Sonic Responses invites eight musicians and one composer to respond to the changed aural conditions of UBC’s outdoor spaces. Their music making confronts and enters into a dialogue with the quiet that currently resides on campus. Responding to different locales and situations, the repertoire for Sonic Responses stretches across a broad range of traditions.
Canadian composer Elizabeth Raum’s “Idiom” for solo horn is, as Valerie Whitney writes, “exactly what the title suggests – a work evoking all traits characteristic of this wildly versatile instrument. An opening fanfare calls us to the hunt and we’re off on a ride of galloping rhythms with classic rustic tonalities and timbres that are idiomatic of the natural horn. As most hunting music has been moved to indoor concert halls, it is a rare and delightful treat to have a work like this actually realized in an outdoor setting, a setting in which the horn’s raw and vibrant personality is most at home.” Whitney performs “Idiom” on the exterior stairway of the Friedman Building – one of the many modernist buildings at UBC – with the sound of her horn carrying across the empty expanse of the neighbouring commons. The open metal staircase where she stands wraps around a concrete buttress that was added to the building in 2008 as part of a seismic upgrade. Referencing the Brutalist style of the modern era, this new addition pays homage to the stripped-down materiality of concrete and metal and the simple structural effectiveness of rhythm and repetition – an apt backdrop for Whitney’s performance.
Sonic Responses furthers the collaborations between the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the School of Music that will continue through Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts (Fall 2020). The project is led by Barbara Cole, Curator of Outdoor Art, David Metzer, Professor of Musicology and Chair of the University Art Committee, and Judith Valerie Engel, a doctoral candidate in piano performance. Sonic Responses was initiated by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in collaboration with the School of Music and supported by the British Columbia Arts Council’s Arts and Culture Resilience Supplemental Award and UBC’s Catalyzing Research Clusters Program.
Images (above and below): Rachel Topham Photography
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Carlos Savall Guardiola on clarinet performing “Abîme des oiseaux / The Abyss of the Birds” by Olivier Messiaen as part of Sonic Responses, a collaboration between the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the School of Music. Performed on Trail 7 adjacent to the University of British Columbia, located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
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Nathania Ko on Chinese harp performing “Earth,” the first piece of the cycle “Pao Xiu Luo Lan” by Xijiin Liu as part of Sonic Responses, a collaboration between the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the School of Music. Performed between the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability and the Pacific Museum of Earth at the University of British Columbia located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
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Sempùlyan on drum singing a Musqueam paddle song as part of Sonic Responses, a collaboration between the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the School of Music. Performed in Library Garden (near Learner’s Walk) at the University of British Columbia, located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
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Taees Gheirati on santour as part of Sonic Responses, a collaboration between the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the School of Music. Performed in the wooded area between the Asian Centre and Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
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Valerie Whitney on French horn performing “Idiom” by Elizabeth Raum as part of Sonic Responses, a collaboration between the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the School of Music. Performed on the southeast exterior staircase of the Friedman Building at the University of British Columbia located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
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A series of performances that explore the sounds - and silence - of a now-quiet campus.
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