New music, modern tap dance, and the building itself played as a musical instrument

The Sex Lives of Vegetables … And Other Delicious Distractions is a nutritious – sometimes naughty! – jaunt down the garden path investigating bees, weeds …. and the surprising sex lives of vegetables.  Governor General Award-winning poet Lorna Crozier—who was inspired to write The Sex Lives of Vegetables when she cut into a yam—joins musicians AK Coope (clarinet), Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa (piano) and Heather Pawsey (soprano) in this chamber music celebration of the garden’s glories, set in the beautiful new Visitor Centre at the VanDusen Botanical Garden.  Featuring Canadian composer Leslie Uyeda’s settings of the (in)famous vegetable poems, and the world premiere of Canadian composer Leila Lustig’s Eve to Adam, The Sex Lives of Vegetables … And Other Delicious Distractions is a fresh and delicious musical feast!

Watch the great video here:

The Sex Lives of Vegetables

The Sex Lives of Vegetables ticket buyers enjoy free admission to the stunning VanDusen Botanical Garden from 6:30 – 7:00 p.m. (concert night only)

Saturday, April 20, 2013

7:30 p.m.

VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre

(5251 Oak Street at West 37th Avenue, Vancouver, BC)

Tickets:  Adults:  $25 / Students & seniors:  $18

The Sex Lives of Vegetables Tickets Available through:

http://sexlives.brownpapertickets.com/

Or in person (cash only) at VanDusen Botanical Garden (Admissions Desk) or at the door

Katheryn Cernauskas and Heather Pawsey (rt) perform in a previous vineyard setting

COMPOSER’S CUVÉE – Canadian, Contemporary and Captivating!

A “New Music in New Places” concert

Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. Summerhill Pyramid Winery, 4870 Chute Lake Road, Kelowna, BC FREE (Reservations required; book online at www.summerhill.bc.ca/wines/music)

“Music is the wine which inspires … I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind…”

- Ludwig van Beethoven

The Okanagan—a rich source of inspiration for composer and winemaker alike. From key- board to vineyard, ideas ferment in a perfect blend of natural beauty and sophisticated tastes to engage both senses and soul.

Composers’ Cuvée showcases the music of five (5) resident Okanagan composers: Imant Raminsh (Ver- non); Anita Perry (Summerland); Ernst Schneider (Penticton); Jean Ethridge (Salmon Arm); and Keith Ted- man (Summerland).

This unique concert of contemporary Canadian classical works offers a rare opportunity to mix and mingle with the creators behind the music, amidst the stunning surroundings of Canada’s premier certified organic winery.

Critically acclaimed musicians Kathryn Cernauskas, flute; Jane Hayes, piano; Heather Pawsey, soprano; Janna Sailor, violin; and Rebecca Wenham, cello are particularly noted for their fearless and innovative approaches to contemporary music. Between them they have premiered hundreds of new Canadian works across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Admission to Composers’ Cuvée is free; however, due to space restrictions, seating is limited and avail- able on a first-come, first-served basis. To ensure a seat, please book on line at www.summerhill.bc.ca/ wines/music

“New Music in New Places” takes Canadian music out of concert halls and into venues where contemporary, classical music is not usually performed. It is a national initiative of the Canadian Music Centre, generously supported by the SOCAN Foundation and the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage (Canada Music Fund).

Composers’ Cuvée is presented by the Canadian Music Centre with Astrolabe Musik Theatre and is made possible by the generous support of Summerhill Pyramid Winery, with special thanks to Casa Loma Lakeshore Resort Hotel.

Full-bodied and harmonious. Well structured and stylish, featuring rich colours with sparkling accents. Com- pletely Canadian artistry with a beguiling beginning and a flavourful finish.

