Birds of Paradox

Debut self-titled album, released in spring 2010.

Birds of Paradox was formed in 2007 to explore the fusion of composition and improvisation, incorporating three very distinct voices and cultural backgrounds into a creative whole. The trio synthesizes elements of jazz and improvised music, traditional Chinese, Western and Indian music into a collective expression of life in post-millennial Vancouver.

Neelamjit Dhillon tabla, alto saxophone, flute, bansuri

Ron Samworth guitar, effects

Lan Tung erhu, vocals

Bios

Neelamjit Dhillon

Being born and raised in Vancouver has given me a unique and interesting perspective on music.  Having extensive training in two different musical styles [jazz and classical Indian], and being from one of the most multi-cultural places on the planet, I don’t see barriers that others might.  It’s all just sound, expressions of emotion and it is all valid.  Music doesn’t have a nationality; it comes from the human experience, which is tied together at all corners of the world.  No matter where we come from, it is our humanity that leads us to create, explore and discover, humanity that surrounds us and which is within us at all times.  Neelamjit Dhillon tabla, alto saxophone, flute, bansuri

Ron Samworth

The music on this CD is a conversation between three artists who are a product of Vancouver, Canada in the early 21^th century. Needless to say, there is an intercultural aspect to it, but like the city itself, diversity is a given. Musicians, in general, have a particular quality of discovering natural affinities among themselves. Strong melodies, interesting grooves, cool sonic textures are our common currency. Playing together, bringing whatever you have in your musical arsenal into play, is what it’s all about. The personal narratives that constitute any community, musical or otherwise, are what give the world of human relationships its nuance and fullness. Being open and engaged is all that’s required to get on board.

Nightface is a composition of mine originally written as an instrumental then adapted, with lyrics by Elizabeth Fischer, into a beautiful haunting song that was performed and recorded by the band DarkBlueWorld. It is in 7/8 time, a 3-2-2 pattern with one bar of 6/8 at the end of the verses just to keep you on your toes. The verses are in G minor – the bridge in E major.

It’s a great pleasure playing with Lan and Neel – two gifted and wonderfully expressive musicians. Listen and enjoy!   Ron Samworth guitar, effects

Lan Tung

After moving from Taiwan to Canada in 1994, I have been surrounded by great music of different genres – from western contemporary music to various ethnic styles – which feed my ever-growing musical appetite. I am inspired by the western violin’s ability to transform itself in Indian, Gypsy and Middle Eastern music, jazz and even Cantonese opera. This, as well as travels and studies in the “exotic” lands of India, Egypt, Amsterdam and Berlin, has led me to look outside Chinese traditions to develop new vocabularies on the erhu and to countless interesting collaborations at home and abroad. In both composition and improvisation, I experiment with contradictions by taking culturally specific music outside its context and fusing it with other genres. Ba Ban Variations, inspired by traditional Chinese music, embodies the paradox of many opposite characters: chromatic vs pentatonic, composed vs improvised, contemporary vs traditional, with sudden shifts between a mysterious quality and an exciting 3+2+3 rhythmic cycle. Asian Market begins by using the basic four tones/inflections in Mandarin to develop vocal patterns to depict a vibrant market scene. Colourful Clouds Eating the Moon is an incarnation of Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon from China, with an Indonesian twist. Temple Bells colours Cantonese melody with blues chords. Xia He (Flowing River) gives occasional hints to its Chinese roots. By incorporating improvisation with Asian traditions, I see a whole new territory in which to discover fresh sounds.  Lan Tung erhu (Chinese violin), vocals

Recording Credits

Recorded by Sheldon Zaharko at The Factory Studios, Vancouver, BC Canada on August 6 and 7, 2009

Mixing and mastering: Dylan van der Schyff

Design and Layout: John Endo Greenaway

Cover Art: Aleksandra Dulic and Kenneth Newby

Photography: Nenad Stevanovic

Birds of Paradox was co-produced by Ron Samworth, Lan Tung and Neelamjit Dhillon.

