Yesterday Tuesday we went to the Vancouver East Cultural Centre to a play Black Boys. One of the three performers was called Thomas Olajide. His surname rang a bell in my memory as sometime in the 80s I photographed a handsome and young boxer called Michael Olajide nicknamed The Silk. After the show I approached Thomas Olajide to enquire. And “Yes,” he said, “Michael is my uncle and his mom Olive is right here.”

To me our fine city has a very poor memory. Was I the only one present who connected the two men?

It is the same situation for this upcoming concert of New Music for Old Instruments. In the 90s when the Pacific Baroque Orchestra was under the musical direction of violinist Marc Destrubé I went to several concerts in which the Pacific Baroque Orchestra had commissioned local new music composers to write stuff for old instruments. This is the list that Destrubé recently sent my way that confirmed that my aging memory is still okay:

The pieces of new music PBO commissioned and premiered in my time were:

‘Not a Single Stone' - Peter Hannan (he’s the composer who used to play the recorder (he hasn’t in a long time; and long before that he was a horn player in the VSO)

‘Bloom’ - Linda Catlin Smith (Toronto)

[these were the two that we did as ’solstice’ pieces in the Vivaldi 4 Seasons program]

‘Arioso Distante’ - Bradshaw Pack (not a version of a Brandenburg, but for the same instrumentation as Brandenburg III, which was played on the same program). It’s on his CD compilation ‘Alogos’

‘Golden’ - Jocelyn Morlock. It’s on her CD compilation ‘Cobalt’, in a version with oboe instead of soprano.

‘Looking East’ - Amir Koushkani (concerto for tar and orchestra).

‘Making Kingdom’ - Teresa Hron.

Marc Destrubé

 Of new music I have written these:

 One Guest blog by composer Rodney Sharman

New Music for old instruments with Alexander Weimann and Reginald Mobley

 New Music for old instruments about Rodney Sharman

The Trombone as seen by Sharman King

What is new music?  My take

Masque and evening of new music