As you’ll have seen from Stefan Hintersteininger’s posts from Orchestra North up in Smithers, CMC BC had a busy summer! I thought you’d enjoy seeing a few of the highlights from June. We had a lot of fun, made new friends, went places, and did new things. Isn’t that what summer is all about?

Final concert of Jean Coulthard String Quartet Readings with Composer-Mentor Farshid Samandari, Borealis String Quartet, & 11 composers!

On Friday, June 9, the Borealis String Quartet premiered eleven short string quartets created by emerging composers during our first-ever Jean Coulthard String Quartet Readings. Eleven young composers ranging in age from twelve to thirty participated in two reading sessions, incorporating suggestions from the Borealis Quartet and Composer-Mentor Farshid Samandari.

Victoria Pub Night

Thanks to a grant from the Deux Mille Foundation, the program was free and so was the concert. It was terrific to see the Murray Adaskin Salon packed with young people on the night of the concert, something that would have made Murray Adaskin very happy!

On Wednesday, June 14, our BC Librarian Stefan Hintersteininger joined our Victoria Engagement Leader Christopher Reiche-Boucher and twenty-five composers for a Pub Night at the Bard and Baker in Victoria.

On Wednesday, June 21, the award-winning arts marketing gurus from the Murray Paterson Marketing Group (MPMG) presented us with the findings and insights gained through an extensive consultation conducted with our patrons. They did an outstanding job for us, employing a widely distributed questionnaire, holding two in-depth focus groups, and a series of one-on-one interviews. I’ll be reporting more on their findings later this fall, but I wanted to share with you their introduction to the final report:

“The Canadian Music Centre in BC is many things to many people; but across all its incarnations, it is an organization that commands respect and appreciation. The process of speaking to its patrons is a distinctly different one than with any other arts organization.

“Market research in this sector typically involves coming to understand customers: Why they are purchasing, what they like about the art being shared, and how we can serve them better. CMC does not just have customers however; it has invested partners.”

Everyone that responded to that survey was entered into a draw for an iPad Mini, which was won by Kate Rhodes in Victoria, pictured here receiving the prize in our Victoria Creative Hub with Christopher Reiche.

 

Christopher Reiche-Boucher presents Mini iPad to Kate Bowles in Victoria Creative Hub

On Saturday, June 24, the Queer Arts Festival presented Cris Derksen’s wild Orchestral Powwow at the Roundhouse and CMC BC was pleased to support the performance as a co-sponsor by lending a suite of high-definition cameras and hard drives to capture that rousing outdoor concert.

Queer Arts Festival presentation of Chris Derksen’s Orchestral Powwow at the Roundhouse

On Wednesday June 28 and Thursday June 29, CMC BC closed for a two-day internal retreat in our enhanced CREATE Board Room with a new 16’ x 5’ Whiteboard Wall facilitated by the redoubtable Mark Friesen, Consulting Manager with Vantage Point. This is one of the videos we watched:

And then we started diagramming out everything we do. (This is just half!) And those are just a few highlights from the month of June! Highlights from July and August will follow next week.