Jeff Melanson became Banff Centre president on January 1, 2012. Photo: Laura Vanags.

It’s easy to spot Jeff Melanson on campus. He’s the tall guy with the big smile, who never forgets your name once you’ve been introduced, and who is eager to hear about your connection to the Centre.

On January 1, 2012 Melanson begins his term as Banff Centre president. A trained singer and leading arts manager, Melanson served as executive director and co-CEO of Canada’s National Ballet School from 2006 to fall 2011, and previous to that as dean of The Royal Conservatory of Music School. Since earning his undergraduate degree in music from the University of Manitoba (BMus’98) and Master’s degree in business administration (MBA’99) from Wilfrid Laurier University, Melanson has spent his career to date bringing together his strong arts and business skill sets in the service of building a more robust arts sector and stronger communities through the arts. In 2009, he became the first arts leader to be appointed one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40™.

Melanson cherishes the opportunity, and the challenge, of leading Canada’s premier multidisciplinary arts institution. “I am looking forward to working with The Banff Centre’s fantastic community of artists, staff, Board, and supporters to ensure that we continue to build on a remarkable legacy of growth, innovation, and excellence,” he says.

Joan MacLeod at home in Victoria. Photo: Darren Stone, Victoria Times Columnist.

When Joan MacLeod mounted a stage in Toronto last month to accept the Siminovitch Prize, Canada’s richest theatre award, she had a long list of people to thank. The Victoria-based playwright is the creative force behind ten acclaimed plays, including Amigo’s Blue Guitar, Little Sister, and The Shape of a Girl. Tarragon Theatre’s production of her latest play, Another Home Invasion, is currently on a national tour, and The Shape of a Girl, written in part at The Banff Centre, has been produced continuously since its 2001 premiere. In her remarks, MacLeod thanked the theatre companies across Canada that have presented her works, including Alberta Theatre Projects, Vancouver Playhouse, the Belfry Theatre, Green Thumb Theatre, and Tarragon Theatre.

She also thanked The Banff Centre. As MacLeod told the Toronto crowd, it was in Banff that she first discovered she was a playwright:

“I always wanted to be a writer. My parents gave me lined paper for Christmas and birthdays and dozens and dozens of notebooks. I survived high school, probably like a lot of people did, by writing reams and reams of terrible poetry, by reading profusely and listening to Joni Mitchell as much as was humanly possible. Thank you Joni Mitchell. Thank you Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro. You were my introduction to great writing and you carried me right through my adolescence on your strong and splendid backs. I studied Creative Writing at UVIC and UBC and was blessed with many great teachers. I first started publishing with poetry and went to The Banff Centre as a poet in the mid-eighties and two important things happened.

I asked an actor from the Playwrights Colony if she could read a poem of mine at a public reading. So for the first time I was in an audience and watching an actor lift my words off the page and transform them into something beautiful. I was astounded. I didn’t know then that actors do that all the time – that they are in the business of making writers look good. The second event took place in the third floor lounge of Lloyd Hall when Alan Williams, the brilliant monologist, performed The Cockroach Trilogy for us one magical and snowy evening in June. I wasn’t quite thirty and I had been to the theatre twice in my life. After watching Alan I understood with absolute certainty that I was supposed to be a playwright. And within a year I had moved to Toronto and become part of the playwrights unit at Tarragon.

Flukey. I guess. But here’s what I know for certain. That I wouldn’t be here tonight if I hadn’t gone to Banff, if funding for places like Banff didn’t exist. And Banff is there because governments, corporations and individuals, just like so many of you in this room tonight, value art and understand that sometimes the creation of art can’t exist without a hand. More than 25 years after that snowy night in June, with ten plays and a libretto behind me, significant portions of all those scripts were written at The Banff Centre – and most of them at the Playwrights Colony. Thank you — I am your most grateful genre-swapping participant. I truly don’t know how to write for the stage unless I can look out the window, at some point in the process, and lock eyes with an elk.”

Joan MacLeod will return to The Banff Centre in 2012 to revise her award-winning libretto for The Secret Garden, which will be presented as part of the 2012 Opera as Theatre program.

