Sean Bickerton

On Saturday, April 24, 2010,  we staged Vancouver 2050: Creative City, a forum called to envision the city of Vancouver as a creative city in the year 2050. Moderated by Max Wyman, the forum featured addresses by Maestro Bramwell Tovey, Music Director of theVancouver Symphony, Norman Armour, Artistic Director of the PUSH Festival, Amber Dawn, Director of the Queer Screen Film Festival and Hank Bull, Executive Director of Centre A.

A panel consisting of Miro Cernetig, columnist with the Vancouver Sun; Howard Jang, Executive Director, Arts Club Theatre; David Lemon, Executive & Artistic Director, Health Arts Society; Bernard Magnan, Chief Economist, Vancouver Board of Trade; and Vanessa Richards, Director of Community Engagement Through The Arts, Simon Fraser University; discussed those presentations with the speakers and then the floor was opened up to the audience for a lengthy debate of the ideas presented.

Our programme as downloadable PDF:  Vancouver_2050_Programme

The session lasted four hours and was well-attended by more than a hundred leaders of arts and culture from Greater Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. In the words of Impresario David YH Lui, the most important accomplishment of the event may be that it took place at all. According to Max Wyman, 1969 was the last time so many of the city’s arts leadership had gathered in one room for this kind of collaborative discussion. (A partial list of organizations attending appears at the bottom of this post.)

Opening Remarks to Moderator, Speakers, Panel & Audience. Photo: Tom Hudock

I’ll be writing more about the event later this week, but in the meantime, here are my introductory remarks at the opening of the meeting:

Good morning! It’s great to see so many friends in the theatre – it’s truly appreciated, especially at this ungodly hour. My name is Sean Bickerton and on behalf of the organizing committee it’s a pleasure to welcome you all to Vancouver 2050: Creative City.

I’m very much a product of the arts institutions gathered in this room. I played violin in the Vancouver Youth Orchestra, performed in joint concerts with the Vancouver Symphony, studied theory and piano at the Langley Community Music School, bused in with my drama class to plays at the Playhouse, competed in Friends of Chamber Music, went to my first Opera, Carmen, produced by the VOA at the QE, saw Rubinstein thanks to Hugh Pickett, the National Ballet thanks to David YH Lui, and Jesse Norman thanks to Leila Getz’ recital series among many other highlights.

It was that rich cultural background which made it possible for a kid from Cloverdale to end up in New York as a Vice President of Columbia Artists producing tours for great artists and ensembles. That experience in New York wouldn’t have been possible without the organizations represented in this room.

So I’m sold! I’m a total fan!

But what about the general public? What, to badly paraphrase one of our panelists, Vanessa Richards, would it take to transform the public perception of local arts and culture in the same way that people’s perceptions of BC wine and local produce have been transformed in recent years?

BCs wine industry, like every industry,  needed an infrastructure put in place before it could start to thrive. Do the arts in this city have the basic infrastructure they need?

In addition to considering infrastructure in 2050, we also asked the speakers to address the issue of sustainability and enrichment of programs if possible.

Some people have asked why the year 2050? Because it is far enough away to allow us to think past our day to day existential battles and imagine something better. And because the future we don’t plan is already planning us.

Before I go, many thanks to the Arts Club Theatre, which has generously provided this Theater, a very helpful Staff & the sound system for today’s forum; to Max Wyman, for agreeing so kindly to moderate today’s proceedings; to our four amazing speakers for sharing their visions; our distinguished panel for adding their insights; our audience for lending their keen minds; my great partners on the organizing committee for their hard work and generosity of spirit; the Borealis String Quartet for their poetic beauty; and my husband Tom, who’s busy photographing and videotaping the proceedings.

Thanks are also due to Tourism Vancouver for sponsoring the transcription of the proceedings; Kulture Shock Media for the website and printing of programmes; and Sean Farrell of NG Farrell Sports & Culture Marketing for helping out today.

