CMC BC News
The Weisgarber Legacy 20 Years On
By Karen Suzanne (Weisgarber) Smithson. As the old, serrated-edged computer paper pumped through the printer the day my father died, I watched with amazement as his life reappeared in front of me, his memoirs and correspondence now filling stacks of pages on his desk. As it turned out, they were just the beginning of a [...]
First Ever National Day For Truth And Reconciliation
Today is our first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, created, in the words of the website set up to commemorate the occasion, to "honour the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of [...]
Announcing The R. Murray Schafer Spatial Music Workshop
The Canadian Music Centre in BC and Redshift Music Society are pleased to announce the first-ever R. Murray Schafer Spatial Music Workshop, a free online seminar offered to composers across the country with the goal of exploring spatial (or ‘socially-distanced’) acoustic music. Building on the success of CMC BC’s Jean Coulthard String Quartet Readings and [...]
Gathering in the Forest for R. Murray Schafer
Written by Jennifer Butler (Published with permission by composer Jennifer Butler. Previously published by CBC) R. Murray Schafer's annual Wolf Project is a participants-only collaborative, experiential week of chant, music, theatre and camping in the wilderness of Haliburton Forest. Composer Jennifer Butler has been a participant in Schafer's Wolf Project since 2000 and recalls the [...]
Tribute to R. Murray Schafer from Jon Washburn
Remembering R. Murray Schafer (Published with permission of Jon Washburn and Vancouver Chamber Choir) In my 48 years as conductor of the Vancouver Chamber Choir, my greatest privilege was to be a colleague, friend and champion of the great and genius Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. "Our Murray Schafer", as we often thought of him, [...]
The Music And The Light
As you may have surmised from the title, I've been re-reading Hilary Mantel's glorious Booker Prize-winning Cromwell Trilogy, which culminates in The Mirror And The Light. One of the many things that struck me through this second reading was the constant presence of plague in the shadows of the main storyline. There was no understanding [...]