I played saxophone in a piece composed by my friend and colleague Chris Blaber for the dance show Suspend at SFU. Dance prof Rob Kitsos told me I sounded “smooth, like silk” and that the show’s creators were “so lucky” to have me. I was deeply moved by this feedback. Perhaps, I should think more about getting out there as a saxophone soloist.
My improv group “Sfuprov” played our first show at the World Art Centre at SFU. The program was a mixture of improvised pieces and pieces composed for and by members of the group.
The musicians involved were: Chris Blaber, vibraphone; Alex Draper, guitar; Joyce Hon, piano; Joel Lagemaat, piano; Erica Regehr, clarinet & piano; and me on alto saxophone. (Alex also did the posters, which were fab).
We are growing up! Yep. I’m graduating from my program and Chris will be finished his degree after the fall semester. Recent graduate and former member Joel MacKenzie would like to re-join and so we are drifting away from being solely a student group. We will be starting regular rehearsal/jams again this weekend with the intention of doing regular gigs by mid-summer. Also, on the list of plans is a name change to reflect our emergence as a professional or semi-professional group. Suggestions are welcome!
Also on March 17th, I was interviewed by Rachel Wong for a profile article in The Peak, the weekly SFU student newspaper. It appeared on April 4th:
I’m very happy with how this turned out. Rachel did a fantastic job. Also, my friend and colleague Sasha Ivanochko helped out a lot by taking the photo, which also came out nicely. I guess the more exposure, the better. At the very least, it’s something for my archive.
I think I have to get better with linking experiences together so that, for example, an article like this refers to my blog and vice versa. This way any exposure in the media has the potential to build into a bit of a following. Being interviewed, which can come up suddenly when you’re in the middle of a dozen other things, brings up the importance of maintaining an online presence that people can check out when they hear about you.
At the Western Front on March 17th, my piece “Along the river’s edge,” was performed in Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom Festival by Paolo Bortolussi, flute; Colin MacDonald, alto saxophone; David Brown, contrabass; Martin Fisk, percussion. It was awesome. People even cheered. Boom.
My friend and colleague Linnea Gwiazda and I created a performance-installation piece for our Collaboration seminar. There was a lot of paper and a lot of words on said paper. I played a lot of notes on the ‘ol horn. Linnea was a live-action poet. We rocked it. People loved it. Enough said.
Aural Fibre 