Thanks to you all!

Today’s moderator needs no introduction, but deserves a good one. He is widely admired as a man of integrity and one of our country’s great cultural thinkers and commentators. It’s both an honour and personal pleasure to introduce as our Moderator, today … Max Wyman!

Organizations attending: Community Arts Council of Vancouver, Vancouver City Council, Diane Farris Gallery, Independent Times, Vancouver Symphony, Vancouver Su, Ballet BC, Langley Community Music School, Health Arts Society, UBC Arts Umbrella, Vancouver Pro Musica, Vancouver Board of Trade, Centre A, Arts Club Theatre, Alliance for the Arts, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Play Creative Design, Vancouver Symphony, SFU, UBC, City of Richmond, Neworld Theatre, 42nd Street, Tyee, Heritage Vancouver, City of North Vancouver, Roede House Museum, explorAsian, City Opera, Arts Advocacy BC, Eastide Culture Crawl, Writers Festival, Vancouver Cantata Singers, 2010 Legacies Now, Canadian Heritage, Vancouver Biennale, Bard on the Beach, PuSh Festival, Metro Vancouver, Knowledge TV Network, VanCity, International Centre of Arts for Social Change, Art Space Action, False Creek Residents Association, Music on Main, Out Film Festival, Electric Company, Vancouver Opera Association, Vancouver Playhouse.

On the night of the last civic election, in which I lost my own bid for office, I was approached by several directors to join the NPA Board.

I had received such overwhelming and open-hearted support from the organization and its membership during my last-minute run for council that I agreed, hoping to help in the rebuilding effort necessary to re-establish the party after that summer’s divisive leadership battle and subsequent rout at the polls.

The challenges we faced are too numerous to catalogue here and some remain. Modernizing the organization and bringing it up to date with 21st century communications and systems has been a major challenge for an all-volunteer organization.

But there is no question we are further ahead now than the bleak prospect we faced just one year ago. On the positive side, we have built up a strong support system for our elected officials, creating highly-effective policy advisory committees and media support. In addition, we have worked hard and successfully to help bridge the divide resulting from the leadership battle.

We have also been active in the community, championing local causes and communities around the city and helping roll back abuses and overreach of the current administration where possible.

And perhaps most importantly, unlike the party that vanquished us during the last election which is facing a campaign debt of $250,000, we have a balanced budget, money in the bank and prospects that brighten by the day as the city’s voters get to know the incumbents and their priorities better.

While I was elected to a three-year term, receiving more votes than any other candidate for the Board, I am resigning early, prior to our next AGM, in order to avoid even an appearance of involvement in the rules that will select the next slate of candidates. And I am doing so with the full agreement and endorsement of the Executive and Board of Directors, having coordinated the timing of my resignation with them.

I believe passionately in our democratic processes and believe this city now more than ever needs an effective opposition to hold city hall accountable and offer an alternative direction for a city about to undergo unprecedented development. While my own plans for the next election remain to be determined, I plan to remain fully engaged in the great civic debates that face us.

My letter of resignation from the NPA Board of Directors follows:

To The President & Board of Directors of the NPA

Dear Michael:

As discussed, I am writing to confirm my resignation from the Board of Directors of the NPA effective April 13, 2010, prior to the NPAs next Annual General Meeting. As we’ve discussed, the reason for my resignation is that I wish to maintain the option of running as a candidate in the next election, and feel that the conflict inherent in that wish and my role as a Board member becomes untenable the closer we get to  planning that election effort.

I have greatly enjoyed the opportunity of working with you and the other members of the Board over the past year and a half, and truly welcomed the chance to be part of a great team of talented and passionately committed board members.

While acknowledging I haven’t accomplished everything I set out to, I hope I’ve helped play some constructive role in maintaining the organization through a challenging period while providing support to our elected officials and hammering our opponents when appropriate.

