An open letter of thanks from the Canadian Music Centre, the Regional Advisory Council for BC, and the close-knit team running our creative hubs in Vancouver and Victoria!

If you are reading this article you are part of an amazing family of patrons who support the Canadian Music Centre in many different ways. It’s your goodwill and generosity that makes it possible for the CMC to support the vibrant Canadian Music community in BC, and this article is our way of saying “Thank you!” Here are a few of the wonderful things you helped make possible over the past year:

Because of you, eleven emerging composers created eleven world premiers for the inaugural Jean Coulthard String Quartet Readings

The emerging composers, ranging in age from twelve to thirty, worked collaboratively with composer-mentor Farshid Samandari and the Borealis String Quartet, who gave feedback after each of two full reading sessions. The composers incorporated those suggestions into final works that were then performed for a packed house on Friday, June 9 in the Murray Adaskin Salon. The program and the concert were free to the public, thanks in part to the help of the Deux Mille Foundation.

You helped launch a new Canadian Music Centre library in Victoria!

Through your generous support we were able to open the new Rudolf Komorous Music Library in Victoria through a new partnership with the Victoria Conservatory of Music last August. This library is small but growing. If you have any Canadian scores or instruments you would like to donate, please contact Christopher Reiche at: victoriacreativehub@gmail.com

Your support helped us recognize extraordinary contributions to Canadian music across BC

Your donations made it possible for us to honour outstanding contributions to Canadian music across the province, through the presentation of fourteen Pentland Awards over the past twelve months in Prince George, Powell River, Langley, Victoria, and Vancouver. Recipients include the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, Turning Point Ensemble, Owen Underhill, Casse-Tête Festival, International Choral Kathaumixw, B.C. Registered Music Teachers Association, Sweet Scarlet, Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra, Norman Nelson, Nicole Linaksita, Ella Yu, and Brooklyn Wood.

You helped us make 5 documentary films about 5 BC legacy composers

CMC BC’s Legacy Composer Film Series celebrates the very first generation of composers to do something quite revolutionary: write western concert music on the West Coast of Canada, made possible through a grant from the BC Arts Council.

Murray Adaskin, Barbara Pentland, Rudolf Komorous, Jean Coulthard, and Elliot Weisgarber each contributed something unique, completely new, and remarkable to our nation’s cultural mosaic, both through their body of work and the living legacy of the students they inspired.

Produced and directed by Award-winning filmmaker John Bolton, the five short art films range in length from just over eight to fourteen minutes. Each film features a performance of a signature work by the composer, juxtaposed against a storyline unique to that piece of music, the performers, or the composer, and there are wonderful contrasts between the past and present, new and old. You can watch any of the short documentaries online at: musiccentrebc.ca/legacy-composer-film-series

Thanks to your generosity, two Grade 6 classes composed and performed soundtracks for their own movies

In 2016 CMC librarian Stefan Hintersteininger spent four days over several weeks working with two Grade 6 classes at Sperling Elementary School in Burnaby, helping students compose soundtracks for movies they had written, produced, acted in, and directed themselves. Then, for parents, the students performed live the soundtracks Stefan had helped them compose live as the films they’d made were shown. It was a remarkable demonstration of prodigious creativity and teamwork.

You helped celebrate six extraordinary BC composers last season with six sold-out concerts

Your enthusiasm for Canadian composers allowed us to launch our first concert series last October, and your embrace of CMC BC’s unique composer-immersion experiences sold out all six concerts. That endorsement allowed us to reach even further: co-presenting concerts with other outstanding organizations and artists including the University of Victoria, John Oliver, Barbara Pritchard, Class Axe, Bozzini Quartet, Queer Arts Festival, and Muzewest Concerts, as well as with Cathy Fern Lewis, Rod Sharman, and Rachel Iwaasa.

We were also able to partner with the Borealis String Quartet to present eleven world premieres by emerging composers in the final concert of our new, annual Jean Coulthard String Quartet Readings.

Can you please help us do more?

  • Your gift of $1,600 provides an eight-week Composer In The Classroom seminar to a classroom of grade-school students.
  • Your gift of $1,000 would sponsor a Murray Adaskin Salon Celebration this season.
  • Your gift of $500 covers the cost of one professional orchestral chair for the musicians performing in our performance space.
  • Your gift of $250 allows us to have our Adaskin Salon grand piano tuned.
  • Your gift of $200 makes it possible to offer a Teaching Intern to St. James Music Academy for ten hours one month next season.
  • Your gift of $150 helps us present another Pentland Award for Outstanding Performance of a Canadian Piece.
  • Your gift of $125 or more makes you a voting member of the Canadian Music Centre and demonstrates your support for our work.
  • Your gift of any amount helps enormously and would be greatly appreciated as a vote of support!

Here’s how you can donate now: Call Dave McLaughlin at 604-734-4622 or toll-free at 844-416-8742. Or mail a cheque made out to Canadian Music Centre to:

Canadian Music Centre BC
837 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1B7

Thank you for your Support!
Sean Bickerton,
BC Director
Canadian Music Centre