie Chen)
Sydney, March 19 (CNA) Three Taiwanese are among the 101 musicians of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 currently performing in Sydney, where the orchestra is making its first visit.
Taiwan clarinetist Chen Yi-chun, violinist Yang Hui-ju and flutist Paul Hung [UBC Student] were among the musicians selected by a panel of international music experts and YouTube users through an online auditioning event last year to form the YouTube orchestra.
19 March 2011
Vancouver Sun
Link to article
By David Gordon Duke
The so-called Lang Lang phenomenon -Asian performers and audiences embracing what used to be considered "Western classical music" -is undoubtedly the pre-eminent music story of our era.
Once Vancouver called itself Canada's "Gateway to the Orient." Now we see ourselves as a major centre of the Pacific Rim. Putting the two concepts together isn't much of a stretch: Vancouver cares about, develops and supports classical musicians from the Pacific Rim.
11 March 2011
Vancouver Sun
Link to article
By David Gordon Duke
Sonic Boom, the long-running festival of homegrown new music, has become an annual sign of both spring and the eclectic vigour of the compositional milieu.
This year's event features a number of high-profile performers, including pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, Standing Wave, the NU: BC Collective and a Who's Who of top performers in new music. There are workshops and performances galore at the Western Front from March 24-27...
Schafer offers two workshops for composers, one at UBC (March 18) and another at The Western Front (March 27). The UBC Contemporary Players celebrate Schafer out at UBC, March 25, at 1: 30 p.m.
4 March 2011
The Georgia Straight
Link to article
By Alexander Varty
...Nothing, however, spoiled the perfection of Firebird 2011’s first act, the Turning Point Ensemble’s dance-free chamber interpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s music for Michel Fokine’s 1910 The Firebird ballet. Arranger Michael Bushnell did a remarkable job of downsizing the original score while updating it, in part by focusing on the aspects of Stravinsky’s music—those ominous bass ostinatos, that characteristic mix of velvet and brutality—that prog-rock bands, chase-scene soundtrackers, and composers in general have been mining for the better part of a century. Soloists Jesse Read on bassoon and Ben Kinsman on French horn were impressive; equally so were wind players Brenda Fedoruk (flute), David Owen (oboe), François Houle (clarinet), and Caroline Gauthier (bass clarinet), whose ensemble cohesion was so remarkable it was almost hallucinogenic. How did they sneak an organ on-stage during the final movement?
4 March 2011
The Vancouver Courier
Link to article
By Cheryl Rossi
Next Friday, 23-year-old flutist Paul Hung will fly to Australia to play a series of concerts March 14 to 20. For the grand finale, he'll perform in front of a sold-out audience at the Sydney Opera House, on a live broadcast for Australian TV and live on the popular Internet site YouTube, which he can thank for his upcoming musical journey.
2 March 2011
The Metro Vancouver
Link to article
Writer not listed.
Vancouver’s Turning Point Ensemble presents Firebird 2011, beginning tonight at the historic theatre at The Cultch (1895 Venables St.).
The show, which runs until Saturday, features two premieres. The first half of the show — music only — is a new arrangement of Stravinsky’s Firebird. The second half of the show features Firebird, choreographed by Simone Orlando and danced by MOVE: the company.
The 16-member Turning Point Ensemble, co-directed by Jeremy Berkman and Owen Underhill, accompanies the performance.
The show was the recipient of the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award for Music in 2011.
UBC Opera Alum Simone Osborne will sing the role of Pamina in The Magic Flute with the Canadian Opera Company.
18 February 2011
National Post
By Charmaine Kerridge
Link to article here.
Toronto-based soprano Simone Osborne sings with the Canadian Opera Company, and will sing the role of Pamina Feb. 20, 23 and 25 in The Magic Flute.
When I was born my mom said, "I'm not going to have to worry about this one." She said I opened my eyes, looked right, looked left, and was ready to take on the world...
17 February 2011
bclocalnews.com
By Matthew Hoekstra
Link to article here.
Bogdan Dulu’s mother had a simple dream—she wanted her young son to play the piano.
Dulu was born in 1984 in the midst of harsh political repression in Communist Romania. It was only after the revolution that Dulu, at age six, touched a piano for the first time.
He began lessons with one problem—he didn’t have a piano. Mom pushed ahead with her dream anyway, drawing a keyboard on paper so her son could practise.
Today, at 26, Dulu practises on grand pianos while studying his craft and collecting musical accolades along the way. He’ll try for another at the Pacific Piano Competition, Feb. 23 to 26 at Gateway Theatre.
* UBC Music student Bogdan Dulu will perform March 4 with the UBC Symphony Orchestra at the Chan Centre.
15 February 2011
Vancouver Sun
By David Gordon Duke
Link to article here.
...Next up is romantic opera, French style, with Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette (get the crafty parallel with West Side Story?). This one's a showcase for soprano (and local girl made very good indeed) Simone Osborne, Nov. 26 through Dec. 3...
13 February 2011
The Sacramento Bee
By Edward Ortiz
Link to article here.
Pianist Sara Davis Buechner is recalling the day she decided to come out as a woman – she rattles off the date without a thought.
"It was Nov. 29, 1996," said Buechner, 51, via phone from Vancouver, British Columbia, where she lives.
