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Events
Events happening today
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March 19, 2020 April 30, 2020
Craigdarroch Castle play: Finding a Voice: Gender, Sexuality and Music Through the work of Elinor Dunsmuir
Craigdarroch Castle has long been dedicated to telling the stories of the Dunsmuir family and other Castle residents over the years. Now it’s created a singular show about a particular character and taking it on the road.
Finding a Voice: Gender, Sexuality and Music Through the work of Elinor Dunsmuir offers new insight into the family and the times through the story and music of the coal baron’s talented granddaughter. It runs March 19 to April 30 at Craigdarroch Castle.
Using photographs alongside text and information panels, interspersed with three listening stations and two interactive workstations, where visitors can listen to and work within Elinor’s compositions, a picture emerges of Elinor’s attempts to break free from her easeful but rather proscribed life.
Elinor was a granddaughter of the Dunsmuir patriarch Robert and his wife, Joan. She was the sixth child (and fifth of eight surviving daughters) of Robert’s eldest son James and his wife, Laura. She grew up with everything but was a square peg in British Columbia society of the day. Despite her intelligence, there was no role for her in the family business. She studied music in Europe and became an accomplished musician and composer.
Elinor chose to march to her own drummer, cutting her hair short, wearing men’s clothes, smoking cigars and developing a taste for drink and gambling. Her circle in Europe accepted her homosexuality and she became known in the casinos as la riche canadienne. Poor health and dwindling finances ultimately brought her back to Victoria, where she lived at Hatley Castle with her mother, Laura. Elinor died of a stroke in 1938 at 52.
“Tying into broader issues around social change and identity, the exhibition will look at Elinor’s works from a musicological perspective, as well as using Elinor’s life as a framework to explore how her experience -- as both a woman and a member of the LGBTQ2 community -- shaped her life and her experience as a composer,” says exhibition curator Danielle MacKenzie.
After its run at Craigdarroch Castle, Finding a Voice: Gender, Sexuality and Music Through the work of Elinor Dunsmuir moves to the Courtney Museum, where it will be on display from June 29 through October 19, 2020.
Craigdarroch Castle is grateful for Government of Canada funding through the Access to Heritage Component of the Museums Assistance Program.
For more information, visit www.thecastle.ca.
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March 29, 2020 05:00 PM March 30, 2020 12:00 AM
Introductory Printmaking: Drypoint (PRNTw126-6)
One of the joys of printmaking is that it involves a very process-based way of working with materials. The tools, terminology, and techniques can be intimidating if you do not have a background in printmaking so this workshop will provide an ideal introduction to give you everything you need to get started. You will experiment with inking squeegees, metal drawing tools, and learn how to use a printing press. In this one-day workshop you will gain a basic understanding of the differences been intaglio and relief printmaking techniques in hands-on, step-by-step printing exercises, which will introduce you to the essentials of drypoint. Once you have completed a workshop or course at VISA in printmaking, arrangements can be made for you to use the press for a small fee. Suitable for beginners.
Mar 29, 2020 Sunday, 10am - 5pm
Marina DiMaio
Tuition: $175.00 (6 hrs) (materials included)
http://vancouverislandschoolart.com/workshops_wi20det.html#PRNTw126-6
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March 30, 2020 02:30 AM 04:00 AM
Vox Humana is proud to present the Victoria premiere of the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, projected on large screen, accompanied by the live soundtrack Voices of Light by Richard Einhorn, and featuring choir and orchestra.
"You cannot know the history of silent film unless you know the face of Renée Jeanne Falconetti. In a medium without words, where the filmmakers believed that the camera captured the essence of characters through their faces, to see Falconetti in Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc” is to look into eyes that will never leave you." Roger Ebert
Ebert reviewed the 1928 film, directed by Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer, for its release in The Criterion Collection, an archive of approximately 1000 movies of significance in film history. More than 90 years after its initial release, "The Passion of Joan of Arc" is still considered one of the most innovative films of its time. Instead of a screenplay based on the events, Dreyer used the actual documentation of Joan of Arc's 1431 trial as his starting point. The use of lighting, camera angles, an enormous set, and even the fact that for the first time actors wore no makeup on screen all contribute to making the film an intense, intimate, and otherworldly experience. The French director Jean Cocteau famously said it played like "an historical document from an era in which the cinema didn't exist”.