The Siminovitch Prize in Theatre is dedicated to scientist Lou Siminovitch and his late wife Elinore, a playwright. Sponsored by BMO Financial Group, Canada’s largest annual theatre arts award recognizes direction, playwriting and design in three-year cycles. The Banff Playwrights Colony is a partnership between The Banff Centre, The Canada Council for the Arts, and Alberta Theatre Projects.

Mary Hofstetter, October 2011. Photo: Donald Lee.

For 12 years, she has been the face – and for many, the heart – of The Banff Centre. Mary Hofstetter, who retired as the Centre’s president and CEO on December 31, has led this institution through 12 remarkable years. Under her leadership, The Banff Centre has broadened its reach as an international centre for creativity, and deepened its support for artists from across Alberta, Canada, and beyond.

The most visible evidence of Mary Hofstetter’s leadership is the physical transformation of The Banff Centre campus—the new Dining Centre, the Kinnear Centre for Creativity & Innovation, the Shaw Amphitheatre, and the greening of the Centre’s 44 acres. But it is Hofstetter’s ability to forge partnerships, and to build understanding and support for the Centre’s mission, that will have the most lasting impact. Among her many accomplishments: a robust program plan bolstered by increased endowment support, a renewed commitment to the creation and showcasing of new creative works, the establishment of the Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS), and – not least – the Campaign for The Banff Centre, which raised over $128 million – the most successful fundraising effort in the Centre’s history.

On the eve of her departure, Mary Hofstetter sat down to talk with Inspired.

What drew you to The Banff Centre in the first place?
The Banff Centre has been in my heart for a very long time. I first came here to take arts courses in the summers during high school, and over the years came back from time to time, never thinking one day I’d end up staying for over 12 years!

When you were appointed President & CEO, did you know immediately what you wanted to accomplish — or did it take some time for that vision to develop?
Yes and yes!

I knew some things needed to be addressed right away — getting our finances in order and rejuvenating some of the programming, for example.

Other things, such as the development of a new Campus Master Plan, the vision for our campus revitalization project, and our major capital campaign evolved over time.

When you and the Board of Governors decided to move forward with the Banff Centre Revitalization Plan in 2005, you were taking a giant leap of faith. Can you talk about the magnitude of that challenge?
It was certainly a challenge! Especially when the consultant we engaged to do a fundraising feasibility study said we’d be lucky to raise $5 million. So we did the only sensible thing under the circumstances, and disregarded the study and forged ahead!

We knew that so many people had strong emotional links to The Banff Centre, and we also knew the pride of many Albertans in “Alberta’s Jewel”, as The Banff Centre is frequently referred to, and we knew that there is no other institution on the planet like The Banff Centre, so we took a deep breath and plunged in.

One of the hallmarks of your years at the Centre has been the strong partnerships you have forged with governments and donors.
Those relationships really were in need of nurturing. Fortunately our Board of Governors, throughout my tenure, has been most adroit at fostering relationships, and that has been a tremendous support to my team and me. We have collectively worked very hard on this, and we are tremendously grateful for the strong support we have received — particularly from the Province of Alberta and the Government of Canada.

One real highlight for me has been working over the years with The Kahanoff Foundation. Their $10 million Campaign gift was extraordinary in several ways. Apart from the sheer magnitude, the most significant element was that while $2 million went to capital, the balance was specifically to be dedicated to ‘transforming’ our programming – and the impact of this gift on programming vision and quality has been enormous.

We’ve also focused on creating strong relationships right here in Banff and the Bow Valley. Having an institution like The Banff Centre located in a small town like Banff is a huge cultural advantage to the Town, but we also need to be careful to not be ‘the elephant in the room’!

When you look around the campus today — what are you personally most proud of?
It is always going to be the programming. That’s why I mentioned the Kahanoff gift. While our campus was in dire need of redevelopment, we always knew that if we weren’t also paying close attention to the calibre of the programming — the content, the leadership, the participants, the faculty — there was no point in having wonderful new amenities. I think we’ve been able to achieve an elegant balance. The complementarity between the performance programming and the Shaw Amphitheatre is a great example. We are just beginning to explore the myriad ways we are going to use that amphitheatre – the potential is limited only by our creativity – and as you know, that’s a resource we have in abundant supply here!

