High Notes | Fall 2020
FEATURES
Finding Our New Normal
School of Music faculty, students, and alumni explore new ways of making music — and staying upbeat — during the COVID-19 pandemic
Dehcho: A Musical Journey Down the Mackenzie River
Professor of Cello Eric Wilson teams up with UBC academics and Dené leaders on a cross-cultural multimedia project honouring First Nations music and activism
Composers in Conversation
Award-winning faculty Dr. Dorothy Chang and Dr. Jocelyn Morlock talk about writing music in dialogue with Beethoven, creating art in a pandemic year, and what it means to be a contemporary composer
ALSO IN THE ISSUE
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Alumni Making Waves: Isolation Commissions, opera in virtual reality, and a cabinet position in the B.C. legislature
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Beyond the Gates: Classical Composer of the Year, virtual concerts, a UBC début, and Isolation Commissions
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Catching Up with Our Students: Songs of Comfort, new commissions, an SSHRC grant, plus a percussion fundraiser
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Research & Publications: New grants, Art Song pedagogy, Italian opera, and Baroque composer Gregor Aichinger
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New Recordings: Röntgen, Ryan, and a world première recording of Emmerich Kálmán
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New Faces and Faculty Milestones: Dr. John Roeder celebrates 35 years; the School welcomes two new professors
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Fall Concerts: Liberating Performances, Chopin, Viaggio a Reims, and Emily Carr’s life in Art Song
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Playlist: Comfort and Joy
Do you have a story? Let us know!
If you’re a UBC Music alumnus and you have news to share, please send a note to dina.macdougall@ubc.ca. We’re always looking for stories for upcoming editions of High Notes and our other networks.
Finding our new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic
Photo: Takumi Hayashi/UBC
There’s no single answer to these questions. So, while the School of Music has been busy reinventing our courses and our concerts to meet this new reality, we have also looked to our students, faculty, and alumni for inspiration. How, we wondered, has the pandemic changed the way they do things as artists, collaborators, neighbours, friends, citizens? What new ideas and experiences have they brought to bear on the challenges we all face?
We’ve been awed — overwhelmed, really — by their altruism, creativity, and optimism during such difficult times. We think you will be, too. Here are some of the many exciting projects that have sprung up over the past few months.
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Dehcho: A musical journey along the Mackenzie River
Professor of Cello Eric Wilson. Photo: Michael Shumiatcher
From a grassy ring in an outdoor pavilion, the sound of Dené drumming rings out to the mountains and rivers of the Mackenzie Valley: proud and vigorous, the pulse of a galloping heartbeat. Accompanying this is the sonorous voice of Dené leader Angus Ekenale, his eyes closed in fervour as he leads a traditional song while pounding on a hand drum. His voice is filled with colours: sometimes quavering, sometimes a chested cry, and then a low hum, inviting more and more voices from the Liidlii Kue First Nation to join in as one chorus, one spirit.
Perched on a cliff overlooking a torrential river, Professor of Cello Eric Wilson draws out the first notes of a sweeping, majestic melody on his cello. It sounds like the heartstrings of nature — music that sets free the spirit of raging rivers, vast blue skies and sprawling rosy sunsets. A tribute to the Mackenzie River Valley, and the First Nations guardians who have kept it pristine and welcoming.
The interweaving of these two musical cultures is at the heart of the Dehcho project — a multimedia collaboration celebrating the music and history of the Northwest Territories, and a bridge for reconciliation between Indigenous communities from the North and non-Indigenous people from the South.
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Composers in Conversation: Dr. Dorothy Chang and Dr. Jocelyn Morlock
Dr. Dorothy Chang and Dr. Jocelyn Morlock
Then the pandemic struck — putting this and many other projects on hold. Now the Beethoven commissions, though completed, lie waiting on the page. The composer community is adapting to the times, forgoing (for now) large orchestral compositions in favour of solo and small chamber works that have a better chance of being performed.
The world has changed, but the music must go on. High Notes sat down with Dr. Chang and Dr. Morlock to talk about writing music in dialogue with Beethoven, creating art in a pandemic year, and what it means to be a contemporary composer
As contemporary composers, what were the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece in dialogue with Beethoven?
