The Western Front

Artist in residence Scott Thomson along with First Nation artist Cheryl L’Hirondelle begin the adventure with a music and performance art collaboration at the Western Front for SWARM 2009. L’Hirondelle’s journey of acquainting herself with the Cree language through play and improvisation will mesh with Thomson’s penchant for roaming to take his audience walkabout in Sonorienteering.

Audience members will be requested to flex their way-finding skills with the aid of Thomson’s personalized map of Mt. Pleasant to hunt for some of Vancouver’s finest creative musicians. This multi-site specific piece surveys alleys, storefronts, parking lots, sidewalks, coffee shops and other familiar spots by exploring topography and architecture while stirring attention to obscured and prominent sounds and music in this bustling location.

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Sonorienteering is a site-specific composition by Scott Thomson that has been commissioned by the Western Front, where he is artist-in-residence. It is one in Thomson’s series of ‘cartographic’ works in which the scores (which double as event programs) are based on maps. These works are composed for improvising performers – typically musicians and occasionally dancers – and delineate where to play, when to play, and often with whom to play, while leaving what to play up to these skilled collaborators.

Sonorienteering will be performed in Mount Pleasant, around the Western Front, by a dozen Vancouver artists on Thursday, 10 September as part of the SWARM Festival. The piece is structured into two ‘movements’ that will book-end Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s performance-art piece mocikihtatan e-nehiyawiyak, 7:30-8pm, in the Western Front’s Grand Luxe Hall:

First Movement: Mount Pleasant Prelude (7:00 – 7:25)
Eight mobile creative musicians will follow separate but intersecting routes through residential streets that converge inside the Western Front for Cheryl’s performance. The Prelude map-score will guide listeners to find interesting points of intersection and collaboration.

Cheryl L’Hirondelle Performance: mocikihtatan e-nehiyawiyak 7:30-8:00

Second Movement: Triangulation Methods (8:00 – 9:15)
The ‘ensemble’ from the First Movement (Steve Bagnell, Meredith Bates, JP Carter, Coat Cooke, Kate Hammett-Vaughan, Viviane Houle and Carol Sawyer) will be augmented by musicians Peggy Lee, Clyde Reed, Stefan Smulovitz and dancers Julie Lebel and Jennifer Clarke to animate the sidewalks, storefronts, and public spaces of the triangular area bounded by Kingsway, Main, and Broadway, immediately west of the Western Front. Map-scores for this Movement will be available at Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s Western Front performance.

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Improvisation Workshop with Scott Thomson

Thursday, August 27, 6-8 PM FREE
Western Front
303 East 8th Avenue

Artist in residence Scott Thomson animates the neighbourhood of Mt. Pleasant for the annual gallery crawl SWARM. This site specific work explores sound and cartography for the creation of a street composition entitled Sonorienteering.

Scott will conduct a workshop on improvisation based on methods and principles learned from renowned improvisation pedagogue, Eddie Prévost, who has employed them in weekly workshops in South London since 1999.

Those interested in participating please contact newmusicadmin@front.bc.ca

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Public Talk: Scott Thomson – Musical Cartography
WEDNESDAY, SEPT 9, 7 PM FREE

Scott Thomson will also be giving a talk on his work with cartographic compositions for musicians and audiences based on cartographic scores and improvisation structures.