THANK YOU to all who attended last night’s opening of The Lake!  Tickets still available for the November 15 performance of The Lake  through TicketMaster, or at the door.

http://www.ticketmaster.ca/Turning-Point-Ensemble-tickets/artist/1492773

November 14-15, 2012

UPDATED: November 14th is Sold Out. But tickets are still available for November 15th. All audience members over 19 may enter the amazing Quails Gate prize draw package.
8:00 p.m.
Telus Studio Theatre, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
University of British Columbia, 6265 Crescent Road, Vancouver, BC

Tickets

1873:  ON A STRANGELY STORMY DAY, Susan Allison peers out over Lake Okanagan, anxiously searching the waters for the boat which her husband, John, and their Métis guide, Johnny MacDougall, have taken to deliver flour for grinding at the grist mill in Okanagan Mission.  As the winds whip the trees and waves, and her aboriginal child-nurse, Marie, urges her to come indoors, Susan spies a long, undulating figure in the water, “like a huge tree trunk …. moving fast.”  Is it N’ha-a-itk, the fearful monster of the Lake?  And what has become of John and MacDougall?

Susan Allison (neé Moir) in 1860

Astrolabe Musik Theatre is proud to collaborate with the Turning Point Ensemble in celebrating outstanding Canadian composer Barbara Pentland’s centenary with a live, professional premiere (60 years after its composition) of her 1952 one-act opera The Lake, with libretto by trailblazing Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay.  Performed in a semi-staged version, The Lake is directed by James Fagan Tait, conducted by Owen Underhill, and features soprano Heather Pawsey as Susan Allison; bass-baritone Angus Bell as John Allison; mezzo-soprano Barbara Towell as Marie; and tenor John Arsenault as Johnny MacDougall.

Rounding out the program is music by one of Pentland’s teachers, Aaron Copland.  Two of his early chamber works – Sextet for clarinet, piano and string quartet (1937) and Vitebsk (Study on a Jewish Theme – 1929) are paired with the premiere of a new sextet (Ascendant) dedicated to the memory of Aaron Copland by New York composer and Grammy-nominated jazz musician Dave Douglas.

The Allison's original home at Sunnyside

Susan and John Fall Allison were the first Europeans to settle in what is now Westbank.  The original log cabin from their homestead, “Sunnyside”, has been restored by the Stewart family of Quails’ Gate Estate Winery, which now occupies the original Allison land.  The cabin, known as The Allison House, is now a market for local artists and artisans.

Barbara Pentland (1912-2000)

Barbara Pentland (1912-2000) was one of Canada’s most original voices, and a pioneer in Canadian contemporary music.  Dorothy Livesay (1909 – 1996) was one of the leading Canadian poets of the twentieth century, and twice a Governor General’s Award winner.  Together they created a work that, for its time, explores characters and issues in a highly distinctive way.  This presentation of her only opera is part of an international festival of Pentland’s works organised by the Canadian Music Centre.

The home restored, as Allison House, at Quails Gate Estate Winery

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd; belle ancell photo

Many, many thanks to all who attended In Passing at the Western Front November 12 & 13.  We were so proud to be a part of Vancouver’s 125th celebrations, and incredibly moved by your heartfelt response.

Photos of Apparition (music by George Crumb; text by Walt Whitman)

Heather Pawsey, soprano

Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, piano

Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, choreography

Gerald King, lighting

Photos by belle ancell

Vocalise 1: Sounds of a summer evening; belle ancell photo

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet; belle ancell photo

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet; belle ancell photo

Come lovely and soothing death; belle ancell photo

Come lovely and soothing death; belle ancell photo

The night in silence under many a star, belle ancell photo

]]> http://www.astrolabemusiktheatre.com/?feed=rss2&p=249 0 http://www.astrolabemusiktheatre.com/?p=224 http://www.astrolabemusiktheatre.com/?p=224#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:16:04 +0000 admin http://www.astrolabemusiktheatre.com/?p=224 A multidisciplinary work on mourning & mortality with Heritage Vancouver, Tara Cheyenne Performance, and SD Holman Part of the City of Vancouver’s 125 anniversary celebrations What is time, and how do we perceive it?  In the midst of life, how do we regard and acknowledge death?  How can we honour and celebrate the present without [...]]]>

Heather Pawsey and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa in performance

A multidisciplinary work on mourning & mortality

with Heritage Vancouver, Tara Cheyenne Performance, and SD Holman

Part of the City of Vancouver’s 125 anniversary celebrations

What is time, and how do we perceive it?  In the midst of life, how do we regard and acknowledge death?  How can we honour and celebrate the present without knowing what has passed before?