You’ve successfully advocated for the arts in Alberta for over a decade — what role do you see for the arts in Alberta’s future?
I think the arts, writ large, are integral to the DNA of Alberta – much more so than is commonly acknowledged. And I think that there are some new young leaders in Alberta, beginning with our new Premier, who really get the value – competitive and social – created by the arts. My gut tells me that the next few years will see a real flourishing of the arts in Alberta.

Looking back over the past 12 years, is there a particular creative project that holds a special place in your heart?
Oh dear, that’s a loaded question! There have been so many wonderful artists and projects over the years.

I’ll select just two. Years ago, our Aboriginal Arts department did a new dance piece called Miniigooweziwin…the Gift. It was one of the most beautiful and emotional performances I’ve ever seen.

The other one I’ll mention, because unlike The Gift, which was so ephemeral, this one will endure for the ages, is The ghosts on top of my head – our wonderful trio of sculptures by the brilliant Canadian artist, Brian Jungen. These pieces, a visionary gift of the Black Family, already feature in photos beamed from Banff around the world. When we completed the Kinnear Centre, I had wanted one iconic, signature sculpture as the ‘exclamation point’, and it was our great good fortune that we got three!

Your husband David has played an important, though rarely acknowledged, role throughout your time in Banff…
David and I are a team. When we made the decision to come here, it had to work for us both. Given that his consulting work takes him all over North America, he’s been flying to work every week for over 12 years. He has been a real trooper, and he is absolutely my rock! He shares my passion for the arts, and we share a passion for fine audio, so it was such fun for us together to work with our Audio department in planning the Isobel and Tom Rolston Audio Listening Room, which is part of our shared legacy here.

What’s next for Mary Hofstetter?
A long nap?

Well, first we have to move to Stratford and settle in there, and then I expect to do some Board work and some consulting, and of course some volunteer work. And if they’ll have me, I’ll always be a passionate Banff Centre ambassador!

One thing that people don’t know about you?
To lull myself to sleep, I read murder mysteries. David says it’s positively scary how many ways I know to kill someone!

25 years from now, what would you like people to remember about Mary Hofstetter?
I would like it to be said that I made a difference; that my years of championing the arts and culture, creativity and education, have borne fruit – and David and I hope there will be amazing new generations of artists making extraordinary art and music as they benefit from our two legacy projects.

How has The Banff Centre changed you?
It has inspired me to dream a bigger dream than I ever thought realizable, and it has taught me that with passion, strong vision, and a tremendous team of colleagues, we could make that dream come true.

In addition to Mary Hofstetter’s many achievements as President and CEO, she and husband R. David Riggs have funded the creation of the Isobel and Tom Rolston Audio Listening Room, a state-of-the art facility that allows Centre musicians and audio engineers to experience the best possible audiophile listening experience. They have also made a bequest to The Banff Centre through the Centre’s Planned Giving program, and David, not surprisingly, is supporting the Mary E. Hofstetter Legacy Fund for the Visual Arts.

In October, Mary Hofstetter was awarded an honourary Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario in recognition of her contribution to Canadian arts. In the award citation, Hofstetter was recognized as a “stellar advocate of education, training, and creativity in the arts, sciences, and business leadership in Canada.”

Aaron Lazar conjures a vision of Loulou the acrobat during a Banff workshop performance. Photo: Donald Lee.

I will always love Loulou the acrobat.

For six years, that simple phrase has powered a dream of Broadway for Marc Jordan and Kelly Robinson.

It was Juno award-winning singer/songwriter Jordan who found the words.

“I was reading an autobiography of French poet/novelist Jean Genet. He tells a story about being thrown into the drunk tank in Paris, and waking up to discover that message – “I will always love Loulou the acrobat” – scrawled on the stone wall of his cell.

The words stuck in my head — and sometime later I worked with Steve MacKinnon to write and record a song based upon them.”

Robinson, director of the Centre’s Theatre Arts department, continues the story. “Marc sent me the recording — and I could immediately hear an entire story. Who was the prisoner who left the message? Who was the acrobat?What was their story? That launched Loulou, and for six years it has been the heartbeat of the project – both the musical motif, and the driving dramatic force.”