We would like to thank Ken Pickering and Diane Kadota who have supported this project since its inception.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts through the Specialized Music Sound Recording Program and the Department of Canadian Heritage Canadian Music Fund through the Canadian Musical Diversity Program of the Canada Music Fund.

HARD RUBBER NEW MUSIC and

Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad present

ICE AGE 2010

AN ICE SHOW LIKE NO OTHER

Saturday March 20, 2010 at 7:30pm

ONE NIGHT ONLY!!

HARRY JEROME ARENA

123 E.23 Street, North Vancouver

tickets: $25 (general) ▪ $18 (students/seniors)

www.ticketstonight.ca or phone 604.684.2787

info: www.hardrubber.com ▪ 604.683.8240

The ice rink. In small and large communities across Canada, it sits at the centre of daily life, a cold place warmed by entertainment and physical activity. Ice Age 2010 is a musical exploration of that love affair with the rink, complete with Zamboni choreography, hockey, curling, ringette, the high energy 17-piece Hard Rubber Orchestra, champion figure skater and So You Think You Can Dance Canada finalist Emanuel Sandhu, North Vancouver’s own rising figure skating star Kathryn Kang, dance pair Tarrah Harvey and Keith Gagnon, national Canadian radio’s Kevin Sylvester, DOA’s Joe Keithley, Double Exposure’s Bob Robertson, commissioned compositions by Peter Hannan, Brad Turner, Bill Runge, Tony Wilson, Amsterdam’s David Dramm and a full locker room of guest vocalists and performers.

Emanuel Sandhu

On Saturday, March 20, 2010 at the Harry Jerome Arena in North Vancouver, experience the 2010 edition of Hard Rubber Orchestra’s new music ice show.  New choreography, large visual projections of film, images and lighting effects along with plenty of on ice action will be set to original music.  Gathered here will be an all-star cast of heroes from on the ice and behind the scenes.  Figure skating choreographer and coach Joanne McLeod will be working her magic with some of Canada’s finest figure skaters, hockey lover Kevin Sylvester of national Canadian radio fame will be your host and librettist.  The Hard Rubber Orchestra will pump out music ranging from new music to pop, jazz and world; premieres of commissioned pieces from some of Vancouver’s finest composers.

Kathryn Kang

In 2000, the Hard Rubber New Music Society presented The Ice Age – the World’s First New Music Ice Show at the Kerrisdale Arena. This mega multi-media production was an opera on ice, a new music concert on ice and a tribute to the great cornerstones of Canadian culture: hockey, figure skating and winter sport.  In 2010, Ice Age is back and it’s bigger and better than ever.

Hard Rubber New Music has presented concerts of original music by some of Canada’s most exciting composers, performed by some of Vancouver’s finest musicians. Under the artistic direction of composer, conductor, musician John Korsrud, previous large-scale works include Alcan Award-winning multi-media extravaganza, Enter/Exit; White Hot Core, a collaboration with Kokoro Dance; and The Elvis Cantata, which took an irreverent look at pop icons. The all-star Hard Rubber Orchestra features the finest of Vancouver’s jazz community and performs music that is influenced by jazz, pop, world, contemporary classical, and improvised music. Since its debut in 1990 the Orchestra has toured to Europe and across Canada including concerts in Amsterdam and at FIMAV in Quebec.

Tarrah Harvey & Keith Gagnon

“HARD RUBBER IS, NO QUESTION, CONSISTENTLY THE BEST VANCOUVER BAND EVENT YOU CAN SEE” (Discorder Magazine)

Joe Keithley

Kevin Sylvester

Gamelan Madu Sari and

Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad present

MARATHONOLOGUE

Norman Rothstein Theatre

950 West 41^st Ave (at Oak)

February 18, 19 & 20^th 2010

tickets  $20 (general)  &  $15 (students/seniors)

ticketstonight.ca • 604.684.2787

info 604.683.8240

www.marathonologue.com

Naoko Takahashi drank an extract distilled from Japanese giant killer hornets (Vespa Mandarina Japonica) just before she won the women’s marathon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Marathonologue, an interdisciplinary production inspired by this ultra-marathon runner energized by killer hornet extract, combines highland bagpipe, Japanese taiko and Balinese gamelan music by composers Michael O’Neill, Boyd Seiichi Grealy and I Wayan Sudirana, in live synchronization with computer-animated projections by Kenneth Newby and Aleksandra Dulic. The production brings to life the interplay between the physical landscape and a runner’s internal ‘mindscape’ as it develops and transforms in the experience of running a global marathon.