In 1928, film soundtracks as we know them today did not exist, either. Films were accompanied by live music until synchronized soundtracks became standard in the late 1920s, making "The Passion of Joan of Arc" one of the last great "silent" films. A score for the original release of Dreyer's film was written by French composers Leo Pouget and Victor Alix, however, their score was for an abridged and censored version of the film; apparently the church, the government, and French nationalists all had issues with both Dreyer's vision of the subject and his nationality as a Danish citizen. To make matters worse, Dreyer's original cut of the film and his working material were destroyed by fire - something that has always plagued early films, which are highly flammable - and was thought lost to history.
Miraculously, a print of Dreyer's original cut of "The Passion" was found in a Norwegian hospital in 1981. It is not entirely known how it got there; it is suspected that a doctor at that hospital had both an interest in the subject of Joan of Arc, and a connection to Dreyer. At any rate, it was a spectacular find, and it is this version that made its way into The Criterion Collection.
In 1994, American composer Richard Einhorn was inspired to compose a piece to accompany Dreyer's cut of the film. He called his piece an "oratorio" and give it the title "Voices of Light". It is scored for a semi-chorus of female voices (originally recorded by the early music ensemble Anonymous 4), a full mixed choir, and a small orchestra of strings and winds, that includes solo parts for viola da gamba. The piece made a powerful impact on audiences and critics alike, so much so that the curators of The Criterion Collection decided to include Einhorn's work as a soundtrack option on the film's DVD release.
Soloists include: Kristen Birley (soprano), Yuliya Myers (mezzo), Kieran Foss (tenor) and Nathan McDonald (bass).
Performance: March 29th, 2020 – 7:30 PM
Location: Farquhar Auditorium, University of Victoria
Tickets: $40, $25 (25 years old and under) Available in person at Farquhar Auditorium and online at https://tickets.uvic.ca/TheatreManager/1/tmEvent/tmEvent2859.html.
Upcoming Events
March 30, 2020 02:30 AM
MAKING CHORAL MUSIC relevant to people who might not be seeking it out has become job one for the leaders of many of our local choirs. While opera features costumes, sets, and plot lines to entice folks, choral music is not typically heavy on visuals. In a stroke of brilliance, Brian Wismath, artistic director for Victoria’s Vox Humana Chamber Choir (VHCC), is staging a wonderfully unique and visual choral music experience in late March: a screening of the celebrated 1928 silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc, accompanied live by the film score (“Voices of Light” by Richard Einhorn), performed by Wismath’s impeccable 28-voice choir, soloists, and members of the Victoria Symphony.
Renee Falconetti as Joan
Wismath says Einhorn’s score is “considered so seminal that it’s included with the film’s Criterion Collection release (there have been dozens of soundtracks created for the silent classic).” Directed by Carl Dreyer, the film is heralded as one of the most influential ever made, serving as inspiration for generations of film directors such as Bergman, Fellini and Hitchcock. The heart-rending close-ups of actress Renee Falconetti’s subtle, natural expressions humanize the complex range of emotions required in her role as Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in 1431. Yet, says Wismath, “The music has a playful character to it… it’s not all serious all the time.” It includes 15th century chant and even recordings of the bells from the actual church where Joan prayed.
The challenge, of course, is technical. Wismath says there are “scenes in which a particular look happens, and the music has to synch up with that look perfectly.” His reverence for Dryer’s masterpiece is palpable. “I’ll be making sure that the music perfectly complements the film as much as possible; the music is secondary to the film,” he says, which “stands alone perfectly. It’s almost that you shouldn’t even notice the music; it should function in the background and complement what the audience sees on the stage.”
Vox Humana Chamber Choir presents The Passion of Joan of Arc, March 29, 7:30pm, Farquhar Auditorium, University of Victoria, tickets $40, $25 (25 years old and under), available in person at Farquhar Auditorium or online at tickets.uvic.ca—Mollie Kaye
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