With music and lyrics by Mackinnon, Jordan, and Jordan’s partner Amy Sky, and book by Quincy Long, Loulou is set in Eastern Europe during what Robinson likes to call “the recent past or near future.” A tortured political prisoner discovers the love message to Loulou etched on his prison wall. He conjures a vision of Loulou — a vision of freedom that becomes his only solace, and after he is freed, he sets out to find her. His journey takes him to a circus and to a woman with her own desires and ambitions who may or may not be Loulou.

Past and present collide when his torturer arrives, and the prisoner finds that it is only through the magic of the circus that he can hope to save his dreams.

For Robinson, Loulou marks the culmination of a long-held ambition. “I have always wanted to create a project that involves the circus in a dramatic way — not simply as spectacle, but as an element that is intimately involved in the story. I imagined a work that was very visual, very physical, incorporating dance and circus in a unique way.”

The chorus plays a key role in Loulou -- delivering an energetic blend of pop and gypsy punk, spiced with Baltic harmonies. Photo: Donald Lee.

This September, 25 artists from across North America converged on The Banff Centre for an intensive two-week creative development residency for Loulou, culminating in two preview workshop performances. Performers included Broadway sensation Marcy Harriell ( In the Heights, Rent), Aaron Lazar ( A Little Night Music, Light in the Piazza, and Impressionism), Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper, and Rona Figueroa ( Miss Saigon).

Robinson says the residency, one of several Loulou workshops held over the past few years at the Centre, was an invaluable step on the long road to Broadway. “Having the very best possible performers allows you to focus clearly on the book and the music. Because the performances are of the highest quality, it highlights the challenges and opportunities of the work. And the insight of performers of this caliber is invaluable. Everyone contributed. During those two weeks, we added two new songs, and deepened and enriched the story”

“Having focused time to concentrate solely on the work is so important,” Jordan adds. “Being able to immerse yourself at the Centre without distraction and to collaborate with the performers moves everything forward.”

But Jordan also admits that Loulou has been a long haul. “It’s like docking the Titanic with a rowboat. It is a labour of love. There have been times when I have been ready to give up. But Kelly has always been our champion. He has never wavered in his belief in this project. Every time I’ve hit a wall, he’s been there helping me over.”

Robinson is convinced that the time and effort are worth it. “After years of commercial work for Mirvish Productions, I am very aware of the tendency for works to get onto the stage before they are truly ready. With Loulou I started with a commitment to myself to get it right before taking it to the stage. “

Robinson hopes to bring Loulou back to Banff in the coming year to begin work on the staging and acrobatic elements of the musical. It’s an ambitious undertaking. In its final form, Loulou will offer audiences an experience unlike any other — merging a very human story of redemption and love, showstopping tunes, and eye-popping aerial acrobatics.

“Musical theatre like Loulou brings together everything we were already doing at The Banff Centre: playwriting, music, dance, even circus. The creativity and craft — and the support — required to realize a work like this is enormous, which is why it feels like a perfect fit.”

 Loulou is supported by Kenny and Marleen Alhadeff, Y Not Productions, Ginger Cat Productions/John McKellar and The Banff Centre.

From The Social Network: actors Jesse Eisenberg (left) and Justin Timberlake (right) in the Ruby Skye nightclub scene - a sound engineer's worst nightmare. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

It is one of the most memorable scences in The Social Network, David Fincher’s award-winning film about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook.

Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) lean over a table in Ruby Skye, a cavernous San Francisco night club. Surrounded by strobe lights, gyrating dancers, and throbbing music, they cement their business relationship. The film dialogue is barely audible over the heavy techno beat, and the overall effect is remarkably immersive and realistic. You are in that club, at that table, part of that conversation.

The Social Network’s sound designer, Ren Klyce, and his team spent two weeks constructing a soundscape that placed viewers cheek by jowl with Zuckerberg and Parker inside Ruby Skye. Lauded by his industry peers as a sonic guru, Klyce says his job is to make his craft invisible.

“Audiences will notice the actors, they will notice the costumes and the location, but they will rarely notice the sound. Done well, sound is a seamless part of the film experience, creating an emotional connection and supporting the story,” he explains. Speaking to a Banff Centre audience at a May lecture, Klyce goes on to deconstruct the 12 different music tracks which, together with sound effects and dialogue, were mixed to reproduce the sound environment inside Ruby Skye.

