I feel so fortunate to have played for these audiences in Vancouver and at the Langley Community Music School.

The program did offer TPE an opportunity to champion a Metro Vancouver resident, Brad Turner, who is amongst the musicians I am fortunate to work with regularly and whose musicality and musical perspective I look up to as being at the rarest and highest level. However, amazingly for us here in Vancouver, he doesn’t inhabit that level alone, as in the “jazz/improvisation” scene in Vancouver there are not only many truly outstanding performing musicians, but several other musician/composers whose influence on the scene has moved beyond the traditional genre borders.

One such composer is guitarist Tony Wilson - who resides mostly on Hornby Island – but is offering a May composition workshop in Vancouver that I would highly recommend if you’re interested in the type of musical statement TPE was going for in Jump for Joy. In the spirit of Turning Point’s Creating Composers program where we want to nurture creative expression through composition in all ages, I wanted to share news of this outstanding opportunity

Tony and those attending will be analyzing compositions by J.S Bach, Benjamin Britten, Oliver Messian, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and his own compositions.

Through analyzing these pieces Tony will work with participants to learn Motif development, developing personal harmonic language, utilizing different time signatures, orchestration and arranging techniques. The workshop will cover instrument ranges and transposition, and most importantly, all participants will compose music.

It’s a four day composition workshop (tuition varies based on dates of attendance), dates are:

May 19th, 20th,26th and 27th noon- 5p.m. with a break.

1115 East Hastings (enter at 360 Glen Dr)

Please email Tony at tonewilson@yahoo.com or phone him at 250- 335-1685 if interested

Turning Point is pondering future programs that celebrate the mutual inspiration of composers considered from the jazz world and classical world – thank you for the feedback that is encouraging us to consider more compositions without borders!

- Jeremy

Well, today is recovery day from an intensely gratifying presentation of our Jump for Joy program – the feedback from our audiences (in total over 500!) from our performances at the Langley Community Music School and SFU Woodward’s Fei and Milton Wong Theatre was quite overwhelming.

I guess what also really hit me was the emotional response from the ensemble members, and our featured composer/creators Dave Douglas, Brad Turner, and Fred Stride. I remember a professor at university telling me that if I really wanted to know how my friends were feeling, I should hear their music – especially their compositions.

Dave’s Sand Hill, Brad’s Seven Scenes from A Childhood, and Fred’s arrangements of Duke Ellington’s works were all so personal – really embracing a musical intimacy that released very deep feelings by both creator and performer – and it seems we did well relaying those feelings to our incredibly welcoming audiences. That doesn’t always happen with new music – I’m quite proud and grateful for the openness of our players and our audience. Thank you! 

One aspect of music-making we did explore that was relatively new to many of us was group improvisation. The relationship of individual and group is obviously much greater than a musical one – and in a funny moment at a tense point of one rehearsal one player turned to me and said “democracy isn’t great either!”. Some members of our musical community revel in that interesting tension – and if you’re interested in that I’d highly recommend an upcoming concert on April 13th by Orkestra Futura – Music: Invisible Art – at the Roundhouse – exploring the space between the first human instrument (voice) and most recent (electronics) -building on a history of developing a personal and group improvisitory vocabulary.

I’m hoping Turning Point Ensemble also performs more music that asks us to improvise – and we’ll see. Next season’s plans are firming up – as per usual the scale of our presentations will be largely a result of our ability to fund the extraordinary costs involved.

We are incredibly grateful to the individuals who supported us as patrons and volunteers, and to the government and corporate agencies that provided the core and often also special funding for our efforts in 2011/12 – a season marked by highly acclaimed programs, large scale commissions, and our ensemble’s residencies at Langley Community Music School, Seycove Secondary School in North Vancouver, and the University of British Columbia.

If you’re interested in helping us realize next season’s vision – now’s a great time to offer support.  Click on the blue donate button to find out how you can become a member of the Turning Point family of supporters or email karen@turningpointensemble.ca and we will get back to you right away.  Thank you!

- Jeremy

With a little help from our TPE friends, and a partnership with the Langley Community Music School, we were able to create a fantastic show which included not only one world premiere but two when Langley helped commission a new work by their alumnus, jazz musician Brad Turner.  Add a bit of Ellington (thanks Fred Stride!) and Stravinsky and we had a blockbuster show!

Tonight we travel to Langley – and if you haven’t been to the Rose Gellert Hall, it is exceptional – for the world premiere of “Sand Hill” by Dave Douglas (who, incidentally, wrote much of the music at Aaron Copland’s desk thanks to the generous support of the Aaron Copland Foundation) and Brad Turner’s “Seven Scenes from a Childhood”. Fred Stride has arranged the Ellington pieces and Jennifer Scott  joins us to sing both Ellington and Stravinsky.

If you can’t make it to Langley tonight, join us in Vancouver at SFU Woodward’s at 8pm on Sunday April 1st

The occasional collaborations between musicians of a classical background and those of a jazz and improvised music background are very interesting to me.

These opportunities, which I have been lucky to have been involved in both as a performer and as a composer, tend to be notable (at least in Vancouver from what I can see)for what can be an obvious sense of respect between artists of different disciplines going both ways. Although my formal training was all in classical trumpet, my performing (and largely my composing) careers have been involved with jazz, for the most part. I have experience seeing things from both sides of this particular fence, and have come to realize that musicians play music because they love music, and because of the challenge it presents to them. At least that is the case for most of the musicians that I know and respect. Maybe that doesn’t provide a large enough sample group!

