CMC BC, in partnership with Redshift Music Society, is pleased to announce Unaccompanied, a new online concert series featuring video recordings of live performances of Canadian works written for solo instruments. Initially ten musicians are being asked to record a live performance of a solo Canadian work of their own choosing. Other musicians will be asked to participate as we secure additional funding. Once a week, a video recording of each performance will be posted on our website and Vimeo page, and circulated via Centrepulse, our Facebook page and our Twitter account.

Some of the first musicians to be contracted include Colin MacDonald, saxophone, Dory Hayley, soprano, Mark Haney, contrabass, Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute, Marina Hasselberg, cello, and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, piano. More will be announced in coming weeks.

The series is being driven by Jordan Nobles, our fantastic Librarian and de facto composer-in-residence, and derives from our desire to continue bringing extraordinary Canadian works of beauty and passion to life, as well as to help ameliorate in a small way the impact of so many cancellations on some of our province’s most talented and brilliant musicians.

It also stems from my own experience as a violinist, having spent many late nights as a young man soaring through Bach’s magnificent works for unaccompanied violin in practice rooms, playing to the dark in glorious isolation, completely immersed in the music.

It is our hope that others might take this idea and run with it. That it might become a jumping off point for the creativity that composers and the entire microcosm of new music aficionados live and breathe every day of their working lives.

In response to the coronavirus epidemic and at the urging of public health authorities, we have closed our offices to the public across Canada. But we are still working to bring Canadian music to life. To champion Canadian composers. To work with the extraordinary musicians who are such passionate interpreters and proponents of their music. And we are still providing our unique, customized music Print and Bind service.

We urge you to remain at home as much as possible for the foreseeable future. To use that time to create. To think of new ways you can continue to communicate with audiences virtually. And to remain safe and keep those you love safe.

We will all do what’s necessary together and get through this by supporting each other.

Warmest regards,
Sean Bickerton, Jordan Nobles &
the entire team at the Canadian Music Centre