Klyce is part of an army of audio engineers, sound effects experts, music mixers, dialogue editors, and sound recordists who are integral to today’s film experience. The credits of The Social Network list over 30 members in the film’s sound and music departments. Increasingly, what Klyce calls “the art form of sound” is part of the career path of talented audio engineers and musicians. And for many, The Banff Centre’s audio programs provide a stepping stone into that art, and that business.

Later in his Banff lecture, Klyce highlights the work of Jonathon Stevens and Marie Ebbing – both Banff Centre audio alumni – who worked as music editors on The Social Network.

“We broke the rules in that club scene,” he says. “Normally, the rule is you drop the music levels to hear the dialogue. But David [Fincher] didn’t want that. He wanted the music to be loud … so Jonathon edited the music, actually moving the drum beats around the dialogue so that the words can be heard.”

Reached at his home in San Rafael, California, Stevens says a diverse skill set is essential to making a living in today’s music and sound industry. “There is quite a bit of money – and work – in the film and video game sectors … lots of jobs compared to simply working in a music studio.”

Centre alumni Jonathan Stevens and Marie Ebbing mix a soundtrack. Photo courtesy Michael Coleman, SoundWords Collection.

“I enjoy both,” Stevens says, “and both are equally important to putting food on the table. I’ve learned I need to be a lot more diverse in my abilities than I expected to make a living.”

Stevens credits The Banff Centre with providing him with a wide range of recording experience. “I still use skills I learned in Banff. When somebody presents me with a challenge, I often recall a project at the Centre and how I handled it, and use that as a springboard.”

He cites his work for the San Francisco Symphony as a “perfect extension of what I did at Banff.”

“We produce and edit weekly radio broadcasts, as well as working on the symphony’s PBS television series “Keeping Score”. The experience I gained in Banff was very helpful in helping attune me to the aesthetic of recording classical music.”

Ebbing, who got her start in the film industry thanks to a Banff Centre connection, echoes her husband’s sentiments. “Part of what I learned at Banff – because there were always so many projects going on simultaneously – was the need to be meticulous, the need to stay organized. Ren calls this ‘the need to know where the bodies are buried’. With any recording project, you need to understand where all the materials are – all the different versions, all the retakes, all the edits– in order to assemble the best possible final product.”

Stevens, who occasionally returns to The Banff Centre as guest faculty for the audio program, says he encourages the Centre’s audio participants to think broadly about their future in sound.

“I give talks on what a music editor does, trying to demystify the film industry, and explain how music fits into film. My goal is to give them a better sense of where they might go after Banff, because if you don’t know where your skills apply, you’re flying in the dark.”

According to Ren Klyce, the Banff formula delivers. While he admits his two-day visit to Banff hasn’t given him a chance to explore the Centre’s audio programs in any detail, he says something is working right. “Clearly this place prepares people well. Jonathon and Marie are great to work with. Whatever it was that happened for them here, it was perfect.”

Marie Ebbing and Jonathon Stevens were nominated for a 2011 Motion Picture Editors Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing: Music in a Feature Film for The Social Network . Ebbing was also nominated for a 2009 Golden Reel award for her work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Ren Klyce is the recipient of numerous awards for sound design, including two Golden Reel Awards and three Academy Award nominations (The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fight Club).

Catch a podcast about Ren Klyce (and lots of other great behind-the-scenes content!) on the Banff Summer Arts Festival blog: banffcentre.org

Brian Jungen. The ghosts on top of my head, 2010-11. Painted stainless steel. Gift of Doug, Linda, Sarah, and Ian Black. Photo by Kim Williams.

In 2010, The Banff Centre commissioned a new public art work by Brian Jungen for Canada Plaza, the main entrance of the Kinnear Centre for Creativity & Innovation. A gift of Doug, Linda, Sarah, and Ian Black, The ghosts on top of my head (2010-11), is comprised of three white powder-coated steel benches, each in the shape of a different antler: elk, moose, and caribou. The ghosts on top of my head references the natural world, Harry Bertoia’s famous modernist furniture, and is illustrative of Jungen’s characteristically meticulous craftsmanship.