I would like to thank you for your leadership during a very difficult time for the NPA, and for your personal courage in stepping up to the plate and taking on an impossibly daunting challenge. In the process, you’ve helped rebuild the organization after the leadership battle and election rout of ’08 – no small accomplishment.

The elected caucus, the Executive, Board of Directors and membership of the NPA owe you a true debt of gratitude for your difficult service, and I want you to know it is deeply appreciated by everyone who understands the challenges. I would like to add that, in what were sometimes grueling circumstances, I’ve grown to trust and admire your leadership and would gladly work with you on anything in the future.

I will help the NPA any way I can over the next 19 months, and look forward to greatly expanding our representation on the Park Board, School Board and Vancouver City Council in November, 2011. Please don’t hesitate to call on me if I can be of any assistance in the meantime.

Sincerely,
Sean Bickerton

Twenty years ago, Concord Pacific promised to build Creekside Park as a destination gateway park welcoming East Vancouver and the DTES to the False Creek waterfront in exchange for the rights to develop the old EXPO lands as one contiguous development. Later, they also gained the right to add another 2600 units to the development, with no other commitments than to fulfill the existing obligation to complete the seawall and build Creekside Park.

Today, they are trying to renege on that commitment, proposing instead to build a row of condo towers along the waterfront, with a narrow strip of three small lozenge-shaped parks in front so the new owners have a place to walk their dogs.

In writing about this subject, I feel obliged to disclose that Concord was one of the largest donors to my electoral campaign last year. Nonetheless, I sincerely hope they supported my candidacy because I am committed to doing everything possible to make this area a better place to live for everyone here. And for me, that means helping to ensure that Creekside Park gets built as promised.

As a member of the Steering Committee of the False Creek Residents Association (FCRA), as a resident of this area, and as someone who loves this city, I am diametrically opposed to this proposal.

If you, too, care about green space in this area, or Vancouver’s parks, please show up tonight at the Vancouver Park Board hearing at West Point Grey Community Centre, 4397 West 2nd Avenue, on Monday, October 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm.

And if you can’t make tonight’s meeting, please show up to City Council’s Planning and Environment hearing on the Northeast High Level Review on Thursday, Oct 22 at 2pm at City Hall. I’ll be speaking on Thursday, joined by many other members of our community intent on seeing Creekside Park completed in the next five years. Please join us!

Below is an open letter from the FCRA Co-chair that lays out a bit of the contentious history for this too-long delayed park:

An Open Letter To Mayor Robertson & City Council from the False Creek Residents Association from our co-Chair, Patsy McMillan:

To Mayor and Council/Park Board

re: HLR report for NEFC

Your Worship and City Councillors:

After having spent several hours at the consultative group meetings and having done considerable research into the report before you I would like to remind you of the numbers involved and the history of the situation.  Numbers never lie and we can only learn about what is in the future by looking at what has happened in the past so that we can move forward in a way that best exemplifies the concept of Vancouver being one of the most livable cities in the world.

First, the ODP for North False Creek which was established in 1990 required the developer, Concord Pacific, to deliver 4 parks to the City of Vancouver ( David Lam Park, George Wainbourn Park, Cooper’s Park and Creekside Park) in exchange for development permits for 7,650 residential units. Over the past 20 years Concord Pacific has been given increased residential density to 10,000 units plus 100,000 sq. ft. without increasing the park per capita investment in the community so that they are now at a net loss of 6 acres of park space not including the undeveloped 9.06 acre Creekside Park. The developer has also at several stages asked for the complete dismissal of the unit cap number so that they can continue to build without providing any further amenities including those already contracted.

Further negotiations between the City, the Developer Concord and the Provincial Government ( Utility Design Agreement) allowed the developer to wait until the last of their land was developed so that the contaminated soils in Lot 6C could be moved to the future park site.  If you calculate this remediation according to the George Wainbourn park remediation costs for “special waste” this would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $33 – 66 million. Is the land, 6C, in it’s present commercially zoned tax rate equal to that expense or should the land be swapped for a more viable, less toxic city owned site that would provide Concord with a better return on their

investment, save the BC taxpayers the cost of the soil remediation and create a land base for a memorable waterfront park on the north shore of False Creek?