Marathonolgue zooms in on the creative powers of imagination catalyzed by motor-rhythmic physical exertion, the enzymes of hornet juice, the landscape, and the solitude of long distance running. Performing live with a tri-cultural ensemble of 7 musicians, and using additional animation by Oliver Szeleczky, Brendan Edward Wingrove, and Melissa Ftrzelec, Newby and Dulic use digital animation techniques to produce a startling array of images, envisioning both the runner and the hornets’ chameleon-like transformations, and reflecting the terrain and human physical/ cultural differences encountered. Image and sound combine to transport the audience to a realm of heightened imagination.

Michael O’Neill and Kenneth Newby have a long history of inter-arts collaborations originating with their involvement with the gamelan community in Vancouver in 1986.  In keeping with the Indonesian tradition of using gamelan in an interdisciplinary capacity, their initial collaboration was a shadowplay presented in the context of a large interdisciplinary outdoor work Journey to the New World, a Vancouver Public Dreams Society production.  Their collaborative work has continued over the years to include works involving dance, theatre, and many shadowplay productions. In 2005 they were principal artists in the development of a major new cross-cultural, collaborative multi-media shadow play with gamelan, shadow puppetry and media performance, Semar’s Journey, which was premiered at the Roundhouse in 2007.

Videographers Newby and Dulic, leaders in  the field of interactive audiovisual installation, received critical praise for their work, in a thousand drops… refracted glances, presented in Genoa, Italy in 2008.  Their collaborative interdisciplinary performance work Triaspora, was presented at the National Arts Center in Ottawa in 2009, their visual music work, Symmetry, was selected as a finalist in the Punto y Raya animation festival in 2007.

The three composers creating music for Marathonologue are each immersed in rich cultural music traditions; Balinese gamelan, highland bagpipe and Japanese taiko.  The music in Marathonologue gives the composers, who will also be performing in the show, an opportunity to explore the relation between these musical styles both in theory and in practice. I Wayan Sudirana was born in Ubud, Bali and is regarded as one of Bali’s most gifted musicians.  He has composed and taught actively in Bali and abroad and has been artist in residence at the University of British Columbia since 2004.  Vancouver composer-performer Michael O’Neill is a founding member of Gamelan Madu Sari and performs both Javanese gamelan and Balinese gender wayang.  Michael also performs with and composes for his own highland bagpipe ensemble Mearingstone.  A native of Victoria, Boyd Seiichi Grealy is a multifaceted taiko drummer and percussionist.  He has spent seventeen years as an international touring artist and co-artistic director of Vancouver ensemble Uzume Taiko, Canada’s first professional taiko group.  Together, in collaboration with musicians Sylvia DeTar, Elaine Ng, and Eien Hunter-Ishikawa, they create a mesmerizing river of sound and texture, trance-like and rhythmic, expanding the sonic landscape.

HARD RUBBER NEW MUSIC

and Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad present

CODE Live Performance

Drum & Light Festival

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Emily Carr – Great Northern Way Campus

577 Great Northern Way

(walking distance from VCC Skytrain Station)

Doors 9pm • Show 10pm

Tickets $20

www.tickets.com • 1.800.TICKETS

and at Zulu, Beat Street and Vinyl Records

Info: www.hardrubber.com • 604.683.8240

Mark February 11^th on your calendar!  Come out and dance!  The Drum & Light Festival is an evening of high-energy sonic and visual extravagance featuring percussion, improvised and jazz music, electronica, dance and visual projections by some of Vancouver’s best and brightest artists. In 2008 and 2009, Vancouver’s Hard Rubber Orchestra introduced the Drum & Light Festival, a series of sold-out multimedia dance events featuring a 14-piece groove orchestra and eye-popping visuals.  The dance party continues in 2010.

