Event Info
Voice ++ Festival: Reception, Screening and Performance by Christine Duncan and DB Boyko:
Open Space’s 3rd annual Voice++ Festival continues our exposition of the depth...
7:00pm Doors at: 7:00pm
$10/$12
Event Description
Open Space’s 3rd annual Voice++ Festival continues our exposition of the depths and edges of human vocal expression. Voice++ brings together local and national practitioners in performances, collaborations and public workshops that illuminate relations between people, places, cultures, and technologies -- all through the human voice.
Voice++ offers 3 concert performances, a community workshop, an artist panel discussion and a Voice++ Listening Room from May 7 through May 12 at Open Space.
Voice++ begins Monday evening, May 7 with the opening of the Voice++ Listening Room, a reception, DVD screening and a preview performance at 8 pm by two of Canada’s most adventurous vocalists. Christine Duncan, regarded by national critics as “one of the most elastic and versatile vocal instruments in Canada” is joined by Festival alumnus and well-known experimental vocal specialist DB Boyko in a wild mix of selections from their recently released CD Idiolalla. The evening also offers the first workshop by Duncan and Boyko to start the creation of Large Noise Goes Walking (At Dusk), a community-created composition commissioned for the Voice++ Festival by CFUV Community Campus Radio. Victoria singers and musicians are invited to collaborate with Duncan and Boyko in workshops May 7 – 11 to form a Voice++ ensemble that will perform the created work on Saturday, May 12.
Friday, May 11: Concert performance with Duncan and Boyko featuring Nobuo Kubota. Kubota, one of Canada’s foremost intermedia artists and a master of extended vocal techniques, will explore influences from his Japanese culture as well as Korean opera and Zen.
Kubota appears with fellow Torontonian Mark Sutherland, a language-based visual artist, poet and musician in a duo that can sometimes be described as the “vocalizations of 2 men reduced to that of feral beasts.” Sutherland and Kubota’s DVD Slowpoke will also be screened during the festival. Also on Friday night, the always enchanting Voice++ alumnus soprano Cathy Lewis (Victoria) is joined by Alexandra Pohran Dawkins (oboe) to perform works by Canadian composers John Oliver, Linda C Smith and Daniel Scheidt.
Saturday, May 12: Toronto composer Juliet Palmer, formerly from New Zealand and New York, has collaboratored with Anna Chatterton, playwright, Aki Takahashi, shamisen player and vocalist, and Christine Duncan to create the new work Province of the Impossible. Drawing on Japanese folksong and Schubert’s Die Winterreise, the artists have crafted a set of songs which bridge two worlds expressed by singing, shamisen, theremin and percussion that weave together shouts, chants and cries with throat singing, opera and gospel.
Also appearing on Saturday May 12 are Victoria interdisciplinary artist John Boehme in a presentation of his interactive performance piece Nameless, and Victoria percussionist David Humphrey, who deftly plays percussion and vocalizes in works by Daniel Biro and Frederic Rzewski.
Voices on the Edge, a lively panel discussion and demonstration with Voice++ artists, will take place Saturday, May 12 from 12 – 2 pm. This event is free and a rare opportunity to interact with these avant garde vocal masters.
Voice ++ Schedule:
Monday May 7: 7 pm Workshop with Christine Duncan and DB Boyko
Monday May 7: 8 pm Preview concert with Christine Duncan, DB Boyko and Cathy Lewis, plus screening of the Kubota / Sutherland DVD.
Tuesday – Saturday: Large Noise Goes Walking (At Dusk) Workshops with Christine Duncan and DB Boyko (call for times)
Friday May 11: 8 pm Concert with Nobuo Kubota, Mark Sutherland, Cathy Lewis, Alexandra Pohran Dawkins, Christine Duncan and DB Boyko
Saturday May 12: 2 pm Voices on the Edge Panel Discussion. Free.
Saturday May 12: 8 pm Concert with David Humphrey, John Boehme, Juliet Palmer, Aki Takahashi, and Christine Duncan; including Large Noise Goes Walking (at Dusk) community choir.
For more information, workshop times, and to register for Voice++ workshops, please call Open Space at 383-8833.
All concerts at 8 pm.
Ticket prices for concerts are $10 and $12, with a 3-concert pass at $20.
Venue
510 Fort Street
Multi-Purpose / Hall
Capacity220
since 1972