The official opening of the completed work took place June 16, before a standing-room only crowd.

Opening remarks by Brian Jungen
“ Everyone who comes to Banff knows there is a lot of wildlife here, so I wanted to bring that into the piece. People are warned to be wary of male elk, so everyone is scared of these antlers and the damage they can do. I decided to use that as a starting point.

I felt the plaza needed a place for people to sit and that it would be nice to have some sort of use for the sculpture. I’ve always been a big fan of modern furniture, particularly chairs made by Italian artist Harry Bertoia, so I began with that and went back to the idea of the antler, and started playing with that.

I remember a story my Uncle Jack told me – a Dunne-Za creation story about how animals once ruled the earth and were ten times their size and that got me thinking about scale and using the idea of the antler, which is a thing that everyone is scared of, and making it into something more approachable and abstract.

One of the things about Banff is that it is a place for ideas to start and dialogue to happen, and also a place to chill out, so I wanted the benches to be a place for people to relax. I also wanted the title to reflect the idea that The Banff Centre is a place where ideas start. The sculpture acts as a physical representation of something coming off someone’s head – a thought or a concept growing and that you are haunted by. I liked that metaphor for the antler – the antler being this ghost that you can’t escape while you are here and you are working on it.”

Opening remarks by Mary Hofstetter
“ Our vision for this sculpture was to create a signature element for the campus. Our dream was for a work of art that would be instantly iconic — that if someone saw an image of it even halfway around the world, they would say ‘That’s The Banff Centre.’ And thanks to our immensely talented and wellconnected director of Visual Arts Kitty Scott, who brought Brian Jungen to the table; to Brian and his artistic vision, and to the support of Doug and Linda Black; we have succeeded.”

Artist Brian Jungen addresses the crowd at the June opening. Photo by Kim Williams.

Artist biography
Brian Jungen lives and works between Vancouver and Fort St. John and has shown nationally and internationally in major solo and group exhibitions. Using reclaimed materials and creating a hybridity of meaning in these objects, Jungen’s work evokes cultural traditions and points to the link between the social and environmental effects of our globalized trade in massproduced objects and the power that such commodities transmit. Solo exhibitions include: Art Gallery of Ontario (2011), National Museum of the American Indian (2010); Le Frac des Pays de la Loire (Fonds régional d’art contemporain des Pays de la Loire), Carquefou (2009); Casey Kaplan, New York (2008); Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2007); Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver (2007); and Tate Modern, London (2006).

Cecilia String Quartet. Sarah Nematallah, violin; Rachel Desoer, cello; Min-Jeong Koh, violin; Caitlin Boyle, viola

Four countries, 14 performances, three network broadcasts in just over three weeks. This spring, the Cecilia String Quartet completed a whirlwind tour that introduced European audiences to the passionate and creative performances that won them first prize at the 2010 Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC).

From late March to early April, the quartet traveled to The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Germany – with several concerts recorded for radio broadcast – as part of their BISQC RBC Awards prize package.

Inspired caught up with Sarah Nematallah, Min-Jeong Koh, Caitlin Boyle, and Rachel Desoer via email, and asked how the win and the tour has changed the quartet.

Sarah: I think that it has energized us in a really positive way. Having all these opportunities really inspires us to create and put our best artistic creations forward. Also, more people than ever are aware of who we are and what we do. The exposure that came from these past eight months is something you can’t buy.

What did you learn – personally and professionally – from the European tour?

Sarah: I learned the importance of endurance and flexibility in this industry. The tour was rigorous, but I think it brought our group to the next level.

Caitlin: For me it was a big confidence boost in our group, that we can go on an intensive tour like this and some challenging things can happen – such as people getting sick, playing in very well-known halls, being recorded live on European radio, doing interviews, dealing with cancelled trains – and we can still really like one another on the flight home! It was an incredible opportunity to play so many concerts together, and I felt that our understanding of the pieces and each other grew continuously throughout the tour, both consciously and subconsciously. Towards the end, I felt that we really fused and gelled as a musical entity.

Most stressful moment on the tour?