Second, the two surveys conducted by the planning department staff over the past several months at public open houses indicate that 68% – 75% of all the respondents are not in favour of the re- configuration of Creekside Park from a large square usable space to a long linear unusable and disconnected strip of land, half the depth of the original park space which would be cut through by the Carrall St. Greenway as well as Abbott St and the Georgia St. Walkway ( proposed) and the same number of respondents were not in favour of the increased density to 4 million sq ft. or 7200 more residents when we are already without commensurate amenities and services in NEFC. If you compile the density figures you will see that what is being proposed is a 9 FSR or nine times the land mass. In the dense and noisy West End it is only a 1.5 – 4 FSR and overall in NFC it is 4.5 FSR.  So we are looking at double the amount of density that has already been allowed in NFC and at least triple the density in the West End over a much smaller area with no further amenities.

At what point in the increased densification of the downtown area of Vancouver do we become one of the world’s most unlivable cities?  By changing the noise by-laws, changing the per capita green space target ratio and by possibly voiding the Mt. Seymour view corridor if the developer is allowed to build condo towers along Pacific Blvd. from Abbott St.  to Quebec St. you will allow the livability of  Vancouver to be seriously altered forever. This is a total betrayal of the existing residents of the area and the overall taxpayers of Vancouver who may or may not be aware of what is being proposed by this report. The report talks about the “ landowners” who are really the land developers.  The land owners aka residents of the area are not in favour of this increased density and they have said so on numerous occasions as well as stipulating this in the HLR survey.

The HLR report before you speaks repeatedly about the “ re-shaping of Creekside Park”. As a member of the consultative group I can tell you that this only came up in the last couple of meetings as the planning dept. knows that the consultative group, to a member, was against this plan. Not one of the members polled was in favour of this change to the ODP. The Creekside Park size and shape was approved more than 20 years ago after extensive public consultation and input. Every City Council and every Park Board since has adhered to this plan.

In June and July on 1995 Concord Pacific tried to have the Unit Cap removed but the council and the park board of the day would not allow this to happen with the Park  Board feeling so strongly about this that many of the Commissioners attended the City Council meeting to uphold their mission statement “ to provide, preserve and advocate for parks and recreation services to benefit people, communities and the environment”.  The Park Board and its elected Commissioners will hopefully continue to speak out in favour of what is good for the City of Vancouver and not what is good for a specific developer whose only concern is how much money they can make and not the city that has enabled them to do so.

There has been  extensive park design plans approved by both City Council and the Park Board after hours of public consultation and community input.  The large acreage park between Carrall St and Quebec St.  is what the community of Vancouver needs in order to bring the east side of Vancouver into False Creek and to provide an open public realm for the families and children who come to False Creek as their only option for a chance to experience this open water way. By allowing the re-shaping of Creekside Park from the large plot allocated now to a linear space running beside the seawall walkway, broken up by Carrall St and Abbott St., you will essentially deny the children, youth and families from the east side of Vancouver this important experience

and you will allow a developer to build condos along Pacific Boulevard which will possibly void the Seymour Mountain View Corridor to the remainder of Vancouver taxpayers not to mention the legal ramifications to those taxpayers if the purchasers of the Millennium Water project decide to sue the city real estate dept. for false representation if they had purchased a suite with a mountain view that no longer exists.

I am imploring you to look at all of the facts, to take note of the HLR survey results that indicate an overall  lack of support for this proposal and to make a decision based on those facts as well as the history and the future of what the residents want for the City of Vancouver.

