Hailed by the Vancouver Sun as “ever-inventive” and “not afraid to take some pretty big chances,” the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival presents a unique blend of chamber music classics and adventurous new music. Over the past 15 years, the festival has grown from a grassroots musical meeting among friends to one of Vancouver’s most innovative classical music experiences, highlighting women and BIPOC composers of the past and present, offering novel and challenging listening experiences within a welcoming and inclusive listening environment, and rethinking the role of the audience through participatory events.
Project Description: Colorful, playful, and abstract, graphic scores are used by composers to visually represent music beyond the bounds of traditional Western notation. For the 2026 Blueridge Chamber Music Festival, we will commission 4 composers to create one-page large-scale graphic scores: Mark Takeshi McGregor, Viviane Houle, Jesse Plessis, and Jeff Younger.
The scores will be displayed in transit shelters across the city as part of the City of Vancouver’s Transit Shelter Advertising sponsorship program.
We will then host a series of workshops for members of the public of all ages to learn to interpret and perform the scores and create graphic scores of their own. The workshops, which require no prior musical experience, will culminate in public performances of each piece at the transit shelter locations. During the six weeks the scores are displayed, community-members will also be encouraged to record and submit their own performances for inclusion on a dedicated website.