The Drum & Light Festival combines the most cutting-edge music, movement and visuals into one breathtaking evening.  This high-energy dance event features a 14-piece groove big band, five drummers, electronic music, intense visual projections and innovative choreography.  Music by an all-star collection of Vancouver artists — Ray Garroway (K-OS), Randall Stoll (Soulstream), Alvin Cornista (Sekoya), DJ Timothy Wisdom and  keyboardist Chris Gestrin (to name just a few) — is fused with incredible visuals by Brian Johnson and Jason Whyte and  movement choreographed and performed by the Tomorrow Collective.

Hard Rubber New Music has presented concerts of original music by some of Canada’s most exciting composers, performed by some of Vancouver’s finest musicians. Under the artistic direction of composer, conductor, musician John Korsrud, previous large-scale works include Alcan Award-winning Enter/Exit, a multi-media extravaganza featuring the premiere of compositions by Giorgio Magnanensi, Brad Turner and John Korsrud as well as visual projections by jamie griffiths, Brian Johnson, Rena del Pieve Gobbi, Riel Roussopoulos and HoneyBee Visuals. Other projects include The Ice Age: The World’s First New Music Ice Show, performed at Kerrisdale Arena and featuring the talents of hockey players, curlers and figure skaters; White Hot Core, a collaboration with Kokoro Dance; and The Elvis Cantata, which took an irreverent look at pop icons. The all-star Hard Rubber Orchestra features the finest of Vancouver’s jazz community and performs music that is influenced by jazz, pop, world, contemporary classical and improvised music. Since its debut in 1990 the Orchestra has toured to Europe and across Canada including concerts in Amsterdam and at FIMAV in Quebec.

“HARD RUBBER IS, NO QUESTION, CONSISTENTLY THE BEST VANCOUVER BAND EVENT YOU CAN SEE” (Discorder Magazine)

Drum and Light 2009

Drum and Light 2009 – 3-minute documentary for Vancouver’s Knowledge Network

Standing Wave at the Quadra Island Community Centre on Saturday, January 23^rd at 8 PM

To catch this wave, get your advance tickets for $17 at the Music Plant in Campbell River and at Quadra Crafts or Hummingbird Office and Art Supply on Quadra Island.  Students 16 and under are welcomed free with an adult.  For more information, call 250-285-2580 or visit the group’s website at www.standingwave.ca

Peggy Lee Band

Brad Turner, trumpet; Jon Bentley, tenor saxophone; Jeremy Berkman, trombone; Peggy Lee, cello; Tony Wilson, guitar; Ron Samworth, guitar; Andre Lachance, electric bass; Dylan van der Schyff, drums

“…unbelievable ensemble moments, and Peggy’s tunes are unique and unpredictable.” – Now Magazine

Recital Hall, UBC Music Building

6361 Memorial Road

concerts@interchange.ubc.ca or 604-822-5574 for more information.

$4 at the door (cash only)

Thursday, December 17, 2009, 8pm

Ironworks, 235 Alexander Street

Tickets through Tickets Tonight  •  ticketstonight.ca •  604.684.2787

$18.00 (general) / $15.00 (students & seniors)

It was during the 2008 Time Flies series that Vancouver cellist and musical innovator Peggy Lee was inspired to create Film in Music. More specifically, it was the improvised solos by Evan Parker, Peter Evans and Mary Oliver on tenor sax, trumpet and viola respectively that started her thinking about the project.  Lee says, “I was struck by how, on one level such exploration can be so subtle and personal and yet on another level, be filled with such a sense of drama and suspense.”