Patsy McMillan,
Chair, Citygate Intertower Community Group
Co-Chair, False Creek Residents Association
Member HLR Consultative Group

After one of the most spectacular summers in memory, something … or rather someone … is in the air …

Ana Maria Martinez singing with Placido Domingo for President Clinton

First it was one of our website clients – grammy-award-winning Soprano Ana Maria Martinez. For those of you not familiar with her artistry, Ana Maria graces the cover of September’s Opera Magazine and appears regularly with the likes of Placido Domingo and Andrea Bocelli.

There she was, mesmerizing audiences as the mermaid in Rusalka at Glyndebourne this summer when she became entangled in fishing nets decorating the set. In slow motion, struggling to remain upright, Ana Maria fell off the stage down into the orchestra pit on top of the cello section of the London Philharmonic! Thankfully, after being rushed to hospital, Ana Maria was only bruised and has gone on performing for audiences all over the world. In true show biz fashion, Ana Maria’s understudy stepped in and finished the performance to cheers all around. The show must go on!

Not long ago, Steve Tyler of Aerosmith fell off a rainy catwalk above a stage at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

According to the BBC, a storm had knocked out their sound system: “They were playing Love In An Elevator and no one could hear them any more.” Apparently after about a minute, Steven Tyler came out to entertain the troops, dancing in a storm high on a catwalk overhead the audience.

Anything to save the show …

But then, “during a spin, Steven lost his balance and fell into the audience, hitting his head on a railing as he fell. He was airlifted to hospital and thankfully, everything turned out fine.”

Last Friday, Conan O’Brian was taping a stunt with Teri Hatcher when he fell backwards and hit his head, suffering a mild concussion. A rerun was aired, and Conan was released from hospital only to joke about his next stunt: “Tune in tomorrow when Eva Longoria pushes me down an elevator shaft!”

That same day, September 25, the North West Florida Daily News reports that: “David Ott, former conductor and music director of the Philharmonic of Northwest Florida, had just finished conducting the debut of his new opera, “The Widow’s Lantern,” for the Pensacola Opera.

“All the lights were off, and I went back to get my score. … I stepped onto what I thought was the floor (of the orchestra pit) but there was nothing there.”

Ott fell 14 feet into the basement below the orchestra pit. “All I could think was that I was falling into hell,” he recalled with a grim laugh. “I was so glad when I hit because it finally stopped. It was the best of times and the worst of times,” Ott quipped. The conductor was seriously injured but is now recovering well and expects to be back conducting and composing soon.

The show must go on!

In many years of producing concert tours for Columbia Artists, I remember heroic efforts by artists prevailing through illness, personal crisis and force majeure weather in order to arrive, ready, willing and able to perform at the next theatre. On one tour a bad storm left us short-handed, so I drove the St. Louis Symphony’s instruments overnight across the Appalachians in a blizzard I’ll never forget. Dozens of tractor-trailers were strewn helter-skelter across the freeway and I was the only thing moving that night. But the orchestra made their Lincoln Center concert.

The show must go on.

Here in Vancouver, we are more privileged than many  realize to have such a spectacularly gifted troupe of performing and visual artists in our midst. Many cities around the world would give anything to have an award-winning orchestra, or a theatre community or recital series as extraordinary.

Our community of artists prove time and again their greatness and their devotion to the public. They are literally falling all over themselves to give everything they have in order to enlighten, amuse and move us.

Turning The Tables: UGM Alumni feed UGM Staff

Last September, my partner Tom and I started a basic, five-part cooking course for graduates of Union Gospel Mission’s addiction recovery program. The idea of the class was to teach basic cooking skills to help people make the transition from assisted to independent living.

We also wanted to change the nature of the relationship between UGM and grads of their highly successful recovery program so that instead of just feeding them, UGM would teach them how to feed themselves.

Our good friend, Donald Gislason, photographed all of the classes, and produced five videoclips of our amateur efforts for YouTube taken from the first class - Eggs. I’ve created a special page on this blog – The Cooking Class – to describe the genesis of the course and what we learned from it.

