Colourful World

I met composer Rodney Sharman years ago, and have been in touch with him ever since. It's been amazing to watch his progress over the years and see all the different projects he gets involved in. Whether he's the Composer-in-Residence at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, or creating a chamber opera with director Atom Egoyan, Sharman continues to create and will be premiering brand new work this Sunday as part of the Turning Point Ensemble's Colourful World.

"What a pleasure after years as a Composer-in-Residence to be asked by Turning Point to write a longer abstract work! My chamber symphony is about form as an organic process, not a narrative. The first movement is both slow movement and first movement form simultaneously and (like traditional sonata form) concerns the interplay of two musical ideas and their variations. The second movement is a commentary on the traditional scherzo and finale without reference to dance forms. In these respects the work is in dialogue with Classical form, but the musical surface honours the sensitive orchestration of the accompanying works on the programme by Takemitsu, Debussy and my dear teacher, Morton Feldman."

- Rodney Sharman


Rodney Sharman lives in Vancouver, BC. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Victoria Symphony, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In addition to concert music, Rodney Sharman writes music for cabaret, opera and dance. He works regularly with choreographer James Kudelka, for whom he has written scores for Oregon Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet. Recent premieres include Notes on "Beautiful", a transformation of music by Stephen Sondheim for New York pianist Anthony de Mare, and Violin Concerto, for Jonathan Crow and the Victoria Symphony conducted by Tania Miller. Sharman was awarded First Prize in the 1984 CBC Competition for Young Composers and the 1990 Kranichsteiner Prize in Music, Darmstadt, Germany. His chamber opera, Elsewhereless, with libretto and direction by Atom Egoyan, was performed in concert in Amsterdam, and staged thirty-five times in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Colourful World
Claude Debussy, Rodney Sharman, Toru Takemitsu
Sunday, January 29, 2012 8pm
Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU Woodward’s
Adult $38 Senior $35 Student $10