It is not to say that this is always the case, but I did feel this way pretty strongly back in the Fall of 2011 when I had the chance to have my compositions for this concert (such as they were at that time) workshopped by Owen Underhill and the Turning Point Ensemble at the Rose Gellert Hall in Langley (at the Langley Community Music School, where I studied piano as a boy). I felt welcomed, listened to, and I also sensed a feeling of open – mindedness which in itself can have a very calming influence on an anxiety – ridden jazz composer writing for musicians who don’t regularly play jazz .

I guess we try and meet in the middle, and that is what I have been thinking about while working on this music.

I for one am really looking forward to this event,

Brad Turner

Sunday, April 1 8pm at SFU Woodward’s

WEB SPECIAL 20% OFF REGULAR TICKETS

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COUPON CODE: JAZZ (enter all capitals)

Premiere performances of music by Dave Douglas and Brad Turner plus music by Stravinsky and Ellington with special guest Jennifer Scott!  Jump for Joy!

Our three guest composers – Dave Douglas (from New York), Brad Turner and Fred Stride (from Vancouver!) – are in the final stages of finishing their contributions to the program. Fred’s arranging Ellington’s music, adapting it for a large “classical” chamber ensemble – though Brad Turner will join us as a performer on drumset! 

I’m so very excited to play Fred’s music not only because I have the good fortune to often play his own music as a member of his Fred Stride Jazz Orchestra, but also because I heard the one Ellington work not newly arranged by Fred for Turning Point – Clothed Woman – as he had recorded it with CBC”s Curio Ensemble in the 1990s – and it is fascinating.

Brad’s and Dave’s music we have a hint about, as we read early drafts this fall – but while today there is no final draft of the music to play – in the next day or so we will have their heartfelt sonic imagination on paper for us to realize for a special audience sharing with us its unveiling. Real magic.

We’re also so thrilled to welcome Dave Douglas back to Vancouver to hear this premiere, and before that, work with him on Sand Hill’s final preparations. Dave, as you may know, lives in New York, but is a musician with a global career – and brings to his time with Turning Point the wisdom of his experiences working with and composing for many of the finest musicians in North America and Europe. That he has recorded and performed with many of Vancouver’s outstanding instrumentalists is also an important measure of the incredible talent that we are blessed to have resident – and for whom Turning Point strongly values finding increased profile. I truly am jumping for joy in anticipation for the music-making that these collaborations will inspire.

- Jeremy

Jump for Joy

Sunday, April 1 2012

SFU Woodward’s, 149 W. Hastings, Vancouver

Tickets $38/$35/$10  604 873 3311

www.turningpointensemble.ca/tickets

WEB SPECIAL 20% OFF REGULAR TICKETS UNTIL MARCH 15

Tickets are available online or at the door (cash or credit card only, no interac available)

PROMO CODE:  JAZZ (enter all caps)

April 1, 2012  8pm

SFU Woodward’s at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre

149 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

Turning Point Ensemble presents a blockbuster, genre-busting program that explores the connections between the worlds of jazz and classical music in the early 20^th century and the present day.

The music of Duke Ellington and Igor Stravinsky, arguably the two most influential musicians of  the first half of the 20^th century, at times reveals uncanny similarities.  Turning Point presents Ellington’s “The Clothed Woman” and “On a Turquoise Cloud” in arrangements by Fred Stride alongside Stravinsky’s  “Tango”,  “Pastorale”,  and “Octet”.  Jazz vocalist Jennifer Scott joins the ensemble to perform both Ellington and Stravinsky.

In a major event connecting Vancouver and New York City, we are delighted to present a premiere from two-time Grammy nominated jazz musician Dave Douglas,  arguably the most prolific and original trumpeter/composer of his generation.

The program is completed with a new commission by one of  Canada’s most versatile and highly-esteemed jazz musicians, Vancouver’s multi-instrumentalist/composer Brad Turner.

$38 Adult, $35 Senior, $10 Student

Presented in partnership with

Generously supported by

 Arts Fact Foundation

There supposedly are more self-described “artists” per capita in Vancouver than any other Canadian city, and frankly, I can’t think of a better measure of success for a civic government than attracting art-makers to be resident. The challenge for us as artists and as a community of art-makers and appreciators is to make accessible art that raises our individual and collective level of understanding and empathy towards each other, locally, nationally, and internationally.

Turning Point’s Colourful World presentation is striving to do that in several ways – firstly – bringing to Vancouver for the first time large-scale, ambitious work by local and international creators (e.g. Claude Debussy, Rodney Sharman, Toru Takemitsu, Michael Bushnell) who are recognized by colleagues in their fields for their imagination and craft – and to bring forth music that inspires curiosity and unpredictability so that we can share together the thrill of exploration. And then together, we can compare what we knew before the concert with what we know after – and feel invigorated, more emotionally and intellectually intelligent, and part of a community who share a peak experience with which we move forward together.

Please join us next week for our exciting concert next week at SFU Woodwards- so proud to be part of an incredible festival of art makers from multiple disciplines under the PuSH Festival umbrella.

- Jeremy

All of this is suggested by the scenario for the ballet, which involves a man and two women, flirting in a park, with constantly shifting moments of passion, jealousy, and coquetry. In the end there is a triple kiss (scandalous!), and then they all run away. Debussy, while claiming not to like the scenario, was clearly inspired by the plot. In the rehearsal score, the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, has carefully written all the important points of the plot at their corresponding point in the music, so we can hear exactly how carefully Debussy followed the scenario.

The choreography was not a success, though. A attempt at reconstruction can be found on YouTube. The score has had orchestral performances, but rather infrequently, perhaps because of the large orchestral forces required. It may never have been performed in Vancouver. My arrangement, for a chamber orchestra, loses some of the power of the large orchestra, (we don’t have a sarrusophone, which Debussy’s score calls for!), but allows listeners to hear some of the intimate orchestral detail which gets lost in a large auditorium. I can’t wait to hear the performance!

- Michael Bushnell