Vancouver New Music presents
Unlikely…
A concert series of unusual musical collisions

1 March 2007 – Hammerhead Consort (Canada)
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street; 8pm

8 March 2007 – Phill Niblock (USA) and Thomas Ankersmit (Holland)
St. Andrew’s Wesley, 1022 Nelson Avenue; 8pm

15 March 2007 – Peter Hannan, Kenton Loewen, Marc Destrubé,
Pissed Off Wild and Axelrod Quartet (Canada/USA)
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street; 8pm

Each concert is $20 regular/$15 students and seniors; A pass for all three concerts is available for $45/$30 and is available only through Vancouver New Music (837 Davie Street or 604.633.0861).

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Vancouver New Music is pleased to announce the inaugural edition of its March concert series!

Each year, throughout March, Vancouver New Music will present concerts that explore different directions within a common theme.

To kick off this new annual series, Unlikely… will feature unusual collaborations and musical collisions between artists, genres and mediums. A duo of percussionists and a duo of pianists come together in a high-energy quartet; an iconic multimedia sound artist performs with an avant-garde saxophonist; and a contemporary composer collaborates with a hard-rock hip-hop band and string quartet simultaneously. An eclectic array of unusual musical fusions, Unlikely… is a perfect collection of concerts for the curious and adventurous.

Put simply, rather than detrimental, the unlikely is not only wanted and pursued in the New Music context, it is also critical and revitalizing; in a way it is basic, axial, even oundational. … Yes, a case is being made for the unlikely, and this case is deologically interpretive, cutting across ethics and aesthetics. But this case is also made without high horse or ivory tower: it is always-already part and parcel of what people do. – Brady Cranfield, On the Unlikely

Full concert schedule follows.

Hammerhead Consort
1 March 2007 – 8pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street
Featuring two pianists and two percussionists, the Hammerhead Consort is one of Canada's most unique chamber music ensembles. This extraordinary quartet will present a new piece by Frederic Rzewski, the shimmering Cloches by Franco Donatoni plus Canadian works by Keith Hamel and Howard Bashaw. Free artist chat at 7pm.


Phill Niblock & Thomas Ankersmit
8 March 2007 – 8pm
St. Andrew’s-Wesley, 1022 Nelson Avenue
Making use of the church’s architecturally specific acoustics, New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician Phill Niblock and Dutch experimental saxophonist Thomas Ankersmit create loud, shifting drones that generate new tonal layers within the performance space. Free artist chat at 7pm.

“Phill Niblock's music and films are concerned with detail and simplicity . . . dense, imposing sound mass . . . . Sum and difference tones pile up until they sound like an orchestra of voices . . . one listens first to one level of detail, then to another, only gradually learning to hear everything at once.” - New York Times


Peter Hannan, Kenton Loewen, Marc Destrubé, Axelrod Quartet & Pissed Off Wild
15 March 2007 – 8pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street
A Canadian composer, post-punk drummer, early-music violinist, classic string quartet and a hard rock- hip hop band meet and intermingle in spite of their respectively (or apparently) remote points. Together they will perform the world premiere of a new work by Peter Hannan, written especially for this unusual collection of musicians. Free artist chat at 7pm.

"Hannan's compositions strike a fascinating balance between cultural amnesia and total recall. " - Globe and Mail


Each concert is $20 regular/$15 students and seniors; single tickets are available at Sikora’s Classical Records (432 West Hastings Street) through Ticketmaster (www.ticketmaster.ca / 604.280.3311) and at the door. A pass for all three concerts is available for $45/$30 and is available only through Vancouver New Music (837 Davie Street or 604.633.0861).

Vancouver New Music gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage through Arts Presentation Canada, Government of Canada’s Youth Employment Strategy, The Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and BC Gaming, The City of Vancouver through the Office of Cultural Affairs, Holiday Inn Downtown and Tom Lee Music.

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Press kits, photos, interviews and audio / video excerpts – all available.
Media contact: Heather McDermid
Phone: 604.633.0861 · Fax: 604.633.0871 · Email: heather@newmusic.org
Web site: www.newmusic.org

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