When musician and composer Dorothy Chang arrived in Vancouver from her native US in 2003, to become a professor of music at UBC, she “didn’t know a lot about Vancouver’s music scene,” she admits. “I knew there was one; I just wasn’t very familiar with what was going on.”
A pianist since the age of six, Chang was studying business at the University of Michigan when her interest was piqued by an ‘Introduction to Contemporary Music’ class available to students not majoring in music. In her third year, she switched her major to composition. ‘Contemporary’ music – an amorphous, eclectic notion of classical music that marries traditional forms to folk, world music, pop, electronics, and seemingly everything else under the sun – “just spoke to me,” she recalls. “I liked the wide range of expressions, the expansion of all of the languages and materials I’d learned to that point. It just opened up a new world. It sparked this immense curiosity.”
Settling into the city and her new job, she was relieved to find a welcoming environment in which her own music could grow. “It’s a young enough music scene that new musicians can come in and have a place to be heard, and gain an audience and have support. I benefitted from that, because I was a newcomer.”
Chang finds that same climate of inclusiveness in the Sonic Boom Festival, an annual, multi-day presentation of new works from BC composers, presented by local non-profit society Vancouver Pro Musica (VPM). For this year’s 30th edition, Chang is serving an enhanced role as VPM’s composer-in-residence. Not only is one of her own pieces being performed; she also will provide feedback to other composers about their compositions and technique, and act as an informal host at the four nights of concerts.
Owing to its ambiguous name and its roots in classical works from before the 20th century, contemporary music continually has to work hard to reach the unconverted, who anticipate uptight formalism and sprawling orchestras playing hour-long symphonies. In fact, contemporary usually involves solo performers or small ensembles, and values brevity as much as the exploratory. “It’s difficult to categorize it because it’s so diverse,” Chang concedes. “So when people say ‘I don’t like contemporary music’ or ‘I don’t understand it,’ I wonder if they’re truly aware of all the different genres and styles that are out there right now.
“One thing this festival does very well is provide a snapshot of many different things that people are writing, at all levels, from emerging composers to former composers-in-residence of the VSO. There’s going to be a huge variety.”
This year, that variety includes cellist Marina Hasselberg, formerly of Portugal and now based in Vancouver, who in addition to her work with baroque ensembles and orchestras has performed with pop stars including Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey; and Erato Ensemble, and eight-piece collective that describes itself as “not your grandmother’s classical music,” incorporating a solo vocalist and unconventional instrumentation such as saxophone and electric guitar. The only unifying attribute of the fest’s performers is that all of them are based in this province.
“I think of it as one of the major events of contemporary music in Vancouver,” Chang says of Sonic Boom, “because it’s the only festival I know of that features exclusively the music of BC composers. If anyone is curious about what kind of music is being written in the realm of contemporary classical in BC, it’s a great way of resourcing all of that at once. And what I also love about it is it creates this larger music community, because it brings together the emerging with the established composers, side by side in the same concert.”"
The 2017 Sonic Boom Festival runs Mar. 16-19 at various venues. Tickets and info: vancouverpromusica.ca
