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May 3-10, 2008.

The 4th annual Open Space Voice++ Festival, Voicing Up a Storm, descends on Victoria May 3rd to 10th, 2008. This year’s festival features a Vocal Swarm through downtown streets, a live virtual performance with players spread across North America and Europe and the premiere performances of works by iconic American composer Pauline Oliveros, Vancouver composer Jeremy Turner, local composer Cathy Lewis, Coast Salish artist Bradley Dick and Montreal sound artist Kathy Kennedy.
Voice++ performers include the Coast Salish Unity Drummers and Singers, members of Hexaphone, Viviane Houle and Stefan Smulovitz, Christine Duncan, Hypatia, Nick Fairbank, Cari Burdett, the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse and many more. Works by these performers and by John Cage, Meredith Monk, Alvin Curran and others are included in the program.

VOICE ++ 2008 PROGRAM SCHEDULE
May 3 - May 10, 2008

Victoria Vocal Swarm
with Kathy Kennedy
May 3 – 9
Open Space and Downtown Victoria
FREE

Saturday May 3, 2 PM (Workshop)
Monday May 5, 7 PM (Workshop)
Tuesday May 6, 7 PM (7:30 PM Victoria Vocal Swarm through downtown)
Wednesday May 7, 4 PM (4:30 PM Victoria Vocal Swarm through downtown)
Friday May 9, 7 PM (7:30 PM Final Victoria Vocal Swarm through downtown)

Montreal sound artist Kathy Kennedy has been commissioned by Open Space and CFUV 101.9 FM Community Campus Radio to compose a community voice work for the 4th annual Open Space Voice++ Festival.   The Victoria Vocal Swarm, calls for singers to gather together and walk a designated route singing along with a soundtrack composed especially for the event, and broadcast on radio. Each singer will be holding a portable radio tuned to CFUV, which will be broadcasting the soundtrack.  Everyone is welcome to be part of this exciting phenomenon!  Please bring a portable radio with FM and speakers.

Voice Workshop
with Christine Duncan
Wednesday, May 7, 7 – 8:30 PM
FREE

Join one of Canada's most adventuresome vocalists  in exploring the voice and its soaring possibilities in a group setting. In this fun and lively workshop, Christine Duncan will show participants areas of resonance in the body that open new timbral and textural qualities in the voice.  Extended vocal techniques such as  throat singing, multiphonics, whistle tones, and vocal fry will be demonstrated, and Christine will use will use conduction and group improvisation to explore a large group vocal sound.  Everyone is welcome regardless of your singing experience.  Don’t miss it!  Back by popular demand and one session only.

Concerts:
Thursday May 8
8 PM at Open Space
$10 / $12

Unity Drummers and Singers with  Butch and Bradley Dick

Open Space is honoured that the Unity Drummers and Singers are appearing in the Voice++ festival.  Coast Salish elder Butch Dick will introduce the group and the traditions of  the families who have populated this area for generations.  The Coast Salish Unity Drummers and Singers (www.unitydrummersandsingers.ca/), is a large local group that opens its doors to people of any age and culture interested in learning about local Native culture. Unity will welcome the audience with the thundering sounds of traditional drum songs from local First Nations and new songs by Coast Salish artist Bradley Dick.

Kathy Kennedy – solo voice and electronics
Howl
Dadada
One
Kathy Kennedy’s solo performances include a high level of improvisation over lush soundtracks of painstakingly mixed vocals and other sounds to create an immersive world of different voices.  She explores themes related to feminism, myth, the soundscape and commentaries on musical forms such as opera.

Hypatia and Christine Duncan – voice and jazz instrumental ensemble
Victoria Comprovisation 10101
Wizard of voice Christine Duncan (Toronto) and members of Victoria’s Hypatia all female jazz ensemble will use the practices and elements of instrument playing to find ways for the players to vocalize, and apply vocal practices to their instrumental playing in a true collaboration between voice and instruments.

Hypatia is Melissa Hubert, Flute; Donna Williams, Viola; Rhonda Leduc, Soprano/Tenor Sax; Karla Sleightholme, Alto Sax; Audrey Bailey, Baritone Sax; Lorae Farrell, Trumpet/Leader; Michelle Footz, Trumpet; Sheila MacMillan, Kim Firth, Aubrey Kelly, Trombones; Heather Burns, Piano; Jenny Weston, Bass; Sherry O'Leary, Drums


Friday May 9
8 PM at Open Space
$10 / $12

Hexaphone, Cathy Lewis,  Nick Fairbank and Cari Burdett perform works for solo and ensemble voices, alone and with electronics, by American composers John Cage, Meredith Monk, James Tenney and Terry Riley.  This round table concert also features compositions by Gyorgy Kurtag and Hector Bravo Benard, premieres a new work by Nicholas Fairbank, an Anthem by Canadian composer Rodney Sharman, and a voice and live electronics work composed and performed by Canadian composer / vocalist Andrea Young.

