Testimonials

“As a mature student of composition, the opportunities provided by Vancouver Pro Musica to
listen to contemporary works by composers of all ages and experience levels, hear my own
work performed by top-flight professionals, and be able to interact with other composers and
performers at concerts or through open reading sessions has simply been an invaluable and
irreplaceable contribution to my development. In particular, the creative stimulus provided by the
Sonic Boom and the Further East/Further West concert series, with the ever-astonishing array
of sounds, textures and compositional forms created by the community of composers in B.C.,
has become a well-spring of inspiration for me, and I learn from each piece I hear. I eagerly
look out for the calls for scores from Vancouver Pro Musica, and now “plan ahead” for those
opportunities when thinking about compositional projects”.

     - Glenn Sutherland, composer
 

“I would like to voice my strong praise and support for Vancouver Pro Musica’s annual Sonic
Boom Festival. For many reasons, the ’06 festival was a huge success, in fact the most
successful to date. The organization has my highest admiration and respect.

This remarkable new music festival disseminates, through its series of four major concerts
and workshops, the work of local classical composers exclusively, performed by professional
musicians and ensembles. Appropriately entitled “Survey the Landscape”, it is the only
contemporary music ensemble in Vancouver which features, promotes and encourages a wide,
all-inclusive spectrum of music composition by many British Columbia composers—young, old,
experienced, inexperienced, academic, self-taught, established, emerging, accomplished, tonal,
atonal, conservative, modern, “cutting edge”, strange, “mainstream”—all styles and aesthetics
imaginable. And this is precisely why the festival is so successful and why it inspires pride
and warm feelings of support among sold-out audiences, Vancouver press, and CBC radio
producers”.

     - Dr. Stephen Chatman, composer, UBC School of Music,
       on the 2006 Sonic Boom Festival

“Sonic Boom is an important stepping-stone for young, Vancouver-based composers - it was
the occasion for some of my first public performances. As a young composer, inclusion in the
Sonic Boom Festival is more than just a helpful résumé booster; it's an acknowledgment that
your work is worthy of presentation in a professional forum, providing encouragement for further
career development and concert presentations both in and beyond the local contemporary
music scene.”

     - Adam Basanta, composer/sound artist