Below is the first of five videos in the series:

For more  …

UPDATE: JULY 21, 2009

When Expect shameless behaviour from politicians during Pride week was first published by The Georgia Straight, it recommended to Pride organizers that they ban the NPA from marching in this year’s Pride Parade. I found the suggestion highly irresponsible and wrote the article below in response. Since then they’ve removed the suggestion. It’s nice to know The Straight is listening.

I should point out that Charlie Smith, the author, is a balanced writer that slams the other guys almost as much as he does us. But I felt he went too far in seeking the banning of a major political party from this year’s parade, and I’m glad The Straight has seen fit to retract the offending statement.

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The NPA has a proud history of championing gay candidates throughout our history too numerous to list. Our new Board of Directors is the most diverse in our history and matches any political organization in this city for its broad inclusiveness. The NPA also happens to have an openly gay man in the top leadership, yours truly as the External VP for the organization. I also ran for the NPA last fall as an openly-gay, married man and proud, past-President of Gays and Lesbians of UBC. (That’s what it was called back when we were organizing the gay rights movement in Vancouver to respond to the AIDS crisis.)

Our elected councillor, Suzanne Anton, was at the forefront of efforts to help the Odyssey and the endangered drag community that rehearses and performs there. According to Xtra West, “Odyssey supporters left city hall outraged Apr 9 after council turned down the popular gay club’s application to relocate to Denman St. NPA councillor Suzanne Anton cast the only vote in favour of the Denman St location. Vision Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang compared the loss of one of Vancouver’s longest-running gay spaces to his father’s favourite Chinese restaurant closing. His father found a new restaurant and got over it, Jang told council.”

Perhaps the reason Dr. Jang can’t tell the difference between the Odyssey and a chinese restaurant is because he never took the time to meet the patrons. Suzanne went a number of times, and took me with her one night. The Odyssey is far more than a dance club – it’s a cultural space, a community space, and a support system for an embattled minority within a minority. We met a DJ and his bride to be, who were sustained through more than a decade by the club’s generous support of the transgendered and drag community. They were very emotional as they told us how much the Odyssey meant to them, how supportive the club was – providing the rehearsal and performance space they needed, and providing a much-needed focal point for their community.

What Suzanne Anton made possible was a reprieve that gave the Odyssey a little more time to find a new home, and a chance for its patrons to be heard, in contrast with a hard-hearted government willing to throw the drag and trans-gendered community out onto the street, insulting them in the process.

The NPA celebrates Vancouver’s diversity which is our own. We embrace and reflect the multicultural nature of our society, and celebrate the contribution of the GLBT community to making Vancouver a better, more vibrant and fun city to live in.

Vancouver’s Pride Parade is the biggest and most broadly supported parade in the City. I worked hard along with others that worked even harder at a time we weren’t greeted with applause in those early years. Why does the Georgia Straight want to prevent me from marching now?

My suggestion would be that we should all be working together to keep narrow-minded bigotry out of the parade and ensure that everyone that wants to can march in it, rather than attempting to politicize the parade and risk eroding any of the broad-based support it now enjoys.

What else is a lapsed Buddhist to do on an Easter Friday but spend the afternoon over at Union Gospel Mission serving Easter dinners?

Usually I’ve worked on the steam line in the kitchen at these things, but today I was out front – one of the setup crew doing place settings, stacking out cups, serving pie a la mode and handing out buns. Tom was a juice server, and our friend Steve who joined us helped serve the roast turkey dinners.

We were shift number two. It was a frantic three hours, then another shift of twenty or so volunteers arrived and took over in mid-service. Matthew, my replacement, looked a little dazed as I handed him my tray and shouted instructions over the din, but then he was off to set six places at  a newly cleaned table and the pace continued smoothly behind us as we left the dining room.

There is an urgency to the entire process that is driven by a line of people that extends all the way around the building, sometimes for blocks, even in a freezing rain. Today it was sunny though, so everyone was in a good mood and spirits were boisterous and friendly and very appreciative.

