Meet Your Professor: Jose Franch-Ballester, Assistant Professor of Clarinet and Chamber Music
Introduce yourself in 280 characters or less. My name is Jose Franch-Ballester and I am Assistant Professor of Clarinet and Chamber Music. I also serve as the Woodwind Area Coordinator. How would you describe your approach to teaching music? What do you enjoy the most about teaching? My approach is to serve music […]
Meet Your Professor: Marina Thibeault, Assistant Professor of Viola
Introduce yourself in 280 characters or less. I am a French-Canadian violist based in Vancouver, where I have the privilege to teach viola and chamber music at the UBC School of Music. In the summer, I teach in my hometown at my most beloved festival, the Domaine Forget international Academy. In the late evening, you […]
Meet Your Professor: Elizabeth Volpé Bligh, Adjunct Professor of Harp
Introduce yourself in 280 characters or less. Hello! I’m Elizabeth Volpé Bligh, retired Principal Harpist of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, where I worked from 1982-2018. I also write harp music, teach privately, ski and sail. How would you describe your approach to teaching music? What do you enjoy the most about teaching? I take […]
Meet Your Professor: J. Patrick Raftery, Assistant Professor of Voice
Introduce yourself in 280 characters or less “Singer and Voice Teacher, Flâneur and World Traveler” “Facilitator of musicians of the future!” What courses do you teach? This year I’m teaching Voice Studio and MUSC 537C (Seminar in Opera Literature). How would you describe your approach to teaching music? What do you enjoy the most about teaching? […]
From Aerosmith to Van Halen: How the UBC School of Music helped shape rock music history
In the 1980s, Vancouver was a rock ’n’ roll mecca. High Notes talks to Prof. Nathan Hesselink and Sharman King (BMus’70) about the UBC alumni who made some of the era’s best and boldest albums possible Here’s a little-known fact: Vancouver is the birthplace of some of the most important rock ’n’ roll records of […]
Liberating the Queen in Me
In their new play The Queen in Me, soprano Teiya Kasahara (BMus’07) reimagines one of opera’s most iconic villains — and challenges the industry’s centuries-old prejudices By Tze Liew For more than two centuries, the iconic Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte has been thrilling audiences with her vengeful spirit, bloodthirsty drive, and volatile high […]
A life dedicated to cultural exchange
Over six decades, Tamako Copithorne has opened up a world of possibility for Canadian and Japanese students This March, students from Tokyo’s Keio University Choir and UBC’s Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Program (BOMP) teamed up with Early Music Vancouver for a gorgeous performance of Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostriat Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. The groups performed […]
Calling all music lovers
Five new pianos in locations across campus are waiting to be played By Joel Bentley A student sits at the new grand piano in the Music, Art and Architecture Library (MAA). She has headphones on, concealing the sound, so all you hear is the tapping of keys, rhythmic patterns. It feels like a pre-concert ritual—the […]
The Gift of Music
The School of Music unveils rare, newly refurbished harpsichord — thanks to support from a generous donor. This March, the School of Music unveiled one of the jewels of our instrument collection: a newly renovated double-manual harpsichord modeled on an 18th-century German original. Harpsichordist Alexander Weimann, along with violinist Chloe Meyers and viola da gamba […]
“You don’t have to fit in a box”: Debi Wong on opera’s potential to create spaces for underrepresented voices
By Aryn Strickland Mezzo soprano Debi Wong (BMus ’08) believes that opera has the potential to create dialogue about underrepresented groups that all too often it goes unrealized. Even at major houses like the Metropolitan Opera, modern productions are still trapped in traditions and tropes which she says have consequences for our society. “If we […]