Sonic Boom Music Festival 2015 Kicks Off Today in Vancouver

The Sonic Boom Festival returns for its 28th year of contemporary classical music (new music). This truly unique musical experience will run for only 5 days, from today, March 25-29th, in two acoustically beautiful venues on Seymour Street in downtown Vancouver - the Orpheum Annex and Pyatt Hall.

Sonic Boom Festival 2015 showcases original compositional works of some of British Columbia`s most interesting composers, being performed by some of the best musicians of the Lower Mainland. This 5 day musical event is comprised of 4 evening concerts supplemented by an Experts Panel and a Student Composer Master Class. This year, the festival features Composer-in-Residence Aaron Gervais, Ensemble-in-Residence Turning Point Ensemble, Featured Artist PEP (Piano and Erhu Project), and an eclectic mix of ensembles of one to four players.

Composer-in-Residence, Aaron Gervais, is originally from Edmonton, AB and now is based in San Francisco working as a freelance composer. He holds a B. Mus from the University of Toronto and works with ensembles and presenters across North America and Europe. He is particularly interested in humour, found materials, quotation/collage, and the sociological aspects of how people use music. As such, Aaron's output ranges from the introspectively sombre to the irreverently slapstick, and critics have described his musical approach with statements from "I cried tears of laughter" to "unique, unsettling" and "this is just really great fun." Over the past few years, Aaron's work has centered around chamber music, vocal music, and opera, although orchestral music, live electronics, and pieces for dance and theatre also feature in his work. Groups that have presented Aaron's music include G27 Orchestra, the Nieuw Ensemble, Artists' Vocal Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, Momenta Quartet, Tapestry New Opera, Orkest de Ereprijs, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Knights Orchestra, Ensemble Klang, and the London Sinfonietta among others. He has also appeared on prominent festivals, including Amsterdam's Gaudeamus Music Week, Toronto's New Wave, soundaXis, and SHIFT fes­ti­vals, Aberdeen's Sound Fes­tival, New York's MATA Festival, and San Francisco's Other Minds Festival. Awards include the orkest de ereprijs's International Young Composers Competition, an ASCAP Gould Award, and six prizes in Canada's SOCAN Awards for Young Composers among others.

Ensemble-in-Residence, Turning Point Ensemble, have a goal to draw audiences to this music through outstanding performances and intelligent programming that creates a lively context for the music. Performances have included a fully staged presentation of Igor Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale; Bill Viola's seminal video accompanying Edgard Varèse's 20th century masterwork Déserts; Erik Satie's Relâche!, Darius Milhaud's La Création du Monde, Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto, John Adams' Son of Chamber Symphony, Thomas Adès' Living Toys; and the Rio Tinto Alcan Award-winning Firebird 2011 with music by Jocelyn Morlock and choreography by Simone Orlando. More recently, the ensemble presented the Canadian premiere of Toru Takemitsu's Archipelago S. and the live professional premiere of Barbara Pentland/Dorothy Livesay's 1954 opera, The Lake both in Vancouver and an outdoor production in West Kelowna at Quails' Gate Winery in a program which included members of the Westbank First Nation. Winners of the 2011 Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award (Music) and recently named one of Vancouver's best classical music ensembles by Georgia Straight readers, Turning Point Ensemble is active in encouraging and nurturing new Canadian and international works. Turning Point Ensemble has recorded three CDs: Strange Sphere (the music of Rudolf Komorous) on the Artifact Label, Disasters of the Sun (the music of Barbara Pentland) on the Centrediscs label, and Liquid featuring music for clarinet and large chamber on the ATMA label. As well, CBC has recorded Turning Point's concerts on numerous occasions and the ensemble has also done a variety of film score work. A new CD Thirst featuring the music of Ana Sokolovic and Julia Wolf is set for release this spring.

(PEP) Piano and Erhu Project is an exciting cross-cultural project consisting of Corey Hamm (piano) and Nicole Li (erhu) performing as a duo, combining the best of Western and Chinese music. They currently have over thirty composers from Canada and China writing new works for this erhu and piano combination and have toured in both Canada and China. Dr. Corey Hamm has a B.Mus. (Alberta.), M.Mus., and D.M.A. (Minnesota.). He is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia (Piano and Chamber Music) He has commissioned, premiered and recorded over 200 hundred solo, chamber and concerto works from such Canadian composers as Brian Cherney, Howard Bashaw, James Harley, Chris Paul Harman, Malcolm Forsyth, and composers from all over the world. A pre-eminent pianist he has performed and recorded many works of music from composers all over the world. Nicole Ge Li is currently Concert Master of the B.C. Chinese Orchestra and a regular member of the BC Chinese Music Ensemble. Li began learning the erhu at the early age of six and started training professionally at the age of 11 at the Wu Conservatory of Music Affiliated Secondary School, where she received a full scholarship for four consecutive years. Li has a Bachelor of Music degree in erhu performance from the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Pro Musica Society of Vancouver (aka: Vancouver Pro Musica) was founded in 1984 and is a non-profit organization of BC composers mandated to promote and foster musical life in the Province of British Columbia. In particular, the society supports growth and collaboration between composers and performers by sponsoring, promoting and producing concerts that showcase original, contemporary classical music created by BC composers and feature BC musicians performing such works. Vancouver Pro Musica's three main yearly productions are the Sonic Boom Festival, Electroacoustic Festival, and the Further concert series. To experience some of Vancouver Pro Musica's past musical events, visit: www.soundcloud.com/vancouver-pro-musica.

Sonic Boom Festival 2015 | March 25-29, 2015:

March 25: 7:30 pm- Experts Panel with Composer-in-Residence Aaron Gervais and guests. Venue: VSO School of Music's Pyatt Hall (843 Seymour Street, Vancouver).

March 26: 7:30pm- Mixed Ensembles Concert #1. Venue: VSO School of Music's Pyatt Hall (843 Seymour Street, Vancouver).

March 27: 7:30pm- Mixed Ensembles Concert #2. Venue: VSO School of Music's Pyatt Hall (843 Seymour Street, Vancouver).

March 28: 7:30pm- Mixed Ensembles Concert #3 and Featured Artist PEP (Piano and Erhu Project). Venue: VSO School of Music's Pyatt Hall (843 Seymour Street, Vancouver).

March 29: 10:00am- Student Composer's Master Class with Composer-in-Residence Aaron Gervais, Chris Morano (Piano) and Liam Hockley (Clarinet). Venue: Venue: VSO School of Music's Martha Lou Henley Classroom (843 Seymour Street, Vancouver).

March 29: 7:30pm- Evening Concert with Ensemble-in-Residence Turning Point Ensemble. Venue: Orpheum Annex (823 Seymour Street, Vancouver).

Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1290466.

VSO School of Music's Pyatt Hall (843 Seymour Street, Vancouver). (Map: http://goo.gl/maps/80ytm.)

Orpheum Annex (823 Seymour Street, Vancouver). (Map: http://goo.gl/maps/9ptff.)

For more information (including concert programs), visit www.vancouverpromusica.ca.