It’s an extremely rewarding experience, reinforcing the fact that it’s impossible to overestimate the need or their success in mobilizing the community to meet it. Some of my highest admiration goes to Randy, head chef, who manages to turn out an amazing holiday meal with all the trimmings for several thousand in a crowded kitchen with limited storage space. But he has a crackerjack staff and they cook for ten days to make it happen.

If you ever want to watch teamwork in action, head down to UGM to see how their staff run the logistics of these holiday meals and the volunteers that serve them.

To round out what’s been a very Good Friday, we’re watching Bill Maher’s documentary on world religions tonight - Religulous. Tomorrow I’ll be at the Vaisakhi Parade near Main and 50th from noon onwards.

I must confess that I was feeling a little overwhelmed by things of late. By the sorry drumbeat of each day’s news, certainly. It’s hard to conceive of the scale or baseness of the criminality that has brought the world to such a sorry state.

And I despair at the recent loss of one of Vancouver’s most kind and devoted, while I think back to the Vancouver of my youth, free of guns and gangland slayings …

I must also confess to feeling the weight of the responsibilities I’ve taken on since the election. I care very deeply about the causes and organizations I support, and want to ensure I do a good job and contribute real value.

And, of course, Life itself presses in while we are making all our grand plans – the normal wear and tear of age, and the sudden illness that reminds us of our own mortality and just how truly precious and rare are those around us that we love.

I suspect many of us are feeling the same way right now, after our long, somewhat hard winter. And this brooding forms the background for my story today, much as the dark, foreboding clouds in the background of the photograph above nonetheless frame the cherry blossoms of spring’s promise.

It was last Friday evening that I found myself, weighted down with all of these cares, settling down onto a hard wooden pew at the back of West Point Grey United Church to hear a concert presented by the Vetta Chamber Music Series.

The very first piece on the program was Beethoven’s Spring Sonata, performed by VSO Associate Concertmaster Joan Blackman and pianist Kenneth Broadway.

Do you remember how many times you’ve heard the Spring Sonata performed live? After a lifetime spent immersed in music, I’ve heard this piece performed maybe eight times in all.

The truly remarkable thing about Beethoven is that, just as Shakespeare invented our concept of the modern, self-questioning and self-referential human, Beethoven was the first composer to make common man the central actor in his own drama. To do this, he invented a new language of emotional expressivity capable of conveying all of the mixed emotions and very human conflicts and complexities with which we are, as modern humans, all too familiar.

After a century of music that praised the Gods and Kings and Nobles – simple morality plays with predictable sentiment and nice neat endings – Beethoven started telling the story of messy humanity itself, with all of its variations – sometimes raucous, sometimes transcendent, as in the exquisitely beautiful adagio of the Spring Sonata.

I don’t know how he first conceived of something that had never existed before, but somehow Beethoven, writing back in the 19th century, encompassed me in his thoughts, with all of my 21st century concerns …

The performance that night was one of the most perfect renditions of that sonata I’ve heard. Joan Blackman has a gorgeous sound (and violin to match), and brought so much nuance and innate musicality to the piece that it was a perfect performance. As to Ken Broadway, this was Beethoven that only a musician steeped in years living in Germany could produce, and music-making of the highest order. Seamless, conversational, free, musical in every sense of that word and seemingly effortless …

As a violin student at UVic, I struggled with this sonata for many years. I know how hard every phrase is, how awkward Beethoven’s writing for the violin, how fragmented and difficult to find the long phrasing necessary to its success, and I marvel at the ability to go so far with emotional content that the work is capable of enfolding an entire audience’s thoughts, worries and dreams in its contours …

That was the performance I went to on Friday, weighted down with my own particular concerns. I left restored, renewed, reconnected with something greater than my own parochial world, reminded yet again why music is my religion and concert halls my cathedrals. This is where I touch something true and eternal and pure and where I draw the sustenance that makes everything else possible.