Dorothy Chang: For Skizzen, the piece I wrote as a companion to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, I took inspiration from Beethoven’s famous sketchbooks, which contain notes and ideas for his Fifth Symphony. I sought not to recompose Beethoven’s music but instead to reference his ideas in raw form, when they were still merely flashes of inspiration and not yet developed into a complete work. Skizzen quotes a number of Beethoven fragments, at times distinctly recognizable and elsewhere transformed, spinning off in new directions and interpretations, much as a composer would explore the potentialities of a musical germ during the composition process.
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Fall 2020 concerts available online
The School of Music’s concert season looks a little different this year. Rehearsals are socially distanced and performances are broadcast online from empty halls. While we miss the joy of sharing music with live audiences, the change has opened up creative spaces for our musicians to re-imagine their performances, visually and musically. Here are some highlights:
More online concerts
New research and publications: Art Song pedagogy, Italian opera, and Baroque composer Gregor Aichinger
Professor of Collaborative Piano Rena Sharon contributed a chapter entitled “Art Song Pedagogy and Performance Practice; Re-envisioning the Realm in the 21st Century” to The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, Volume II: Education, edited by Helga R. Gudmundsdottir, Carol Beynon, Karen Ludke, Annabel J. Cohen and published this June. Prof. Sharon also delivered the lecture “Performative Co-creation: Chamber Music and Art Song as contributors to 21st century models of collaborative humanity” at CollabFest 2020: Conference for the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society in October 2020.
Professor of Musicology Dr. Alexander Fisher edited a new edition of the Baroque composer Gregor Aichinger’s Lacrumae Divae Virginis et Joannis in Christum a cruce depositum (Tears of the Blessed Virgin and John at the Deposition of Christ from the Cross). A cycle of eight motets published in 1604, the composition takes the form of a series of sung dialogues between Mary and John the Evangelist at the foot of the Cross for five or six voices. It is especially noteworthy for its relationship to an exquisite bronze sculptural group depicting Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross, erected around the same time in the church where Aichinger worked as organist, the basilica of Saints Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, Germany. Music and art thus combined in a multisensory experience.
More research and publications
Alumni Making Waves: Isolation Commissions, opera in virtual reality, new opera roles, and a cabinet position
Cris Derksen
In November, B.C. Member of Legislative Assembly Anne Kang (BMus’99) was named Minister of Advanced Education and Skill Training in Premier John Horgan’s new cabinet. She previously held the position of Minister of Citizens’ Services.
After two seasons at Opéra de Montréal, tenor Spencer Britten (BMus’15, MMus’17) joined the International Opera Studio at Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin where this season he will perform roles in Ariadne auf Naxos, Tannhäuser, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte, La Bohème, La Traviata, and more. He recently completed two summers with the Glimmerglass Festival, which occasioned his debut in France in a production of The Ghosts of Versailles at the Palace of Versailles itself, and will take part in the upcoming Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition’s Masterclass series.
For National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21st), Cree cellist and composer Cris Derksen (BMus’07) performed “New Heya,” “North,” and other songs that weave together traditional and contemporary music as part of a special online edition of the Chan Centre’s Roots and Shoots Music Education Program. In November, Cris performed a special stay-at-home Wednesday Noon Hours concert.
Flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor (BMus’95, DMA’12) won Classical Artist of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. McGregor released his latest album, Lutalica: Solo Flute Music from the Pacific Rim, last December.
More alumni news
Beyond the Gates: Classical Composer of the Year, virtual festivals, and a UBC début
Dr. Stephen Chatman
Dr. Stephen Chatman won Classical Composer of the Year at the 2020 Western Canadian Music Awards — his fourth such award (2005, 2006, 2010, 2020). Dr. Dorothy Chang was nominated for the same award, and David Gillham performed on Marcus Goddard’s album, which also garnered a Classical Composer of the Year nomination.
UBC Concert Winds Conductor Christin Reardon MacLellan received the 2020 Canadian Music Educators’ Association Builders’ Award and the BC Music Educators’ Association Distinguished Service Award for her leadership, advocacy and research in the field of music education during the pandemic. Alongside frequent School of Music collaborator Janet Wade, Prof. MacLellan was instrumental in creating and maintaining the “BCMEA/CMEBE Guidance for Music Classes in BC during COVID-19,” a living document which has allowed music education to continue in classrooms during the pandemic.
