Does it Ring True? Explorations in Music, Design and Architecture

Is there a resonant truth within dance, music, sculpture, architecture, colour or sound, and what role does truth play in an artist's work? In Term 1 of this double series, Green College’s 16th Writer in Residence, Alison Wearing, brings together some of Vancouver’s finest artists to discuss, explore and demonstrate, through live presentations of their work*, answers to these questions. This is the third and final event in the Truth in Art series and will feature three extraordinary artists with wide-ranging perspectives and manners of expression. *This event includes a live performance by soprano Heather Pawsey of an excerpt of Jeffrey Ryan's Unheard, a hauntingly beautiful and profoundly moving suite of songs based on poetry by Rachel Rose, which gives voice to four women of mythology.

Heather Pawsey, Canadian soprano, is acclaimed for her musicianship and astonishing versatility, easily encompassing and crossing over many musical boundaries including opera, oratorio, chamber, recital, music theatre and contemporary music, in ten languages. First Prize winner of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, she subsequently performed a cross-Canada Winner’s Recital Tour and has also sung in the United States, England, Austria, Slovenia, Singapore and Sydney, Australia. She is the Founding Artistic Director and General Manager of Astrolabe Musik Theatre, which creates compelling multi-disciplinary works and pushes traditional boundaries of classical vocal music.

Bill Pechet engages in an array of projects from strategic urban planning studies to residential and retail design, cemeteries, set design, and public art installations. His accomplishments includes large artworks for many Canadian cities, and urban infrastructures, public spaces, and cemeteries in Western Canada, the US, Europe and Asia. Along with Stephanie Robb, Bill represented Canada in the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Bill teaches design studios at all levels in the architecture and environmental design programs at UBC, with special concern for the emerging manners of contemporary urban social practice and the ways in which materials and space impact the experience of the built world.

Jeffrey Ryan was almost an accountant. Three months into his first semester at Wilfrid Laurier University, however, he begged to transfer into the Music Faculty to become a composer. Recordings of Ryan’s music have garnered four JUNO nominations and five more from the Western Canadian Music Awards. Ryan was the Vancouver Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence (2002-2007) and Composer Laureate (2008/09). He was an Affiliate Composer with the Toronto Symphony (2000-2002), and is currently Composer Advisor for Music Toronto.