Beethoven was a genius of a Shakespearean order. Right here in Vancouver, Joan Blackman and Kenneth Broadway are two of the very few artists in the world capable of capturing and expressing that genius in a way that makes us thrill to be alive in the hearing.

Thanks to them, it’s Spring!

Yo-Yo Ma

Given my personal history with the organization, it’s a real pleasure to announce I was elected to serve a two-year term on the Board of Directors of the Vancouver Recital Society last night at their Annual General Meeting.

Founded in 1980 by a dynamo named Leila Getz, (Artistic Director of the VRS), the Vancouver Recital Society today is one of the ten great recital series in North America, presenting such internationally-renowned artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Cecilia Bartoli, Kiri te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Itzhak Perlman, Kathleen Battle, and Vladimir Ashkenazy among many others over the past 29 years.

I’m particularly pleased to join this board because, as Leila is fond of reminding members, I was the society’s first summer student/intern, working my way through UBC at the time. Even while away in New York at Columbia Artists, I remained in touch with the VRS as it was rapidly evolving into one of the premier series on the continent.

The Board of the VRS, headed by Brian Wallace, is one of the great boards in the city – that rare combination of people motivated by love of music and dedicated to fiscal prudence, with the result that the VRS balances its budget every year with no accumulated deficit. It is an honour to serve with such a dedicated group of talented individuals.

The Electrifying Cecilia Bartoli

Two events of note upcoming: Cecilia Bartoli is one of the greatest, most electrifying and musical singers of our time and performs Wednesday, February 25, 2009 8:00 PM at the Orpheum Theatre.

And, on April 18, 2009, the VRS will present its annual Surprise Concert at 3pm at the Chan Centre at UBC. This is a spectacular opportunity to hear great artists in an intimate setting with an element of suspense thrown into the mix … what’s not to love? For tickets very reasonably priced at $50, please contact the VRS for more information.

Sharing a laugh with Reg Tupper, one of many hard-working campaign volunteers

“The Non-Partisan Association (NPA), Vancouver’s oldest civic party, took another step forward in rebuilding itself after November’s municipal elections,” reports Jackie Wong in The Westender:

“NPA members gathered at the party’s annual general meeting at the Hellenic Community Centre in Kitsilano on December 29. Twenty members jockeyed for 11 elected spots on the party’s board of directors.

Sean Bickerton, who ran unsuccessfully for city council in the November election, is among the newly elected board members. He was raised in the Lower Mainland and currently lives near Gastown with his husband. “I offer nearly 40 years of community activism… and proud advocacy for gay rights and racial tolerance,” Bickerton said in his board nomination speech.

Regarding his goals for revitalizing the centre-right NPA as a whole, Bickerton called for a united effort to “reclaim the centre” in Vancouver politics. “We lost the centre in the last election and got painted on the right,” he says. “The centre is where we need to be… City government is about finding pragmatic solutions to people’s problems. It doesn’t lend itself to ideological sermonizing.”

Twenty-five-year-old Gavin Dew was also elected to the board. He handled the NPA’s social media campaign in the past election, and is one of many young people to have become newly involved with the party in the last election cycle.

Twenty-six-year-old Melissa De Genova, the youngest park board candidate in the past election, was elected chair of the Young NPA (YNPA) board. “What we need to do is try and… bring in younger, progressive people,” she says. Twenty-year-old Meredith Ladner, Peter Ladner’s youngest daughter, was elected vice-chair of the YNPA. She has been involved with the NPA since 2003.

Other elected NPA board members include technologist and incoming Volunteer Vancouver president Chilwin Cheng, lawyer and Liberal Party of Canada worker Manjot Hallen, Kerrisdale realtor and Suzanne Anton supporter Deborah Spafford, real-estate finance expert Jeevan Khunkhun, entrepreneur Doug Leung, communications expert Michael Davis, and former park board candidate Naresh Shukla.”