Works:

John Cage:
-Solo for Voice 23:  Theatre with Electronics (Irrelevant)
-Solo for Voice 43:  Theatre with Electronics (Relevant)
-Aria for solo voice

Meredith Monk Change for Four Voices
James Tenney Hey When I Sing These 4 Songs Hey Look What Happens
Rodney Sharman Anthem: Passing of the Claimant
Terry Riley Olson III
Nicholas Fairbank Tetraphone for voice and cellphones
Hector Bravo Benard Pink Noise for solo voice
Andrea Young Insatisfecha  for voice and live electronics
Gyorgy Kurtag Einige Satze aus den Sudelbuchern Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs

Saturday May 10
Afternoon Panel and Concert

1 PM Voice ++ Panel
with Pauline Oliveros (virtually), Kathy Kennedy, Viviane Houle, Cathy Lewis, Christine Duncan

2 PM AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE -  Virtual Reality Performance
Pauline Oliveros  (New York) The Heart of Tones 
Jeremy Owen Turner (Vancouver)  XAANADRuuL 

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse premieres two new works created for the orchestra with guest vocalists and instrumentalists from Canada and the United States.  All performers will be playing live in remote locations, connected through  Second Life which will be projected visually and sonically at Open Space.  Composers Pauline Oliveros and Jeremy Owen Turner will also be performing live in Second Life.  

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse is a group of composers, performers, and media artists living in Europe, East Asian and North America who explore together the interactive possibilities of the Second Life online virtual reality platform to create works with open, interactive and possibly "infinite" elements.   The Orchestra works with ideas that challenge conventional practices of creating and performing music, and finds new ways to conceive of and erase notions of identity, place, social, cultural and sexual identity, and the roles of composer, performer and listener.  

Heart of Tones is dedicated to the memory of trombonist Toyoji Tomita, and XAANADRuuL is dedicated to the memory of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Evening Concert
$10 / $12

Love Letters - Viviane Houle and Stefan Smulovitz (Vancouver)

Viviane Houle and Stefan Smulovitz combine free improvisation, improvised song and unearthly electro-acoustic soundscapes to explore the boundaries of beauty and chaos. In performance, Smulovitz unleashes the full potential of the laptop as a musical instrument, exposing unimagined terrains of sonic expression. Houle’s extreme vocals and unforgettable versatility defy categorization; the intelligence of her singing blends with deep emotion to make music that is at once sweet and fierce. Their Voice++ performance draws inspiration from love letters contributed by audience members to create an improvised song cycle.
 
Medicinal Lullabye - Cathy Fern Lewis (Victoria)

Cathy Lewis works with her father’s Chinese medicine cabinet to weave a story about mothering and parenting.  The cabinet’s drawers are filled with sounds and words that Cathy uses to create a sound collage that includes a lullabye with musical accompaniment from Italian musician Biagio Francia.

the storm – ensemble roundabout

ensemble roundabout is Kathy Kennedy, Christine Duncan, Cathy Lewis, Tina Pearson, Viviane Houle and Stefan Smulovitz 

Visiting and local artists have come together to create a Voice++ finale with voices, instruments and electronics in a dynamic and exciting conclusion to the festival.

Voice++ provides the ground where the depths and edges of human expression are exposed in live performances, collaborations and public workshops. Voice ++ illuminates relations between people, places, cultures, and technologies through the human voice.

One of the most exciting components of Voice++ is the festival’s focus on community and collaboration. Each year, Open Space partners with CFUV 101.9 FM Community Campus Radio to commission a collaborative vocal piece that is made with and for members of the Victoria community, regardless of their vocal or musical experience. This year, Montreal composer and sound-artist Kathy Kennedy http://www.kathykennedy.ca/ has been commissioned to work with local participantsto create the Victoria Vocal Swarm, featuring a parade of humming participantscarrying radios through the streets of Victoria during the week of the festival May 3 –10, 2008.

Community relations are highlighted in the opening concert performance of
the festival Thursday, May 8 at 8 pm by the Coast Salish Unity Drummers and Singers http://www.unitydrummersandsingers.ca/, a large local group that opens its doors to people of any age and culture interested in learning about local Native culture. Unity will welcome the audience with the thundering sounds of traditional drum songs from local First Nations and new pieces by Coast Salish artist Bradley Dick.

The spirit of community will also be evoked by the premiers of two new works by composers Pauline Oliveros www.deeplistening.org/pauline/ and Jeremy Owen Turner www.wirxliflimflam.blogspot.com/. These compositions have been written for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, a virtual community of composers, sound and media artists from Europe, East Asia and North America that investigates and performs within the new technology offered through online virtual reality platforms such as Second Life.  This concert will take place Saturday, May 10 at 2 pm.

Rounding out the festival are performances by vocalist Vivian Houle who offers mesmerizing vocal sounds within the electroacoustic soundworld of composer Stefan Smulovitz; a lively improvisatory vocal conducting of the all female Hypatia Jazz Ensemble by the amazing Toronto vocalist Christine Duncan; renderings of voice and theatre pieces of iconoclastic American composer John Cage by local vocalists Cari Burdett, Nick Fairbank, Cathy Lewis and more.

Concerts will take place Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings May 8, 9 and 10 at 8 pm and Saturday afternoon May 10 at 2 pm.

The Victoria Vocal Swarm through downtown streets with live broadcast on CFUV 101.9 FM Community Campus Radio will take place Tuesday May 6 at 7:30 pm, Wednesday May 7 at 4:30 pm and Friday evening May 9 at 7:30 pm leading into the 8 PM concert.  Meet at Open Space 30 minutes before these times to participate, and bring a portable radio.  Everyone is welcome.

Voice WorKshops open to the community will take place Saturday May 3 at 2 PM, Monday, May 5 at 7 PM, and Tuesday, May 6 at 5 PM with Kathy Kennedy, and Wednesday May 7 at 7 PM with Christine Duncan. 

A panel discussion with visiting artists will take place Saturday, May 10 at 1 pm preceding the 2 pm Avatar Orchestra Metaverse virtual reality concert.

For further information about workshop registration and/or concerts please contact Open Space.