Vancouver-based Vetta Chamber Music is known for its world-class and innovative concerts. Since 2016, Salt Spring Islanders have been treated to Vetta offerings each season.
This Monday, Nov. 18 at 2:30 p.m. at ArtSpring, Vetta presents an extra special event called Land and Sea that combines chamber music with storytelling from Coast Salish/Sahtu Dene artist Rosemary Georgeson, who grew up on Galiano Island and is still strongly rooted to both the land and the sea of our region.
The concert’s first half consists of chamber works related to the land and the stories that come from it, from Sibelius to Bloch, to Carmen Braden’s The Raven Conspiracy. The second half sees music by Vancouver composer Jeffrey Ryan and Georgeson’s storytelling in Seasons of the Sea.
Georgeson said storytelling came naturally to her through her experience of fishing on the B.C. coast.
“I’m an old fisherman. My father was a fisherman. I grew up on the boats with him. All my family does it, and we’re all storytellers. So I grew up listening and hearing stories all my life from some of the best storytellers around. I never, ever thought of myself as one. I just kind of carry on that way of being.”
But Georgeson is clearly a compelling storyteller.
In 2014, Vetta artistic director Joan Blackman and husband and viola player Larry Blackman approached Georgeson about collaborating after they heard her speak on the radio. At that time she was storyteller in residence at the Vancouver Public Library and so they met downstairs at the library, where they pitched an idea of a Gulf Islands “seasons” theme with music written to accompany her stories.
“I was intrigued,” she said.
While Georgeson said she had heard of classical works such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, as a Galiano girl she had been more inclined to listen to Patsy Cline, Elvis and ZZ Top.
“It’s interesting that music can make words come to life in a way that I can’t do as a storyteller. That’s the beauty of working with Joan and what Jeffrey composed,” she said.
She gives an example of talking about being on the water in the show “as Joan makes it come to life with the music. It’s so incredible how I can feel the sparkles on the water on that hot summer day in August, sockeye fishing with my Dad, because she brings it to life with her violin.”
She added: “Through this process, I’ve developed a much deeper appreciation for this style of music and what it carries in it. And I think it’s been interesting for Joan too, because she’s learned how to riff under my words. So we have both been through this learning experience with each other and we formed an amazing friendship, and we always have lots to laugh about and talk about. It’s been a such a pleasure doing this piece with Vetta.”
There’s also an extremely serious purpose to Georgeson’s storytelling.
“Through times changing in the last 25 years, there’s been a deeper passion to share these kinds of stories, to kick the crap out of the misconception that I would say the government has always let everyone believe about us as Indigenous people . . . this racist rhetoric out there that we were just lazy people that take from the government and all that kind of crap.”
“If my storytelling helps to turn that even just a little bit, that’s what I’ll do it for, and I’ll keep doing it.”
Joan Blackman spoke about the impact of their collaboration in her newsletter to subscribers:
“Ever since the premiere of Seasons of the Sea at ArtSpring, (May 2016) when Elder Augie Sylvester attended with his many grandchildren and other students from Penelakut Island, we have known this was an important work that needed to be shared widely. It is not only the piece, which weaves Western contemporary music and First Nations Storytelling with themes of living by the sea, climate change and building understanding of Coast Salish cultures, it is the very process of collaborating. And we have also heard the voices of Elders who have attended and led talking circles, or given the welcome dance, say how powerfully it speaks to them. They have said it is ‘Reconciliation in Action,’ that they can feel the heartbeat of the sea in the music, and that it speaks to the soul.”
For the Land and Sea concert, Joan Blackman will be joined on stage by members of the Vetta Chamber Players Mentorship Orchestra.
Tickets for the Nov. 18 show are available through ArtSpring’s box office and online at artspring.ca.