The Cultch | Vancouver East Cultural Centre
2010-2011: Vancouver's most intimate venue. Contemporary theatre, dance and music

BC’s music and sonic art producer Vancouver New Music explores the works of Canadian artist Roy Kiyooka in four new music compositions for a large string ensemble

Western Canada’s Vancouver New Music is the winner of the ninth annual Alcan Performing Arts Award, a $60,000 production fund that is one of the largest awards of its kind in Canada. The company’s new work, entitled Counterpoints, will have its premiere at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre in February 2008.

Counterpoints, under the auspices of Vancouver New Music’s artistic director Giorgio Magnanensi, is inspired by the paintings, photographs, writings, videos and sounds of Roy Kiyooka (1926 – 1994). As a second-generation Japanese-Canadian, Kiyooka remains a singular and important figure in Canada’s artistic landscape, using contemporary art to appreciate the everyday.

BC composers Hildegard Westerkamp, Jocelyn Morlock, Stefan Smulovitz and Stefan Udell will be commissioned to write four new works creating a strong relationship with Kiyooka’s works in a total freedom of expression. The new compositions will take cues and motivations from specific characters, ideas and passages in Kiyooka’s works and will become an organic stimulus for an inner dialogue between Kiyooka and his displayed works, the composers, the performing musicians and the audience. Performers include violinists Joan Blackman, Marc Destrubé and Rebecca Whitling; cellist Peggy Lee; violist David Harding; and performance poet Kedrick James.

Vancouver New Music, founded in 1973, presents and produces cutting edge and experimental new music and contemporary sonic art. In the course of mounting a substantial concert season annually, Vancouver New Music commissions and premieres new works by Canadian composers; produces music-theatre; presents leading electroacoustic music, international composers and performers; produces the annual Vancouver New Music Festival; and explores the interaction of contemporary music with other disciplines. Further activities include a biennial Competition for Emerging Composers in British Columbia and lectures and workshops with visiting artists.

The Alcan Performing Arts Award is a $60,000 production fund open to performing arts companies resident in British Columbia. The award is funded by Alcan British Columbia and administered by the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. The competition rotates annually among the disciplines of Dance, Theatre and Music/Opera. An independent panel of dance professionals adjudicates the award.

The first winner, Vancouver dance company The Holy Body Tattoo, has toured its winning work, Circa, all over the world. The second winning company, The Electric Company, premiered Dona Flor and her Two Husbands in March 2001 to sold-out houses. Modern Baroque Opera’s 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade premiered to critical interest in March 2002, and battery opera’s Cyclops opened in February 2003. The Suicide, by Boca del Lupo in partnership with Mexico’s San Banquito Teatro, premiered in February 2004 and was performed in Mexico later that year. The Hard Rubber Orchestra’s Enter-Exit opened in March 2005, and Kidd Pivot’s Lost Action premiered in 2006 to great success. neworldtheatre's Adrift on the Nile opened February 2 and runs until February 10, 2007.

-30-