Portraits

Portrait 1

New Music in the Canadian Choral Landscape

  • Patri­cia Abbott: Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­di­an Choral Com­mu­ni­ties (Mon­tre­al)

The Cana­di­an choral land­scape is teem­ing with choirs eager to per­form new music and espe­cial­ly that of Cana­di­an com­posers. The Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­di­an Choral Com­mu­ni­ties’ Patri­cia Abbott describes the cur­rent choral music scene and offers insight for com­posers keen on writ­ing for this medi­um. She will also offer con­tact infor­ma­tion and ways in which com­posers can make their work known to choral conductors.

Portrait 2

Audience Development in Orchestras

  • Kather­ine Car­leton, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Orches­tras Cana­da (Toron­to)

“Com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment”, “audi­ence devel­op­ment”, and “edu­ca­tion and out­reach” are terms that have been used by orches­tras to describe their efforts to reach and engage less tra­di­tion­al audi­ences. Kather­ine Car­leton, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Orches­tras Cana­da (the nation­al mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tion for Cana­di­an orches­tras), will talk about the his­to­ry, evo­lu­tion and future of this work, with a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on orches­tras’ efforts to active­ly enlist audi­ence mem­bers as per­form­ers and creators.

Portrait 3

Composition and Musical Creativity in the Quebec Education System

  • Valerie Peters, Pro­fes­sor of Music Edu­ca­tion, Uni­ver­sité Laval (Québec)

This talk will present elec­tron­ic case stud­ies fea­tur­ing stu­dents and teach­ers from pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools in the province of Que­bec. These case stud­ies are the result of a ped­a­gog­i­cal project in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Office of Ped­a­gog­i­cal Ser­vices at Uni­ver­sité Laval. The video clips fea­ture stu­dents in the dif­fer­ent stages of the cre­ative process in music class­rooms. Also, there are inter­views with stu­dents as they explain how they compose/create music as well as inter­views with teach­ers, explain­ing the ped­a­gog­i­cal con­text and orga­ni­za­tion of the cre­ative activ­i­ties. I will make links between the case stud­ies and recent lit­er­a­ture about cre­ativ­i­ty and music com­po­si­tion in schools. After the pre­sen­ta­tion, there will be time to dis­cuss the dif­fer­ent chal­lenges in rela­tion to musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty in the class­room setting.

Portrait 4

Canadian repertoire for young musicians

  • Elis­a­beth Bihl, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre (Toron­to)
  • Mireille Gag­né, Direc­tor of the CMC-Que­bec (Mon­tréal)

Over its 50-year his­to­ry, the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre has always worked in close part­ner­ship with Canada’s music edu­ca­tors and orga­ni­za­tions. CMC’s long­stand­ing out­reach pro­grams such as the Com­pos­er kit, Com­pos­er in the Class­room or Com­posers in Elec­tron­ic Res­i­dence were val­ued and rec­og­nized by stu­dents and teach­ers alike. Upon launch­ing the CMC’s new web­site www.musiccentre.ca in 2004, the tra­di­tion was con­tin­ued. Today, CMC offers three online edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams com­plete with down­load­able teach­ers guides. SOUND ADVENTURES is an intro­duc­tion to music and is aimed at chil­dren from 5-—10 years of age. SOUND PROGRESSION pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the var­i­ous gen­res with­in the con­tem­po­rary music sphere, offer­ing infor­ma­tion to all ages; INFLUENCES OF MANY MUSICS presents a unique look at music from CMC Asso­ciate Com­posers who are new Cana­di­ans, and the reflec­tion of their duel her­itage in their music. The pre­sen­ta­tion will take a clos­er look at these CMC online edu­ca­tion­al tools. — Elis­a­beth Bihl

Cana­di­an reper­toire for young musi­cians exists, but too often the works are not suf­fi­cient­ly adapt­ed to the con­di­tions of pre­sen­ta­tion and per­for­mance in Que­bec schools. For twen­ty years, CMC Québec has col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Fédéra­tion des asso­ci­a­tions de musi­ciens édu­ca­teurs du Québec (FAMEQ) on the annu­al com­mis­sion of a work for school band, which is pre­miered at every annu­al Con­gress of the Fed­er­a­tion. More­over, and very recent­ly, FAMEQ and CMC Québec agreed to a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing that aims to revi­talise music edu­ca­tion, by pro­vid­ing teach­ers the nec­es­sary tools to help them accom­plish the task of teach­ing and explor­ing this spe­cial reper­toire and, vice-ver­sa, by invit­ing and sus­tain­ing com­posers who are ready to invest in active­ly com­pos­ing for young musi­cians. — Mireille Gagné

Portrait 5

New Music and Presenters Networks

  • Angela Drainville-Ashick, Direc­tor, CAPACOA & Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Clas­sic The­atre (Cobalt)
  • Bar­bara Scales, Own­er and Direc­tor, Lat­i­tude 45 Arts Pro­mo­tion Inc. (Mon­tréal)

This is an exchange between Bar­bara Scales, artist man­ag­er and agent, and Angela Drainville-Ashick, com­mu­ni­ty pre­sen­ter. The themes dis­cussed will include the roles of the artist, the agent and the pre­sen­ter, their par­tic­u­lar real­i­ties and the expec­ta­tions that each may have of the oth­er. CAPACOA Direc­tor, Angela Drainville-Ashick will review the bar­ri­ers and oppor­tu­ni­ties in pre­sent­ing new music at soft-seat venues across Cana­da. With a unique pre­sent­ing per­spec­tive, Drainville-Ashick will dis­cuss the needs of facil­i­ty pro­gram­mers in under­stand­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing to present new music.