Concerts 2025
Floating Island: Opera Unbound
Floating Island: Opera Unbound
7:30pm • Saturday, November 11th • Annex, 824 Seymour
Uplifting the historically silenced voices of women and non-binary artists, this concert of contemporary Canadian works features music, dance, and the premiere of a new commission: Floating Island.
With music performed by an unusual ensemble of piano (Perri Lo), and two mezzo-soprano voices (Rachael McAuley and Taryn Plater), the concert ruminates on environmental stewardship and the precious “floating island” we inhabit. The program consists entirely of music composed by women and dance pieces performed by two dancers (TBC).
Floating Island explores themes of gender, beauty, and feminist history through music, electroacoustic soundscape, and movement. Anchored by an original setting of the poetry of Dorothy Wordsworth, the piece features live and pre-recorded vocals, and recordings of the natural soundscape in Wordsworth’s hometown. Composed by Kara Gibbs with choreography by Rhiannon Beausoleil-Morrison and Emma Hall, it reflects on the forgotten histories and hidden narratives that sit at the intersection of collective memory and imagination.
Floating Island was workshopped in the spring of 2024, and will receive further development at Bell Spiral’s Dance Deck in August. Its commission, development, and performance is supported by the SOCAN Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Canadian Music Centre.
PIANIST
Perri Lo is a pianist and vocal coach, working in opera, chamber music, and dance. Perri has worked across Canada, serving as pianist/coach in Montreal’s Institut Canadien d’Art Vocal, in Toronto with Opera Atelier, and in Banff as staff pianist and coach at the Banff Arts Centre Opera in the 21st Century Program. She has music directed productions with Re:Naissance Opera, Burnaby Lyric Opera, and Sound The Alarm Music Theatre – both in traditional and contemporary repertoire. In Fall 2022, she was assistant Music Director in the Canadian Premiere of Royce Vavrek and Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone. Perri is also a company pianist for Ballet BC and Arts Umbrella Dance Company.
MEZZO-SOPRANOS
Rachael McAuley is a mezzo soprano who was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario. After having made the move to the west coast a few years ago, Rachael is finding her footing in the Vancouver music scene. She is grateful to have had recent performance opportunities with Vancouver Chamber Choir, Early Music Vancouver, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and is a proud member of the Vancouver Bach Choir, under the direction of Leslie Dala. This year, she was a winner of the Western Canada District in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and took part in the Banff Centre’s inaugural Interplay program.
Taryn Plater is a singer and creator, applauded for her “dramatic and vocal thrust” (Opera Canada). Driven by an interest in opera’s relationship to different genres and mediums, her portfolio focuses on Ukrainian art song, new works, and the intersection of jazz and classical music. She is an emerging artist with Manitoba Opera’s 2024 DEAP program, was a 2021-2022 RBC Artist Fellow with the Association for Opera in Canada, and recently sang in workshops of Good Mess Opera Theatre’s new opera, Monsters Made. Taryn created the digital artist statement First Steps through Against the Grain’s 2021 National Opera Intensive, and continues to explore non-traditional opera creation with the development of her original multi-media performance piece, Pamyatayesh.
COMPOSER
Kara Gibbs is a composer and communications professional. Her work “Tegami”— a Canada Council commission for flute, guitar and soprano based on the text of poet and fellow Japanese-Canadian Carolyn Nakagawa—was premiered in 2019 at the VICO’s Global Soundscapes Festival. Her piece “Untitled Scenes: Two Remembered and One Imagined” written for flutist Mark McGregor and pianist Rachel Iwaasa was featured on the Tiresias Duo’s Trade Winds album, a composition WholeNote Magazine called a “discovery” that “covers the gamut from playful to meditative and serene.” Kara studied composition at the University of British Columbia with Keith Hamel, and is currently continuing her studies with composer Jennifer Butler. She performs regularly with the Balinese ensemble Gamelan Gita Asmara.
CHOREOGRAPHERS
Emma Hall was part of Arts Umbrella’s 3rd year program in 2023/34, collaborating with Ballet BC Annex to create and tour new works. In 2022, Emma toured with the Arts Umbrella Grad Company around the Netherlands, participating in performances and workshops with world renowned faculty. She attended the Henny Jurriëns, Arts Umbrella, Modus Operandi/Out Innerspace and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago summer intensives and workshops in Gaga Methodics.
Rhiannon Beausoleil-Morrison (They/Them) moved to Vancouver, BC in 2020 to join the Arts Umbrella Pre-graduate Program and continued to the Post-secondary Program. Rhiannon has worked with artists including Johan Inger, Ralitza Malehounova and Fernando Hernando Magadan. They have also participated in summer intensive courses at Modus Operandi (with David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen), Domaine Forget de Charlevoix (with Anne Plamondon), Arts Umbrella, and The School of Dance.