While eating dinner one unremarkable night in 2014, fellow musicians and Vancouver transplants Tom Landa and Robin Layne had a remarkable revelation.
“Vancouver has a folk festival and a jazz festival and a Celtic festival and a Jewish [arts] festival,” Landa recalls the two of them thinking. “Wouldn’t it be great to have a world music festival?
“I can’t believe we didn’t have one!” he exclaims, laughing. “I had to double check to make sure there wasn’t one.”
Indeed there wasn’t, despite the far-reaching appeal of the diverse (albeit vague) “world music” genre, which has long served as an umbrella designation for virtually any sound originating from outside of Canada, the US and Western Europe, whether Afro-Cuban jazz, Chinese folk, Tuvan throat singing – countless globe-spanning iterations.
And so, in 2015, the pair staged the inaugural Vancouver World Music Festival. By Landa’s own admission, it was a modest event: a single night at the Imperial, four bands, all of them local and known to one another. It was, more than anything, a test – of the city’s interest, of other artists’ interest, and of the organizers’ own ambition. “This is going to be a labour of love,” Landa and Layne told the festival’s would-be participants. “We have no money, we have no grants. Let’s just see if we can put the first year together.
“We reached out to, basically, our friends, our musical community,” he continues, “and we said, ‘We have no idea how it’s going to go. We don’t know what we can pay you. Are you willing to come onboard?’ And it was great – the response and support from everyone was amazing. In the end, it was successful and everyone got paid. But we wouldn’t have been able to do it had it not been for people saying yes.”
Last year’s sophomore edition was a modest step up: two nights at the Rio Theatre, and performers from beyond the environs of BC, as near as Seattle and as far as Mexico.
And this year, the fest has grown again, to three nights at venues across the city. In addition to Landa’s and Layne’s Latin-fusion-themed ensemble, Locarno, performers include H’Sao (Afro fusion, from Montreal), Farnaz Ohadi & the Mashregh Ensemble (Flamenco, from Vancouver by way of Iran and Spain), and the sprawling BC World Music Collective, which brings together local artists who have settled in the province from Africa, Brazil, Cuba and elsewhere.
Also a first this year: free, all-ages daytime music workshops at the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, where Layne is a percussion instructor. He and Landa have aimed to include an under-19 component in the festival from the beginning. “I envision this being a partnership that will continue,” says Landa. “Part of our mandate at the festival is to have some community outreach, and part of the [school’s mandate] is to provide musical education to underprivileged kids. It seems like a very natural partnership for us. We want to make sure that youth can come to this show for free, and also that they’re involved in playing in it. We have a lot of friends in the community who teach there, so we’re showcasing some of the students as well as Robin’s youth marimba ensemble, the East Van Marimba All Stars.”
Landa adds that this latest component is, with continued luck, a signpost of how the festival will evolve in years to come. “Eventually, if we can do it the way we envision it, we’d like to take it outdoors – a two- or three-day event where the whole thing can be all-ages and family-friendly.”
The Vancouver World Music Festival runs Apr. 6-8 at various venues. More info at worldmusicfest.ca
