Sonic Boom Festival 2023
March 15, 17 – 19, 2023
VAM / VSOSoM / Pyatt Hall / Koerner Hall / St. James Community Square / ANNEX
A five day festival of exciting new music created by BC composers, performed by eclectic combinations of some of BC’s finest musicians!
Composer-in-Residence: Jennifer Butler
Featured Artists:
Dory Hayley, soprano & Michael Park, piano
Ensemble-in-Residence: Turning Point Ensemble
Ticket Info
Featured Artists Concert – Dory Hayley, soprano and Michael Park, piano
Eventbrite – Ticket starts at $11.98 (fees included)
Mixed Ensemble Concert
Eventbrite – Ticket starts at $11.98 (fees included)
Composition Development Sessions
Admission Free – donation encouraged
Featured Artists Reading Session
Saturday, February 11, 2023 – 2:00 pm
O’Brian Room – VSO School of Music – 843 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Admission by Donation
Composition Development Session 1
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 6:00 pm
New Venue: St. James Community Square – 3214 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver
Admission Free – Donation encouraged
Featured Artists Concert
Friday, March 17, 2023 7:30 pm
Pyatt Hall – VSO School of Music – 843 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Ticketed Event – Eventbrite
Mixed Ensemble Concert
Saturday, March 18, 2023 7:30 pm
Koerner Hall – Vancouver Academy of Music – 1270 Chesnut Street, Vancouver
Ticketed Event –Eventbrite
Composition Development Session 2 / 3
Sunday, March 19, 2023 1 pm / 6 pm
ANNEX – 823 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Admission Free – Donation encouraged
About Composer-in-Residnce: Jennifer Butler
Jennifer Butler is a composer, teacher, and flutist living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her music, described as “beautifully remote” (Vancouver Sun), “intimate” (Globe and Mail), and “disquieting” (Vancouver Observer), has been commissioned, performed, and broadcast across Canada, in the United States, Australia, and Europe. She holds both a Master’s degree and Doctorate in music composition from the University of British Columbia.
Over the past two pandemic years she has completed several new works including Walking in the Public Gardens After Rain, commissioned by the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival; Songs for Klee Wyck, commissioned by Victoria’s Emily Carr String Quartet with Marion Newman; Heartbeat of the Forest for solo vibraphone, commissioned by Katie Rife, and This Breath Between Us for oboe and bassoon, commissioned by Katelin Coleman and Morgan Zentner.
Currently, she is collaborating with poet Tina Biello on a piece for the Vancouver Island Symphony with mezzo-soprano Marion Newman and a commission from Redshift Music for a large percussion ensemble that will be spread throughout the enormous atrium of the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library.
Jennifer teaches composition at UBc as a Sessional Instructor, and both composition and theory at the Vancouver Academy of Music. She is currently the Chair for the Advisory Committee for the BC region of the CMC, and is an active board member for Redshift and the Standing Wave Ensemble.
About the Artists: Dory Hayley, soprano and Michael Park, piano
Soprano Dory Hayley is recognized as a leading voice in Canada’s contemporary and experimental music scene. Praised for her “very personal creative power” (Badener Zeitung) and her “amazing coloratura skills” (Opera Canada), she has worked with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Georges Aperghis, Cassandra Miller, and Diógenes Rivas, created roles in Mark Haney’s Omnis Temporalisand Michael James Park’s Diagnosis Diabetes, and commissioned and premiered an expanding catalogue of new works.
Dr. Hayley has been a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony, the Vancouver Island Symphony, the Allegra Chamber Orchestra, the Turning Point Ensemble, and Capriccio Basel, and has appeared in recital across four continents. She has performed in festivals such as Sonic Boom, the Happening Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Gulangyu Autumn Festival (China), Performer’s Voice Symposium (Singapore), and Festival Atempo (Venezuela), and with organizations like the SMCQ, Chants Libres, CIRMMT, Codes d’accès, Vancouver New Music, Little Chamber Music, and the Land’s End Ensemble.
An avid and adventurous collaborator, her performances have ranged from early music to free improvisation. She is a member of the Erato Ensemble, the Broadwood Duo, and the Hayley-Laufer Duo, and has recorded with Postcommodity, Sun Belt, and the Negative Zed ensemble. She is the Artistic Co-Director of the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival.
Dory Hayley is an enthusiastic and sought-after adjudicator, clinician, and teacher, and a former visiting artist at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, University at Buffalo’s Creative Arts Initiative, and the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and a frequent Musician in Residence at the Banff Centre. On faculty at Vancouver Community College since 2015, she served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Voice at Mount Allison University in 2021-22. She holds performance degrees from the University of British Columbia, McGill University, and Université de Montréal.
https://www.dorotheahayley.com/
Michael Park (he/they) is a composer and pianist with a keen interest in speech, humour, and collaboration. His music aims to give audiences an experience beyond the realm of traditional concert-going. Heralded for his innovative projects, his Ted Talk Experiencing Disease Through Music has been described as “moving, haunting, and an amazing translation of the disease”. He is the creative mind behind Diagnosis: Diabetes (the interactive chamber opera) and the Bouncy Castle Organ Extravaganza.
Michael’s own compositions have been presented in Vancouver by Music on Main, Vancouver Pro Musica, Redshift Music, Songfire Festival of Song, and Queer Arts Festival. His music has also been performed across North America, with notable premieres in Winnipeg, Boston, and New York. A “wildly talented pianist” (Opera Canada), Michael regularly performs with Erato Ensemble, has been the featured artist at Sonic Boom Music Festival, and continues to collaborate with a wide variety of artists, including dancers, poets, visual artists, and musicians.
Michael is a passionate champion of new music. He’s performed dozens of B.C. premieres as resident pianist with Vancouver’s Erato Ensemble, supported the creation of more than 100 world premieres as founder and co-director of Art Song Lab, and is actively building new repertoire for the genre of speaking pianist through his ongoing solo recital series, Story Time with Michael Park.
Michael completed his DMA at The University of British Columbia (2015), graduate studies at The University of Western Ontario (2009), and undergraduate studies at the University of Manitoba (2007). His principal composition teachers include Dorothy Chang, Omar Daniel, Peter Paul Koprowski, Gordon Fitzell, and Orjan Sandred.
About the Ensemble-in-Residence: Turning Point Ensemble
Founded in 2002 by its musician members, Turning Point Ensemble (TPE) is a large chamber ensemble (16 instrumentalists and conductor) with a mandate to increase the understanding and appreciation of music composed during the past hundred years. The ensemble has built a strong reputation for outstanding musicianship and linking seminal 20th century repertoire to contemporary works through thoughtful programming and innovative presentations. Uniquely and flexibly sized between a small chamber ensemble and a symphonic orchestra, TPE presentations offer a symphonic palette with a chamber music sensibility. In addition to its concerts, tours and recordings, the ensemble has regularly mounted innovative interdisciplinary productions including operas, and collaborations with dance, theatre, visual art and moving image.
Turning Point Ensemble has released six CDs and one DVD on the Artifact, Centrediscs, Atma Classique, Redshift Records, Orlando, and Parma labels. We have presented a diverse range of repertoire, commissioned and performed works by Canadian and international composers, and partnered with a number of community and cultural organizations.