This past spring, the Belkin welcomed the UBC School of Music Contemporary Players as they responded to Stations: Some Recent Acquisitions. Directed by Paolo Bortolussi, the Contemporary Players (CP) ensemble includes graduate and undergraduate students focusing on music and performance of our time. In lieu of a public concert at the Belkin as has occurred in recent years, responses were adapted to follow public health orders amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students were invited to respond to works in the Stations exhibition in small groups of four. Bortolussi encouraged the ensemble to produce improvised pieces based on works that were intriguing to them, whether paintings, sculptures, masks or video works. Together, the groups created a layered sonic landscape consisting of different instruments that engaged works in the exhibition in entirely new ways. Bortolussi has shared some reflections on the program below, and the experience of adapting it to pandemic restrictions:

This past year challenged us to find ways to make CP a positive and rewarding learning experience despite not being able to perform in a chamber setting as we normally do. While these challenges at first were daunting, we found some fantastic approaches to keep the performers engaged in new and interesting ways that we will continue to use even without COVID restrictions!

In the first semester of the year-long course, we ran it almost completely online, assigning solo works by Canadian composers to each student, with a particular focus on representing the diversity of Canada’s new music community. Students toured the gallery in small groups and were asked to find works in the exhibit that spoke strongly to them, and to think about how they could use the inspiration of interacting with the exhibit to inform their performances. Each composition was recorded in the gallery in front of the selected work. In a sense, the artwork in the gallery was our audience – both inspiring the performers (as live audiences do), and also as a focal point to direct the performance.

In the second semester, we dove deeper into the interaction with the exhibit. Rather than having the artworks in the gallery influence the way we perform someone else’s work, we were able to take advantage of new COVID guidelines and have groups of four musicians develop live interactive improvisations based on chosen locations and artwork in the gallery. Students again took guided tours of the gallery, then made multiple return visits with their groups to discuss how they could translate their feelings and reactions to the art into a sonic improvisation. The performers were therefore not just conduits or partners for a composer’s vision, but were responsible for pushing themselves to find their own musical language to express their reactions to the artwork. This was such a valuable experience – performers becoming composers in a sense, and it really encouraged the students to articulate their thoughts about the artwork in the gallery, and share how they each accessed the work.

Performances

IMAGE (ABOVE): UBC CONTEMPORARY PLAYERS RESPOND TO WORKS IN THE STATIONS EXHIBITION, MARCH 2021. PHOTO: MARCUS PRASAd