Sessional Lecturer of Flute Brenda Fedoruk was commissioned by Claudia Morawetz on behalf of the Capilano Flute Choir to perform …And the Strange Unknown Flowers… by Charles Delaney for the Isolation Commissions series. For the same series, adjunct professor of Oboe Beth Orson performed Plox and Gubbals by Frédérik Robert and trombonist and sessional lecturer Jeremy Berkman performed Lament for a Lost Car features Prof. Berkman in an empty parkade, with a title that elicits thoughts of a true “sad trombone” moment.
More faculty news
Catching up with our students: Songs of Comfort, new commissions, an SSHRC grant, and a percussion fundraiser
Lucy Strauss
Viola student Lucy Strauss was awarded an Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Explore grant over the summer for her telematic performance research, supervised by Prof. Marina Thibeault and Dr. Bob Pritchard. Her research explored themes of musical heritage and distance through improvised works for viola/mbira, dancer, and pre-recorded audio and video clips. Performed using web connections between Canada and South Africa, the audio/video processing was controlled by data generated by the sound and movements of the performers.
Ethnomusicology doctoral student Jason Winikoff recorded #Zoombia, a series of one-man African drumming ensemble videos that fundraised a total of $1,560 for five Zambian drum and dance troupes struggling to make ends meet during the global pandemic.
President Santa Ono launched Songs of Comfort on social media during the lockdown, a series of comforting home performances by UBC musicians and more. Many UBC Music students and groups were featured: Emily Logan, Adrian Pang, Sodam Lee, Yiyi Hsu, Siliang Wang, Thomas Pantea, harp trio Nathania Ko, Madison Dartana and Hayley Farenholtz, Rosea, Ubuntu String Quartet, Vitara Duo and more.
More student news
New Recordings: Röntgen, Ryan, and a world première recording of Emmerich Kálmán
In November, Associate Professor of Conducting and Ensembles Dr. Jonathan Girard and the UBC Symphony Orchestra released Emmerich Kálmán — Symphonic Poems, Saturnalia, Endre És Johanna on the Operetta Archives Label. The album features world première recordings of Kálmán’s two early symphonic poems, “Saturnalia” (1904) and “Endre és Johanna” (1906), written before he embarked on his journey as an operetta composer. The recording also features another world premiere recording, a waltz entitled “La Parisienne” (2010), by his son Charles. The album features the UBC Opera Ensemble under the direction of Prof. Nancy Hermiston, OC, and features alumni Scott Rumble (MMus’18), tenor, and Elana Razlog (DMPS’16, MMus’17), soprano.
Piano Division Chair Mark Anderson recorded Röntgen 5 – Works for 2 pianos by Julius Röntgen, Carl Reinecke and Johannes Brahms with Adjunct Professor of Piano Michelle Mares. The album, which offers the listener “an interconnected view of Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire for two pianos, much of it unknown and unpublished until now,” was released on Nimbus Records this autumn.
More new recordings
New faces and faculty milestones
Dr. Roeder, Prof. Hermiston, Dr. Metzer
Congratulations to Professor of Music Theory Dr. John Roeder who recently celebrated 35 years at the UBC School of Music, and congratulations to Professor of Voice and Opera Nancy Hermiston and Professor of Musicology Dr. David Metzer, who both joined the quarter-century club this year!
The School of Music welcomed two new full-time faculty members in 2020-21: Dr. Leigh VanHandel, Associate Professor of Music Theory, and Krisztina Szabó, Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera.
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Playlist: Comfort and Joy
By Alexander Fisher
When we are living through challenging times like these, music always provides something of a salve. Many of us are at home behind closed doors and wondering what the future holds, looking out the window at these sunny spring days which seem to provide a measure of hope. And with our normal routines upended, we can also turn to music to provide comfort.
For many centuries music has provided a vehicle for us to express grief, but also experience the promise of comfort and joy. This was certainly true in Germany during the 17th century, a time of massive dislocation and social upheaval. By the time the Thirty Years War broke out in 1618, Germany was already experiencing an economic downturn, worsened by outbreaks of disease; but the onset of the religious wars led to a period of incredible suffering. Germans of all religious stripes, but especially the Lutherans, turned to devotional prose, poetry, and music to convey the depths of human suffering and to gain some measure of comfort in the hope of eternal redemption.
Launch the playlist
