PERFORMANCE

JOHN OLIVER AND CAROL SAWYER

MELT

8pm, Thursday June 22nd, 2017
The Foreshore
Other Sights at Access Gallery
222 East Georgia, Vancouver BC

Since the summer of 2016 John and Carol have been working on a series of musical investigations into water-related themes, including polar ice melt, acid rain, and most recently, the foreshore of False Creek. Sawyer draws on a wide range of text sources, including wikipedia entries, interviews, and romantic verse to create improvised melodies interspersed with quotes from art songs and popular music, in conjunction with Oliver’s real-time improvised soundscapes and electric guitar. Melt is an informal presentation of their work-in-progress.

Attendance is free.

Presented in association with Sawyer’s artist residency at The Foreshore May-June 2017.

BIOS
Carol Sawyer is a singer and visual artist working primarily with photography, installation, video, and improvised music. Since the early 1990’s her visual art work has been concerned with the connections between photography, fiction, memory, and history. She performs regularly with her improvising ensemble ion Zoo (with whom she has released two CDs) and in other ad hoc improvising ensembles. Her work is represented by Republic Gallery, Vancouver.

John Oliver‘s “wonderfully, creative music” (Fanfare) displays “a delicate yet often complex sense of beauty” (Musicworks). Winner of the Classical Composition of the Year Award at the 2013 Western Canadian Music Awards for his orchestral composition Forging Utopia, he is known for breadth of creative output, from orchestral and chamber music, to intercultural works, electroacoustic music, and opera.  Two solo releases in 2012 celebrate the breadth of Oliver’s music: Time is Dust, a DVD-audio disc of Oliver’s immersive electroacoustic music, and the CD Forging Utopia: Orchestral Music by John Oliver.

image credit:

Vancouver Public Library Special Collection Historical Photographs. VPL Accession Number: 81074 Date: October 15, 1949 Photographer / Studio: Artray