Astrolabe Musik Theatre with Heritage Vancouver, Tara Cheyenne Performance, and photo-based artist SD Holman present the Vancouver premiere of In Passing, a site-specific, multi-disciplinary work on the fascinating and taboo subjects of mourning and mortality at the Western Front, November 12 &13, 2011 at 8pm – part of the City of Vancouver’s 125 anniversary celebrations.

“Death:  perhaps an unusual theme for such a significant celebration, but Vancouver is not only a place where we are born and live, but also where we die – or ‘pass away’,” explains Heather Pawsey, Artistic Director of Astrolabe Musik Theatre. “Our buildings, too, have lives, many of which have been reincarnated from their original function to radically different purposes — oftentimes with hidden histories and secret spaces we may not know “in passing”. Astrolabe Musik Theatre is proud to be presenting In Passing, having gathered an esteemed assemblage of artists to make profound commentary on this subject matter.”

The multi-disciplinary evening will include performances by:

Astrolabe Musik Theatre presenting George Crumb’s formidable and powerful circular evocation of Death, Apparition (text by Walt Whitman), performed by Heather Pawsey, soprano, and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, piano, with choreography by Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg; coupled with the world premiere of British Columbia composer Leslie Uyeda‘s Pas de Deux –

What We Heard About Death (poetry by BC poet Rachel Rose);

Tara Cheyenne Performance offers The Three Widows (an excerpt from the upcoming, full-length work Highgate), performed by Alison Denham, Bevin Poole and Kim Tuson. The piece looks at three widows of differing ages, conjoined by their skirt(s) and struggling to support each other in mourning while escaping the impossibility of moving on;

Photo-based artist SD Holman presents the intimate and poignant installation Still Life, a memorial piece to her wife Catherine White Holman

Photo-based artist SD Holman will showcase the intimate and poignant photo installation Still Life, a memorial piece to her wife Catherine White Holman who died in a floatplane crash off Saturna Island in 2009.  Attendees will also have the opportunity to create art in response to art, should they feel compelled following the performance experience. The art installation will be open to the public beginning on Remembrance Day, Nov. 11 &12, from noon to 5pm, free of charge, and with a ticket during show times; and

Heritage Vancouver who will open the evening with an intriguing building walking tour, shedding light on burial practices and cemeteries in early 1900s Vancouver, including the unveiling of an unknown and eerie aspect of the Western Front:  the preparation of its members’ bodies for burial by the building’s original owners, the Knights of Pythias (an inaccessible, secret society) and the existence of this room and coffin-storage in the now publicly accessible, creative space.

In Passing will break from traditional form, affording audiences the rare opportunity to attend both the music and dance performances twice each evening – both works will be performed simultaneously in different rooms of the Western Front. This offering provides patrons with ample time to contemplate and absorb the multi-faceted layers of the evening, while attempting to connect performer and audience member on a more intimate level.

TICKETS for In Passing are $25 for adults, and $18 for students/seniors, and are available through Brown Paper Tickets: ca.brownpapertickets.com and can also be purchased at the door.

The art installation, Still Life, will also be open to the public beginning on Remembrance Day, Nov. 11 & 12, from noon to 5pm, free of charge, and with a ticket during show times.

Western Front is located at 303 East 8th Avenue, Vancouver.

For more information, please visit:

www.astrolabemusiktheatre.com

www.sdholman.com

www.taracheyenne.com

www.leslieuyeda.com

www.heritagevancouver.org

Astrolabe Musik Theatre gratefully acknowledges support from the City of Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary Grants Program, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of BC, and the Western Front.

About Astrolabe Musik Theatre

Astrolabe Musik Theatre was founded by Artistic Director, soprano Heather Pawsey.  The company is committed to presenting multi- and inter-disciplinary collaborations, particularly with Canadian creators and performers. Astrolabe is passionate about commissioning and performing new works by Canadian artists in non-traditional venues, and dedicated to the dynamic and active engagement of audiences through innovative programming and the creation of new experiences through site-specific venues.

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For further media information, contact

Laura Murray  T: 604.558.2200  C: 604.418.2998

lmurray@lauramurraypr.com