Rodney Sharman - New Music For Old Instruments
Saturday, January 14, 2017
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| Rodney Sharman February 14 2017 and Left November 1996 |
With so many dead composers on record, CD and live-streaming these days it is always a pleasure to meet a real one. One of these rare species is Vancouver composer Rodney Sharman. About him here is his short but substantial bio:
Rodney Sharman lives
in Vancouver, BC. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Victoria Symphony,
the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In
addition to concert music, Rodney Sharman writes music for cabaret, opera and
dance. He works regularly with choreographer James Kudelka, for whom he has
written scores for Oregon Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet and Coleman Lemieux & Co. (Toronto). Sharman
was awarded First Prize in the 1984 CBC Competition for Young Composers and the
1990 Kranichsteiner Prize in Music, Darmstadt, Germany. His score for the
music-dance-theatre piece, From The House Of Mirth, won the 2013 Dora Mavor
Moore Award for outstanding sound design/composition (choreography by James
Kudelka, text by Alex Poch Goldin after Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth). He
was a 2014 Djerassi Artist-in-Residence, Woodside, California.
I first met Sharman in November 1996 when I was assigned by
the Globe& Mail to photograph him. Since then I often see him at new music concerts and old
music concerts. We have obviously both become older but there is one difference
which you might discern in the photographs here. He now has a very large beard.
In my Kitsilano home today Saturday January 14 he asked my
granddaughter Lauren, 14, if his beard was symmetrical. Apparently it was not
and off he went to a mirror with his comb to set things right.
In a the next few days he will write a guest blog here on
his involvement on this two day concert series New Music For Old Instruments
with the collaboration of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, (which has a very good new music festival every year of which this is a part) the Pacific BaroqueOrchestra and Early Music Vancouver. Several luminaries I know are involved
including VSO In Residence Composer Jocelyn Morlock and Lutenist KonstantinBozhinov.
The two concerts feature a smaller ensemble on the 25th
and the one on the 28th has the full Pacific Baroque Orchestra with
the stellar appearance of countertenor Reginald Mobley (both Sharman and I are
extreme fans of this Bostonian who wears spats). That he can sing jazz while
being accompanied by harpsichordist and Artistic Director of the Pacific
Baroque Orchestra, Alexander Weimann who just happens to be a maestro at the piano is something
to savour. You will hear them together. Sharman has written and arranged some
songs for the man.
New Music for Old Instruments January 25, 2017 7:30 (Pre-concert talk) Christ Church Cathedral
http://www.earlymusic.bc.ca/events/new-music-for-old-instruments-i/
New Music for Old Instruments II - Saturday , Jan 28, 7:30 PM (Pre-concert talk 6:45) Christ Church Cathedral
http://www.vancouversymphony.ca/m/concerts/16NMF04/
Why is Sharman holding two instruments? Closest to him is the instrument he plays. It is modern recorder made to be a copy of an old one. The other instrument is a wooden Irish flute - Coyne - Dublin that was brought from Ireland by my wife's ancestors. According to Sharman this is a baroque flute very much like one from the time of Bach.