Lee began to envision a context in which such exploration could work within a set of written music, pieces which would heighten the dramatic experience of the solos.  She wanted to experiment with the kind of impact a particular written piece would have on the improvisation that followed.  Inspired also by David Milch’s excellent HBO drama, Deadwood, Lee wants to convey the cinematic effects of that drama using musical choices, not as an attempt to tell that story or any story in particular but to evoke a similar tension between players, creating suspense and absolutely focused, driven performances.

The piece is structured as a musical drama in two parts with three soloists: Jesse Zubot on violin, Torsten Muller on bass and Dylan van der Schyff on drums, playing the main “characters”, each of whom will be featured in an improvised solo.  Lee’s compositions will provide intros, segues, commentary and epilogue and the through line on which to hang the “story”.

This project is a bit of a departure from Lee’s past work with her group, the Peggy Lee Band, where an improvisation often serves to segue between written pieces. In Film in Music, Lee wishes to truly feature these wonderful soloists. The superb ensemble featuring, Kevin Elaschuk on trumpet, Chris Gestrin on piano, Ron Samworth on guitar, Andre Lachance on bass and Lee herself on cello, will interact with the soloists.  This work will allow Lee, as its creator, as well as the seven other performers to further explore the musical spectrum that lies between free improvisation and through-composed work.

Cellist Peggy Lee has built a reputation as an improviser, composer and performer of new music in numerous ensembles, including Standing Wave, the Turning Point Ensemble, Talking Pictures and the Tony Wilson Sextet.  Her own group, the Peggy Lee Band, has released four cds of original music, the most recent being New Code on the Drip Audio label.  Peggy also records and tours internationally with Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Larry Ochs, Miya Masaoka, Dave Douglas, Jesse Zubot and Veda Hille.

Presented by Barking Sphinx and Coastal Jazz.

Cap Folk & Roots Series presents

John Reischman and the Jaybirds

Sunday November 8, 2009 at 8pm

Capilano University Performing Arts Theatre

2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver

$28 (adults) / $25 (students & seniors)

For tickets call 604.990.7810 or visit www.capilanou.ca/theatre

For Lower Mainland bluegrassers and roots music lovers, it’s always an occasion when mandolin virtuoso John Reischman and his top-flight band the Jaybirds come to town.  The band feels the same way.  This part of the world is near and dear to its members.  Between tour stops this fall, John and the Jaybirds have been in the studio recording their fifth album of stellar original and traditional acoustic music.  They’ll be previewing the new songs for Jaybirds fans at Capilano University Performing Arts Theatre on Sunday November 8^th.  In addition, this concert will be recorded for an upcoming live cd release of the best of the best of the Jaybirds’ exciting live shows from Virginia to Vancouver.

Saturday November 7, 2009, 8:00pm

The Cultch ,1895 Venables St.

Tickets $20 (general) / $15 (students & seniors) + service charges

The Cultch box office • 604.251.1363 • www.thecultch.com

Info: 604 683 8240

On Saturday November 7 Talking Pictures performs with Seattle-based singer-pianist Robin Holcomb and keyboardist Wayne Horvitz at the newly renovated Historic Theatre at The Cultch. Composed music by Holcomb, guitarist Ron Samworth and cellist Peggy Lee will be woven into a musical tapestry featuring these three musicians joined by Horvitz, trumpet player Bill Clark and drummer Dylan van der Schyff.  Don’t miss an opportunity to experience the latest offering from this rich creative collaboration.

Katari Taiko celebrates its 30th Anniversary with an afternoon concert in the newly renovated Historic Theatre at The Cultch, featuring the 10-member ensemble with guest alumni John Endo Greenaway, Linda Uyehara Hoffman, Shinobu Homma, Eileen Kage and Kathy Shimizu. Also featured will be the premiere of Tengu and Oni, a new original music and theatre piece, blending North African rhythms with Japanese folklore.

Sunday, November 1, 2009, 2pm

The Cultch, 1895 Venables Street

$20 (general) / $15 (students & seniors) / $10 (12yrs & under) + service charges

For tickets call The Cultch box office at 604.251.1363 • www.thecultch.com

For info call 604.683.8240

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