Vancouver Independent Music Centre builds a new hub—digitally and beyond
Cellist Marina Hasselberg debuts work at VIM Online!, while group works toward a bricks-and-mortar home
The Vancouver Independent Music Centre presents VIM Online! at 7 p.m. on Thursday (December 3).
FOR MOST WORKING musicians, the pandemic has been an unmitigated disaster. But for some, like cellist Marina Hasselberg, it’s also been an opportunity. Capable of playing everything from Baroque music to dance grooves to free improvisation, and with a busy teaching schedule as well, the hard-working and tech-savvy performer has been enjoying her unexpected downtime—up to a point.
“There’s just more time,” the Portuguese-raised musician tells Stir in a telephone conversation from her Mount Pleasant studio. “So even when we’re recording, or we present a new video online, there’s always more to time to just analyze it, to feel it, to enjoy the process—to just grow from things that happen.”
Part of Hasselberg’s growth process has been to record her debut solo CD, scheduled for release next year. And—did we mention she’s hard-working?—she’s already started assembling a follow-up. But listeners who’d like to get an advance look at her process should know that she’ll present some solo music this Thursday (December 3), as part of the Vancouver Independent Music Centre’s free VIM Online! concert, which also features Kimmortal, Tariq, Tzo’kam, and Venetta.
The newest aspect of her career, Hasselberg explains, is that she’s moving from being an interpreter of other people’s music into creating her own, using electronic looping devises and other sonic gadgets—including a “Bach bow”, which allows her to play all four of her cello’s strings simultaneously. Ondas, the improvised work that she’ll present on Thursday, she adds, is meant as a gift for all those who feel COVID isolation as deeply as she does.
“I’ve been inspired lately by pulsing sounds,” she says. “I think that’s bringing me a lot of comfort during this bad half year. So with pulsing sounds, and brushed sounds, and little noises… I’m creating a blanket of layers of sound, a blanket of sounds that warm and comfort.
“I live alone,” she continues, “and one thing that I’ve really missed is hugs and human warmth, physical warmth, so I guess that’s what’s coming into my music right now.”
But let’s backtrack a bit. What, exactly, is the Vancouver Independent Music Centre?
For now, it’s not a place so much as a concept, backed by a broad coalition of local musicians, managers, presenters, and music-lovers. The notion is that while Vancouver has its fair share of dedicated theatre venues, art galleries, and at least one purpose-built building dedicated to dance, it has never had a central hub for music. And while breaking ground on the Centre’s eventual home is still years in the future, the idea has gotten a lot more concrete with the release of a plan for the development of northeast False Creek that will include a community centre, a skating rink, and a flexible space for music encompassing two small-to-medium-sized halls and a bar.
“It will be a place that’s going to lift the music, not a place that’s ‘Well, it’s the best we can do,’” says Vancouver Independent Music Centre spokesperson Sarah Ballantyne, who formerly served as managing director of Vancouver Early Music.
In a separate telephone interview, the VIMC chair stresses that the new development still has to win City Hall approval, and that the pre-pandemic timeline has the music centre opening in 2026. In the interim, the centre is going ahead with a series of further VIM Online! concerts, with the next installment curated by Vancouver Adapted Music Society's Dave Symington. As well, once health and safety concerns can be met, the VIMC will collaborate with the Firehall Arts Centre on a series of outdoor and eventually indoor concerts beginning in the spring of next year.
“The purpose of that,” Ballantyne says, “is for the VIMC to work on its programming and presenting partnerships, locally, nationally, and internationally….We’re really excited about the possibility of exploring what kinds of partnerships can be forged over the next few years, so that when the thing opens, we’re really ready. We’ll have all those partnerships solidified and strong, bringing the whole music community together, from a single independent artist to presenting some of what might be considered smaller concerts by some of the large presenting organizations.”
Hasselberg, for one, can’t wait. “I think that it’s a fantastic project, and that we truly need it,” she says. “It means that the scenes in Vancouver are going to mix more. There can be a jazz show at the same time as a classical-music show, and at intermission people can go to the bar to have a drink… That will mix the people, which I think is something Vancouver can really, really use.
“As a musician, I play with different scenes, and it’s very strange how everyone’s really separated,” she continues. “I mean, everyone’s really nice, so it’s obviously not a competition thing of any sort; it’s just that everyone works so separately. So that would be another advantage the VIM Centre would bring to Vancouver, this mixing of the scenes.”
For more information and tickets visit https://www.facebook.com/VIMHouse/
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