SignalFest

Presented by CBC Radio 2

Friday March 4 - Sunday March 6, 2011
CBC Vancouver Broadcast Centre
700 Hamilton Street, Vancouver
cbc.ca | location

SignalFest Vancouver is a festival of contemporary music without borders presented by The Signal on CBC Radio 2 in partnership with Drip Audio and Capilano Performing Arts Theatre.

The Signal, hosted by Laurie Brown, is heard Mon-Sat from 10:00 pm to midnight on CBC Radio 2.

         

Tickets:

Owen Pallett (March 4): Door: $21 (cash only at door)
Day Passes (March 5 or 6): Door: $15 (cash only at door)

Advance ticket sales now closed

Door tickets: Cash only (Door Sales Box Office opens 7:00 pm each evening)

Free Events:

Brasstronaut (waiting list only) & Jelena Milojevic

Registration is now closed for these events.

FRIDAY MARCH 4

Owen Pallett - Limited Cash Door Sales Available
March 4, CBC STUDIO 40, 8:00 pm

Owen Pallett's live violin-looping project was named Final Fantasy, in tribute to the melodramatic videogame series. Final Fantasy's debut album 'Has A Good Home' (Blocks/Tomlab) was released in April 2005. The sophomore album, 'He Poos Clouds' (Blocks/Tomlab) was written and arranged entirely for string quartet, and is a satirical song cycle based on the eight schools of magic according to Dungeons and Dragons.

Owen has been touring Final Fantasy constantly while writing string and orchestral arrangements for many releases, including Arcade Fire's 'Neon Bible' (and 'Funeral'), Grizzly Bear's 'Yellow House', Beirut's 'The Flying Club Cup' and The Last Shadow Puppets' 'The Age of the Understatement'. Owen curated the 2008 Maximum Black Festival. In October 2009, Final Fantasy released 2 EPs: 'Spectrum, 14th Century' (Blocks/For Great Justice) and 'Plays To Please' (Slender Means Society/States Rights Records/Blocks). The former contains field recordings from the fictional land of Spectrum, and the latter is a big band tribute to songwriter Alex Lukashevsky of the band Deep Dark United. Owen has orchestral arrangements featured on Pet Shop Boys' 'Yes' and The Rumblestrips full-length 'Welcome to the Walk Alone' produced by Mark Ronson. Owen’s full-length romance album entitled 'Heartland' was nominated for a 2010 Polaris Prize.

Brasstronaut
March 4, CBC STUDIO ONE, 9:30 pm  FREE

Like their hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, Brasstronaut is hard to pin down. As the members would try to tell you, the experience of the band is not about making music that is based on some pre-existing vision. Instead, each player allows their knowledge and skills from their different backgrounds to mesh with the other’s sounds, without overwhelming the sum of parts with an individual voice. Brasstronaut is firmly rooted in the pop tradition, take for example a song like “Slow Knots,” in which horns tempt the song toward total chaos but are restrained by an upbeat, finely-honed rhythm Stewart Copeland might be proud of. Or consider the single “Lo-Hi Hopes,” with its changing tempo and many movements, which yet has all the pace and hook of a Spoon anthem.

SATURDAY MARCH 5 LINE-UP

Jesse Zubot
March 5, CBC STUDIO 40, 8:00 pm

Jesse Zubot (violin, viola) is one of those unique musicians whose praxis spans multiple genres and transcends contextualization into an idiom. Between moments of impassioned, visceral outbursts and quiet emotive sensitivities, Zubot exposes the full range of affects through a pristine sonic architecture. Diving head-first into the world of creative and improvised music with his self-produced, critically acclaimed solo release 'Dementia' (2006), Zubot has collaborated with the likes François Houle, Eugene Chadbourne, Mats Gustafsson, Peggy Lee, Fred Frith, Eyvind Kang, Nels Cline, Ron Samworth and Evan Parker. Perhaps best known as founding member of the Juno Award winning acoustic-roots duo Zubot & Dawson, Jesse Zubot aided and abetted in the creation of a new genre called Strang, which synthesizes elements of folk, jazz and other of the duo’s diverse influences. Zubot’s current projects include touring and recording with acclaimed Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq and Vancouver’s “post-everything”, avant-rock group Fond of Tigers. Zubot started the Drip Audio music label in 2005.

Aeroplane Trio
March 5, CBC STUDIO 40, 8:45 pm

Aeroplane Trio use a conventional acoustic jazz setting as a platform for their improvisations and compositions. Twisting and contorting their instruments, nothing is sacred in creating the trio's unique sound. JP Carter (trumpet/cornet), Russell Sholberg (bass/saw) and Skye Brooks (drums/percussion) have found a common sensibility; they make music that is delicate and combustible, strange and beautiful. The Aeroplane Trio was formed in 2001 out of the late night "Aeroplane" improvisation sessions at the Sugar Refinery in Vancouver. Each member of the Aeroplane Trio has been championing original creative music for more than a decade, both as leaders and as sidemen.