Before that, she was known as the noted New York-based pianist David Buechner. He had been cross-dressing, but only at home. It was an identity that had been evident to Buechner since childhood.
13 February 2011
Composition student Joseph Glaser had his work Rothko Sketch performed on CBC Radio Two by the Gryphon Trio on Sunday Feb 13, 2011.
9 February 2011
www.grammy.com
UBC Dean of Arts and Haitian scholar, Gage Averill has been nominated for a Grammy Award for his project, Alan Lomax in Haiti: Recordings For The Library of Congress, 1936-1937.
The 53rd Annual Grammy Award ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on February 13, 2011.
Nominated in the category of Best Album Notes, the nomination reflects the work Averill did to compile, edit the set and write the comprehensive book of interpretive notes. The project was also nominated for a second award for Best Historical Album, nominated in the names of the producers of the set: Jeffrey A. Greenberg, David Katznelson and Anna Lomax Wood; with Warren Russell-Smith and Steve Rosenthal as recording engineers.
4 February 2011
The Georgia Straight
By Lloyd Dykk
Link to article
...But another one that richly deserves revival is his 1899 Cendrillon, or Cinderella, a charming, ultra-tuneful and witty telling of the story, as based on Charles Perrault’s version of the fairy tale. UBC Opera’s mounting of it was not only a first for the company, it was an absolute winner.
The production took full advantage of the work’s visual opportunities, which you’d think would be enough reason to tempt other opera companies.
Just as the staging re-created a good facsimile of 17th-century splendour, the singing and acting were strong enough to rival any professional production. Full marks to director Nancy Hermiston and to conductor Dwight Bennett, who led the UBC Symphony Orchestra through an amazingly fine negotiation of the score.
I sat in the Chan Centre just beaming with pleasure as one delight replaced another. First there was Lauren Solomon’s Madame de la Haltière, looking a dead ringer for Divine in Pink Flamingos, and her two ugly daughters, Noémie and Dorothée, played by the almost-as-outrageously costumed Julia Kot and Michaela Dickey.
26 January 2011
The Globe and Mail
Ken Winters
Link to article
Contemporary Chinese music has advanced 1,000 years since the ersatz-Western, truly dreadful 1969 Yellow River Piano Concerto concocted during the Cultural Revolution by five then-approved composers under orders from Madame Mao...
...The other outstandingly beautiful work, in its premiere on Tuesday, was the 2010 Lost and Found by the first-generation American-born Chinese composer Dorothy Chang. Chang is currently assistant professor of music at the University of British Columbia.
26 January 2011
TheStar.com
John Terauds
Link to article
There was a rare meeting of cultures at Koerner Hall on Tuesday night, as traditional Chinese music met Western art music. The result was an emotionally, intellectually and aurally satisfying exploration of some very different ways of making and listening to music...
... The road there was paved with three instrumental pieces by contemporaries of Dun, and the world premiere of a work commissioned by Soundstreams from American-born composer Dorothy Chang.
As the various equally accomplished and technically impressive musicians performed in different combinations under conductor Les Dala, it was immediately apparent that Chang’s new piece, a five-movement suite titled Lost and Found, was the most creative and colourful in integrating East and West into a compelling new musical narrative.
22 January 2011
UBC Roy Barnett Recital Hall
Congratulations to Bogdan Dulu piano for winning the 2011 UBC Concerto Competition! Finals were held on Saturday, January 22 in the Roy Barnett Recital Hall. Judges Jeanette Bernal-Singh, Elizabeth Bergmann, and David Branter all agreed that all finalists played beautifully!
Runners up for this year were Cathleen Gingrich voice and Paul Hung flute.
The UBC Concerto Competition takes place every year at the UBC Recital Hall and is organized by Assistant Professor, Piano and Chamber Music, Corey Hamm.
Bogdan Dulu will perform the Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major with the UBC Symphony Orchestra on Friday March 4 at The Chan Centre. Tickets for this events are free and available in-person at The Chan Centre at 12:00 noon on performance day.
11 January 2011
Link to YouTube Orchestra details
Link to Paul's YouTube Orchestra profile
Link to CTV News spot (link on right- Rob Brown spot)
Link to Omni TV spot (in Cantonese)
Paul Hung, a UBC Music flute student (3rd year), is going to Sydney Australia March 14 - 20 to be a member of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011. The orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, will perform at the Sydney Opera House on March 20th. The gala performance will feature soaring music and vast images projected on the interior and sails of the Sydney Opera House.
YouTube Symphony Orchestra is the world’s first collaborative, online, international orchestra. Thousands of musicians from around the world auditioned online for a place in this year’s orchestra. At this grand finale event, amateurs and professionals between the ages of 14 and 49, from thirty three countries around the world converge on Sydney to work together and perform.
11 January 2011
Vancouver Sun
By Kim Pemberton
Link to article
Two B.C. university music students are among just five Canadians chosen to be in the international YouTube Symphony Orchestra...
...Sarah Tradewell, from Victoria, who plays the viola, and flutist Paul Hung, of Vancouver, will be joining the 97-member orchestra after being selected from 336 finalists, ranging in age from 14 to 49, from 46 countries.
FACULTY OF ARTS
UBC School of Music
Music Building
6361 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Tel: 604.822.3113
Fax: 604.822.4884