I remember the very first time I heard a composition by a Canadian composer. Do you?
I’ll never forget it. For me, the first time was the National Youth Orchestra performing R. Murray Schafer’s North/White at the Orpheum Theatre in 1973. It electrified me. The eery stillness of the arctic. The still beauty. The menacing roar of the snowmobile. The horror of the wah-wah boards — huge sheets of tin resounding like the rhythmic pumping of oil derricks.
I will never forget that moment of discovery as long as I live, music so revolutionary, like nothing I’d never heard before, music that rocked me, riveting me to the spot, compelling me to listen with every fibre of my being because it spoke to me about my world and my place in a larger world that was under threat.
What I didn’t know then was the Canadian Music Centre was there on that stage too. Just as much as the musicians of the NYO. The CMC may have been hidden from view, but the CMC helped make that performance possible. I didn’t see the Canadian Music Centre there. I didn’t know anything about them. But I know now that the CMC provided the score and parts the musicians were using to perform that majestic work, and that R. Murray Schafer was an accredited Associate Composer of the CMC.
That’s the magical thing about the Canadian Music Centre. Long before the first note of Canadian music sounds, the CMC is there. Fostering the next generation of creators and practitioners by offering free composition workshops for emerging composers. And presenting awards at music competitions for Outstanding Performance of Canadian Music and for Outstanding Composition at composition competitions.
Here in BC, the composer may have workshopped the piece during an Artist Residency in our Murray Adaskin Salon. Or the performers might have discovered the piece in our online library or by browsing through the 300 videos of Canadian music on our website or Youtube channel. The musicians may have rented the music from our library. Or we may have printed the parts with which they rehearsed and performed the music.
The performers may have rehearsed in one of our centres across the country. And the audience likely learned about the performance in Centrepulse, or one of the other regional newsletters that provide the go-to listings for new music in each province — or by reading one of the dozens of articles about new music on our website.
CMC BC may well have sponsored the performance if more than half of the music was written by BC composers. And even if we didn’t, information about the performance, and artefacts commemorating it like the program, photographs, reviews, and articles, will be preserved in our online Digital Archive along with more than 30,000 other artefacts capturing the history of Canadian music in BC.
You may not always notice us. But the CMC has been supporting the community that brings Canadian music to life for more than sixty years now. Nurturing an interconnected ecosystem of creators and practitioners, ensembles and presenters, students and teachers, patrons and funders. We are the indispensable resource fostering musical creativity and building a community of musical communities across the breadth of this country.
So, we hope you’ll take a second to think of the CMC the next time you hear a note of Canadian music. We’ve always been there for you. And we’ll be here for you for another 60 years, supporting your extraordinary creativity, and interest in the new!
To donate over the phone, please call Heather at 778-945-2705 or you can Donate Online
Please note: Due to the potential postage strike, we may not receive mailed cheques before the new year.