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Reaching new depths

Two classical music performances in the Sea to Sky region
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High Notes Soprano, Heather Pawsey, will perform with Kathryn Cernayskas on flute, AK Coope on clarinet, and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa on piano in the mining museum this weekend. Photo submitted.

What: Mined Over Matter (New Music in New Places)

When: Sunday, March 16, 2 p.m.

Where: British Columbia Museum of Mining (Britannia Beach)

Tickets: Free, reservations required (1-866-640-9881)

Who: Erato Ensemble

When: Sunday, March 16, 2:30 p.m.

Where: Whistler Public Library, Fireplace Lounge

Tickets: Free

Most people can’t claim to have attended a classical concert, let alone enjoyed one from the depths of a mineshaft, but residents of the Sea to Sky corridor are being invited to do just that, with a new, exciting musical performance.

This Sunday afternoon the British Columbia Museum of Mining will play host to Mined Over Matter, a classical concert that guides audience members through the depths of mining tunnels, exploring new acoustics to create a unique musical experience.

The concert is part of the fourth New Music in New Places series organized by the Canadian Music Centre (CMC). Though the New Music in New Places series is typically financed by the SOCAN Foundation, the performances planned for the Sea to Sky region are being funded by the Cultural Olympiad.

Colin Myles, director of the CMC, explains the nationwide program is designed to encourage people to enjoy music by presenting it in places it would not normally be heard.

“It’s experimental,” said Myles, “but it’s to attract new people to listen to music in new ways, to present contemporary music in different contexts, and it’s really working.”

Some of the new venues have been very non-traditional — performances have been held in a maximum-security penitentiary, a moving elevator, a funeral home, an observatory and an aquarium.

Myles says it’s also an opportunity for musicians to get creative with acoustics and other aspects of their performance.

“Some of the pieces, for instance, which have been done in the atrium of the Vancouver Public Library have really used that to great advantage, having people at all the different levels, and it’s quite exciting to the listener to hear that.”

By holding classical and contemporary concerts in such unusual places, Myles says they are also able to attract a more diverse audience.

“I hate using words like demographic, but a lot of concerts of contemporary music attract a very narrow age range,” he explained.

So far, the performances have received a great reaction from audience members.

“We’ve had people saying they’ve never heard any contemporary music before, they’ve never listened to any Canadian music.”

Heather Pawsey helped plan the Mined Over Matter show, and will be the soprano in the upcoming performance, which features Pawsey, Kathryn Cernayskas on flute, AK Coope on clarinet, and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa on piano, performing 100 per cent Canadian music.

Surprisingly enough, this isn’t the first time Pawsey has performed in the mining museum — last October, she was part of the How(e) Sound show, which attracted an audience of about 350 people.

But this upcoming concert will be completely different, featuring an entirely new repertoire, with a storyline that focuses on gems, minerals, highways and dreams.

The underlying purpose behind the upcoming performance is to make the music accessible to everyone.

“Classical music can scare people. I really want it to not, because it doesn’t have to be a scary thing,” said Pawsey. “Sometimes, if they haven’t been to a concert, they’re nervous about going to a concert hall… and I think by taking it into venues that are in people’s communities, that are unusual, it just takes a bit of the fear factor out.”

For parts of the performance, the audience will walk with musicians from place to place, allowing them to experience different acoustics, new smells and different temperatures, before they emerge from the darkness of the tunnels into the mill concentrator, a room filled with thousands of panes of glass.

“You can always go to a concert and sit in a chair and have people up on a stage and listen to music, but if you’re going to be in a different sort of space or venue, really take advantage of that,” Pawsey said.

“…That place is so incredible to make music. The mill concentrator, it’s like singing in a European cathedral. It’s unbelievable.”

Whistler will also be treated to a classical concert courtesy of the Cultural Olympiad. Members of the Vancouver-based Erato Ensemble — Catherine Laub, soprano, William George, tenor and composer, and Sandra Joy, pianist and music director — plan to fill the new public library with song on Sunday afternoon.

Myles says the CMC wanted to stage a performance in Whistler, and when they received funding through the Cultural Olympiad, they realized the new library would be a perfect location for a performance.

“It was also a way of saying that a library isn’t just a place where you find books, its place where live performance takes place,” added Myles.

A library certainly isn’t a typical concert venue — it’s usually a place you can expect to be shushed by a librarian or glared at by fellow patrons if you’re being too noisy. But Laub says the performance is designed to fit the surroundings.

“Most of the music that we’re doing is kind of placid, not in a boring way, but it’s good sort of atmospheric music,” Laub explained. “We’re not doing opera arias and jumping and dancing around.”

They’ve also adapted their program to be very nature-inspired, with music by Canadian composers, and performing pieces like, The Songs of Woods and Water, by Dorothy Chang, Everything Waits for the Lilac, by John Burge, and A Couple of the Canadian Sketches, by George Siala.

The performance will last for about an hour, and people can come and go as they please, and feel free to browse the collection at the new library.

Anyone interested in attending the Mined Over Matter performance should make a reservation, and remember to wear practical footwear and appropriate clothing.