DarkBlueWorld
March 5, CBC STUDIO 40, 9:45 pm

Dark Blue World is fronted by singer/poet Elizabeth Fischer featuring collaborations with noted Canadian musicians. Drawing on Fischer's texts, expressive vocal style and the wide ranging musical influences the members bring to the group, DarkBlueWorld creates and perform material that is emotionally layered, often acerbic or darkly satirical, with subtly complex harmonic and rhythmic structures - individualized, intelligent expressions intended to communicate the complexities of human experience in sophisticated yet accessible song formats.

Fond of Tigers
March 5, CBC STUDIO 40, 10:45 pm

Called "post-everything", Fond of Tigers have been developing their hypnotic and intense music since 2003. Since its origins as a solo project of guitarist Stephen Lyons, the group has expanded to include its signature double-drumkit attack and processed violin and trumpet textures along with the artfully layered hooks.Featuring seven of Vancouver’s leading creative musicians, Fond of Tigers play a layered, nuanced music that explores musical possibilities ranging from the smallest gesture of extended technique, to the full avant-rock bombast possible with a wild, double-drum-kit-led septet.

SUNDAY MARCH 6 LINE-UP

Jelena Milojevic
March 6, CBC STUDIO 700, 7:00 pm   FREE

Jelena Milojevic is one of the foremost accordionist’s playing today. Born and raised in Croatia she studied classical accordion at one of the most famous accordion centres in the world, the Kragujevac (Serbia) Music Academy. Her debut concert at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, NYC was the first solo accordion recital there in the last 30 years. Her performances have been acclaimed as "an explosion of cosmic sensuality" and she has been praised for her "brilliant virtuosity". In the summer of 2007, Jelena moved to British Columbia where she has been active as a teacher in Vancouver and Victoria. She has just released her CD, 'The Art of Accordion', which honours some of the world's most recognized accordion composers.

François Houle
March 6, CBC STUDIO ONE, 8:00 pm

Clarinetist François Houle has established himself as one of Canada’s finest musicians. His performances and recordings transcend the stylistic borders associated with his instrument in all of the diverse musical spheres he embraces: improvised, electro-acoustic, new music, classical and jazz. Houle has been nominated for West Coast Music Awards, Juno Awards and was listed in Down Beat Magazine as "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" in its annual critics poll. He has released more than a dozen albums of his own music and has recorded and performed with other great artists such as Dave Douglas, Jerry Granelli, Joelle Leandre, Marilyn Crispell, Evan Parker, John Butcher, Michael Moore, Georg Graewe and Myra Melford.

Wilson/Lee/Bentley
March 6, CBC STUDIO ONE, 8:45 pm

The Wilson/Lee/Bentley trio is formed by three veterans of the Vancouver creative music scene, Tony Wilson on guitar, Peggy Lee on cello and Jon Bentley on saxophones. This trio runs the gamut on their debut release from the more spacious and reflective episodes to their driving rhythms, soaring melodies and fierce improvisations in which they pack the punch of a large ensemble.

Gordon Grdina Trio
March 6, CBC STUDIO ONE, 9:45 pm

The Gord Grdina Trio is based in Vancouver, BC and has been a working touring ensemble since 2005. The Trio consists of Gord Grdina (guitar, oud), Kenton Loewen (drums) and Tommy Babin (bass). They have collaborated with many of the world's top improviser's such as Fredrik Ljungkvist, Eric Boeren, Wilbert De Joode, Michael Moore, Jerry Granelli, Michael Blake, Jeb Bishop, Kent Kessler, Mark Helias, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten and Fred Longberg-Holm. They have toured throughout North America and Europe regularly since 2005. The band owes as much of a debt to the energy of bands like The EX, and The Dead Kennedys as it does to the primal melodic sensibility of Albert Ayler and the sophistication of Ornette Coleman. Their new album ‘Barrel Fire' with Mats Gustafsson, has been receiving many favorable reviews.

Inhabitants
March 6, CBC STUDIO ONE, 10:45 pm

Formed in 2004, Vancouver's Inhabitants have ascended to become one of Canada's most prominent creative music ensembles. In 2009, Inhabitants were nominated for a Juno Award for 'Instrumental Album of the Year', a National Jazz Award for 'Electric Group of the Year' and a Western Canadian Music Award for 'Instrumental Recording of the Year'! Their singular approach defies genre, melding jazz, rock, noise and free improvisation with new perspective. Trumpeter JP Carter, guitarist Dave Sikula, bassist Pete Schmitt and drummer Skye Brooks find a rare cohesiveness in Inhabitants cultivated from years of musical collaboration in groups like Fond of Tigers, Copilots, Carsick, DarkBlueWorld, The NOW Orchestra and Tony Wilson's 6tet. Spacious and expressive, their new album ‘A Vacant Lot’ explores the dynamic relationship between chaos and form through experimental sound, intuitive group interplay and instrumental composition.