Announcing Murray Adaskin Salon Concert Series 2018/19

Imant Raminsh: 75th Birthday Celebration

7:00pm • Monday, September 17, 2018 • Murray Adaskin Salon
Season Opener

Born in 1943 in Ventspils, Latvia, Imant Raminsh came to Canada in 1948. After completing his studies in violin, composition, and conducting in Toronto, he spent two years at the Akademie “Mozarteum” in Salzburg, Austria, studying composition, fugue, violin and conducting, and playing in the professional Camerata Academica orchestra. Since his return to Canada, Imant Raminsh has made himself virtually indispensable to musical life in British Columbia as the founding conductor of the Prince George Symphony, the Youth Symphony of the Okanagan, NOVA Children’s Choir, and AURA Chamber Choir, and as a beloved composer of instrumental and choral repertoire. On the occasion of Imant’s 75th birthday, we celebrate this remarkable composer with an intimate performance of his most deeply-felt and personal statements, the three string quartets, played by his long-time champions, the Borealis String Quartet.

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Janet Danielson: Celebration of Women’s History Month

7:00pm • Monday, October 15, 2018 • Murray Adaskin Salon

October is Women’s History Month in Canada, a time for us to reflect upon and celebrate the achievements of women and girls throughout our history and recognize the trailblazing women who have shaped our country. One of these remarkable women is Janet Danielson, composer, music theorist, teacher, organizer, philosopher, and much more. Janet has advocated tirelessly for women composers in this country, in her capacity as a former chair and present treasurer of the Association of Canadian Women Composers, and beyond. Join us as we celebrate Women’s History Month with a concert featuring Janet’s spellbinding chamber works along with excerpts from her opera, The Marvelous History of Mariken of Nimmegen, based on a medieval European play about the struggle between supernatural forces for the destiny of a soul. Of especially urgent relevance today, the opera comments on the power of words, their use and abuse, and their positive and negative impact on the lives of people.

Michael Conway Baker Celebration

7:00pm • Monday, November 26, 2018 • Murray Adaskin Salon

Michael Conway Baker is a very rare figure in Canadian music; he is a composer who has, over the course of an astonishing, pioneering, six-decade (and counting) career, achieved enormous success across all his triple passions of writing music for the concert hall, for film and television, and for dance. Michael counts among his distinguished mentors such figures as BC Legacy Composers Jean Coulthard and Elliot Weisgarber, as well as British composers Malcolm Arnold and Lennox Berkeley, and now himself serves as a mentor and as an inspiration for new generations of emerging composers. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1937, Michael has made his home in British Columbia since 1958, and so we are thrilled for the opportunity to celebrate this legendary composer with a selection of pieces from all three of his major bodies of work, curated and presented by Michael himself in his own inimitable style.

Owen Underhill: 65th Birthday Celebration

7:00pm • Monday, January 21, 2019 • Murray Adaskin Salon

There are very few artists who have made as great contributions to their fields and to their communities as Owen Underhill. A true Renaissance man, Owen lives in Vancouver, where he is highly active as a composer, conductor, artistic director, teacher, board member, and faculty member in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. As a composer, Owen Underhill writes for diverse combinations including orchestra, voice and choir, and a wide variety of chamber music ranging from traditional ensembles to groupings of unusual instrumentation. His music has been described as dense and interesting, colourful, lyrical in inspiration, exuberant and witty, subtle, and thoughtful. As with his beloved mentor, BC Legacy Composer Rudolf Komorous, Owen’s music never fails to surprise, move, and delight the listener – often simultaneously. Join us as we celebrate Owen’s 65th birthday!

Alexina Louie: 70th Birthday Celebration

7:00pm • Monday, June 3rd, 2019 • Murray Adaskin Salon

One of Canada’s most highly regarded and performed composers, Alexina Louie was born in Vancouver in 1949, the daughter of second-generation Canadians of Chinese descent. At the age of seven, she began piano studies, and at seventeen, earned her ARCT at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Alexina continued her piano studies at the University of British Columbia where she also attended the composition classes of Cortland Hultberg, graduating with a Bachelor of Music in Music History in 1970. Following advanced studies in California, Alexina Louie has lived in Toronto since 1980, where she works as a freelance composer for concert, dance, television and film. Her uniquely personal style, rooted in a blend of East and West, draws on a wide variety of influences – from her Chinese heritage to her theoretical, historical and performance studies. Already celebrated around the world for her many award-winning solo piano compositions, this concert focuses on several of Alexina’s lesser-known, but no less brilliant, chamber works, on the occasion of her 70th birthday.

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