
Annual Impact Report 2024
(Sept 1, 2023 – Aug 31, 2024)
Something I will remember for a long time! Thank you for making this!
The Tempest Project audience member
“Music that brings us together.” That’s our mandate. Music on Main presents innovative musical experiences, top-flight musicians, and classical, new, and genre-bending music in casual, welcoming environments. Our mission is to connect people by developing artists’ and audiences’ relationships to music, to each other, and to themselves. Music on Main welcomes chats between artists and their new friends – the audience – as building connection, community, and care are upheld as core values at each of our events.
Since our inaugural season in 2006, we’ve produced over 740 events, featuring more than 1,800 musicians, and over 150 world premieres. Part of Music on Main’s annual programming includes the Modulus Festival, which “provides western Canada with one of the finest windows onto the post-classical scene” (Gramophone Magazine), and since 2020, the Summer Pop Up Concerts. Music on Main has earned a global reputation as a musical storyteller for the post-classical age. We create innovative musical experiences, and in undertaking our mission, Music on Main serves as a community curator, uniting ever-increasing and diverse audiences through music.
During the 2023/24 Season, Music on Main produced 33 concerts and events throughout the year, including a concert series, the 2023 Modulus Festival, regular annual programming such as the Music for the Winter Solstice and The Kessler Academy, a co-presentation at the PuSh Festival, a return to Mount Pleasant Park for the Summer Pop Up Concerts, and the world premiere of The Tempest Project.
Photo credits from top left to bottom right: Zubin Kanga’s SHOW(ti)ME; For Dreams: Music by Jennifer Butler (Mark Takeshi McGregor, Jennifer Butler); Hopeful Monster (Eve Egoyan, Mauricio Pauly); Vancouver Youth Choir; Stay On It: Music by Julius Eastman (Zubin Kanga, Vern Griffiths, Dailin Hsieh, Lisa Cay Miller, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, Carrie Tennant, Saina Khaledi, Aram Bajakian, Julia Ulehla, Julia Chien, Colin MacDonald, Cindy Kao, Paolo Bortolussi, Karen Gerbrecht, Vancouver Youth Choir); Stay On It (Julia Ulehla, Vern Griffiths, Dailin Hsieh). Pictures taken by Jan Gates.
Artistic Highlights From 2023/24:
The 2023/24 Season began with incredible performances at the 12th Modulus Festival in November 2023. The Festival ran November 3-6, taking over the ANNEX and the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre to showcase artists from across Canada and beyond. The launch party featured short performances from artists who would perform later in the festival, including Mark Takeshi McGregor and Jennifer Butler (flutes), Eve Egoyan (piano), and Mauricio Pauly (electronics).
Programming included:
- SHOW(ti)ME: Zubin Kanga | Vancouver welcomed the London-based pianist as he performed the Canadian premieres of works by Laura Bowler, Zubin Kanga, Luke Nickel, and Alexander Schubert
- Late Night with SICK BOSS | A fantastic concert and vinyl release for Vancouver’s SICK BOSS featuring Montreal-based Erika Angell as a special guest. This concert was presented with Barking Sphinx Performing Society.
- For Dreams: Music by Jennifer Butler | A stunning concert of Vancouver composer Jennifer Butler’s music, featuring the composer performing flute and artists Peter Anderson (actor), Dory Hayley (soprano), Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa (piano), Mark Takeshi McGregor (flute), Adrian Verdejo (guitar). This concert and CD release of Jennifer’s new album, One More Way to See, was presented with Redshift Music.
- Hopeful Monster: Music by Eve Egoyan and Mauricio Pauly | The Vancouver premiere of Eve Egoyan and Mauricio Pauly’s new recording and performance project for piano and electronics, where the two performers/creators evoked sounds that reflected the immediacy of friends making music together.
- Free Family Concert with the Vancouver Youth Choir – a fantastic, energetic concert led by Carrie Tennant, featuring over 50 local youth and two premieres. Almost 400 people in attendance!
- Stay On It: Music by Julius Eastman | The Music on Main All-Star Band made its return for this fun and lively concert that also featuring the Vancouver Youth Choir. This concert was presented with the Queer Arts Festival.
- Elusive Things: Standing Wave Ensemble | The Modulus Festival’s closing concert with Standing Wave Ensemble featured three world premieres by Vancouver composers Dorothy Chang, Giorgio Magnanensi, and Nancy Tam, with Giorgio and Nancy performing live electronics to their new pieces.
The Festival also included talks, like “The Big Picture” with visiting and local artists discussing their practices and creation of new work. We also hosted the Canadian New Music Network and their conversation envisioning Sustainable Futures for music and sound artists and organizations, arts workers, and audiences.
And let’s not forget about the festival parties, which were not in short supply! Music on Main hosted a stellar Launch Party, featuring performances by Mark Takeshi McGregor and Jennifer Butler, plus a behind the scenes chat with Eve Egoyan and Mauricio Pauly. The annual Industry Night took place on November 4 with the awesome music of DJ INNEZZ.
Photo credits from top left to bottom right: Music for the Winter Solstice 2023, two pictures (Asitha Tennekoon, Robyn Jacob). Photos taken by Mike Southworth. Adam Tendler’s Inheritances; AMOT Ariel Barnes; AMOT Timo Andres, two pictures. Photos taken by Jan Gates.
Season Programming Highlights: December brought the annual return of a favourite concerts, Music for the Winter Solstice. Based on the artistic success of the 2022 edition, we welcomed back the quartet who created such memorable moments for audiences: Asitha Tennekoon (tenor), Jonathan Lo (cello), Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa (piano), Robyn Jacob (vocals & piano).
In January 2024, Adam Tendler joined Music on Main and PuSh Festival with his stunningly intimate concert, “Inheritances.” These performances featured diverse compositions that Adam commissioned friends to write after receiving an unexpected inheritance after his father’s passing. These bold and tender pieces, written by leading composers and woven together into one intimate program, told a universal story of lineage, loss and place, and became a meditation on confronting the past while moving into the future.
One audience member said that they “expected to enjoy this piano concert, but did not expect to be moved by the whole of it. Thank you all.”
February and March 2024 saw the return of A Month of Tuesdays at the Fox Cabaret. Not only was it the return of this beloved series, but it also featured the return of two important artists from past seasons, Timo Andres (piano) and Ariel Barnes (cello). The series also featured Music on Main debuts by Sarah Jo Kirsch (soprano) and Madeline Hildebrand (piano) who presented a stellar concert, including a world premiere of “INTERNAL GALAXIES” by Luis Ramirez, and the Vancouver debut of the Dior Quartet from Toronto.
Superstar new music pianist Vicky Chow returned to Music on Main after 2023’s sold-out Philip Glass concert. In May 2024, Vicky played another sold-out concert, this time featuring the composer’s “Piano Etudes Books 2.” . The packed venue had audiences riveted, with afterward an audience member wrote, “Keep doing the GREAT work that you are doing!! Your events are not just a great performance from a great artist in a beautiful venue – but they are also humanly *warm*.” Closing out Music on Main’s 2023/24 Season was the 10th Anniversary of The Kessler Academy’s chamber string orchestra concert at the ANNEX, and the annual free Summer Pop-Up Concerts in Mount Pleasant Park. Despite rain over the three performances of the Pop-Up Concerts in the park, in August at Mount Pleasant Park, audiences still had a wonderful time supporting incredible local talent, including the Qing Ensemble, Microcosmos Quartet, and M’Girl.
The Tempest Project Development: In 2020, Music on Main began to develop a new production, “The Tempest Project.” After four years of workshops with The Tempest Project Company, where we explored the themes of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” this musically and theatrically audacious production premiered at the Vancouver Playhouse in July 2024.
Inspired by Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” Music on Main’s “The Tempest Project” is a music-filled journey that took audiences through the unexpected places inside the Vancouver Playhouse. Audiences were led through the theatre, through spaces enveloped in sound and light, and experienced a roving musical adventure while witnessing performances in dressing rooms and sound booths, rehearsals halls, and on the stage itself.
“The Tempest Project” brought together musicians, composers, designers, and theatre-makers throughout the development and final creation of the performance. The Tempest Project Company included: Aram Bajakian (guitar); Paolo Bortolussi (flute); Julia Chien (percussion_; Dailin Hsieh (zheng); Saina Khaledi (santour); Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa (piano); Jonathan Lo (cello;) Julia Ulehla (vocals); David Pay, (performer); Alfredo Santa Ana (electronics); Katie Findlay (recorded voice); and Prevail (recorded voice).
The creative team included: David Pay, director; Shayna Goldberg, producer; Melanie Yeats, dramaturg; Alexis Douglas, production manager; Jessica Bournival, stage manager; Nancy Tam, sound designer; Alex Clark, assistant stage manager.
The musical pieces included in “The Tempest Project” were:
– World premiere of Gabriel Kahane’s “In the Commonwealth” – featuring Aram Bajakian, Saina Khaledi, Jonathan Lo, and Julia Ulehla
– World premiere improvisation based on Solange’s “Things I Imagined” – featuring The Tempest Project Company
– World premiere of Saina Khaledi’s “Conversation” – featuring Paolo Bortolussi and Dailin Hsieh
– World premiere of Nancy Tam’s “An Evaporating Sigh” – featuring Julia Chien and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
Photo credits: The Tempest Project (Aram Bajakian, Paolo Bortolussi, Julia Chien, Dailin Hsieh, Saina Khaledi, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, Jonathan Lo, Julia Ulehla, Alfredo Santa Ana, David Pay). Photos taken by Jan Gates.
Community Partnerships:
Music on Main’s successes are made continually possible thanks to our partnerships. Over the 2023/24 season, we struck meaningful and lasting relationships with the following organizations, among others: Barking Sphinx Performing Society, Canadian New Music Network, Collide Entertainment, Downtown Van, The Fox Cabaret, Frau Musica Nova, Le Vivier, Microcosmos Quartet, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Qing Ensemble, Queer Arts Festival, Redshift Music, RBC, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, Showcase Pianos, Standing Wave Ensemble, Stir, The Post at 750, Vancouver Civic Theatres, Vancouver Parks Board, and Vancouver Youth Choir.
With the introduction of the new position of Artistic Associate, Music on Main began to create and build relationships with several additional local organizations, creating bridges across disciplines and cultural divides. During the 2023/24 Season relationships began with Tsleil-Waututh Nation, BC Brain Wellness, The Only Animal, St. James Music Academy, SFU’s Office of Community Engagement in Burnaby, New2BC, and S.U.C.C.E.S.S.. We look forward to building on these and others as we look to create authentic relationships over time. We anticipate that several more relationships are likely to be created as this project moves forward.
Photo credits from top left: AMOT Sarah Jo Kirsch & Madeline Hildebrand. Photo taken by Mike Southworth. Vicky Chow plays Philip Glass Piano Etudes Book 2; AMOT Dior Quartet (Noa Sarid, Tobias Elser, Joanne Yesol Choi, Caleb Georges); The Kessler Academy; Summer Pop Up Concerts M’Girl (Renae Morriseau, Cheri Maracle, Sherryl Sewepagaham); Summer Pop Up Concerts Microcosmos Quartet (Marc Destrubé, Andrea Siradze, Tawnya Popoff, Rebecca Wenham). Photos taken by Jan Gates.