Sarah: The most stressful moment was definitely when three of us got sick. It was really hard to get on stage with a fever, feeling so horrible. But that’s what happens in life. Bad things often come at the most inconvenient times!

Min: We all (except Caitlin) got sick and I even lost my voice! It is one thing being in a foreign country and not speaking their language, but it’s another not being able to speak at all! I had so much troublegetting around and people seemed to be afraid of me (or of the germs that took my voice away…)

Funniest moment?

Sarah: A few days into the tour I dropped Min’s hairbrush in the toilet. I didn’t think I was going to come out of that one alive!

Rachel: Definitely hairbrush in the toilet!

Min: I lost one hairbrush, but ended up with two new ones. One from Sarah and another from Caitlin. I didn’t really like mine anyway!

Your first-prize BISQC package consists of a three-year career development plan, including concert tours, public relations support, and recording opportunities. What difference will this make for the Cecilia?

Sarah: It has already impacted our career significantly. It has opened doors to us and presented us with opportunities that we may never have had without it. Because BISQC is so well respected in the music world, having BISQC representatives supporting and advocating for us gives our group a lot more cachet.

Caitlin: It has been an incredible opportunity, especially to have that kind of financial and organizational support from The Banff Centre. The exciting thing is that it’s beginning to feel very tangible for us that it might actually be possible to have a career playing and teaching string quartets. We are eager to learn as much as we can about being in this business from the Centre, so that we will be able to step out on our own.

Just five days after your win at BISQC, the Cecilia announced a change in personnel, with cellist Rachel Desoer replacing Rebecca Wenham. Given all the (happy) pressures on the group – a major European tour, a recording deal, media attention – how did you collectively cope with the stress of that change?

Sarah: The change was difficult and, of course, it was not an ideal situation for us. But it could not have worked out better. With all our happy pressures, we felt more than ever the need to bond together as a team and show what we are made of. I truly think it brought us closer together.

Caitlin: I think we tried to keep as calm and collected as we could and we got right down to work, rehearsing and playing quartet music together, which is a great way for us to deal with stress. One idea that helped us move forward was to think of the Cecilia Quartet being a bigger entity than any of us, and to focus on its continuation.

You are about to embark on a North American concert tour – what are you most looking forward to? Anything you are dreading?

Sarah: I really hope I don’t drop anyone’s hairbrush in the toilet.

Min: Maybe I’ll get another new hairbrush! An American one this time!

On June 17, the Cecilia String Quartet , with special guests Geoff Nuttall, Jamie Parker, and Adrian Fung, performed at a special Banff concert celebrating the 75th anniversary of the CBC, to be broadcast across Canada and to the European Broadcasting Union. The quartet will travel to concert dates in the Western United States and Canada in fall 2011, and the Eastern US and Canada in spring 2012, including a tour in partnership with the Honens International Piano Competition. The BISQC winners’ tour is supported by The Banff Centre through the Freeze Family Career Development Fund.

Vancouver Opera’s production of Lillian Alling. Photo: Tim Matheson. Lillian Alling will headline the 2011 Banff Summer Arts Festival

There are days when it seems as though there is a new opera behind every door at The Banff Centre.

This past summer, no less than three new productions were in active development at Banff — Lillian Alling — commissioned by Vancouver Opera, and co-produced by The Banff Centre, Air India — co-produced by the Centre, Ireland’s Cork Midsummer Festival, and Vancouver’s PuSh Festival, and The Last King of Scotland, a new work based on the award-winning novel and film about Idi Amin.

The Centre’s vice-president of programming, Sarah Iley, says there is a simple reason why the Centre acts as an incubator for so many new works — contemporary opera is an expensive and risky business, and the Centre is ideally positioned to help.

“Supporting new creative work is at the core of our mandate. We bring resources to the table that companies can’t find anywhere else — artistic directors and faculty with immense experience in the field, top-notch production and technical support, young artists eager to cut their teeth on new work, and the time and space for intensive creative development.”

James Wright, general director of Vancouver Opera, knows full well the risks — and the rewards of mounting new work. “Commissioning a new opera is like stepping off a cliff. It is a leap of faith, representing a significant financial and creative risk for any company. Traviata and Boheme will fill the hall, but there are no guarantees with new work. But, unless companies like Vancouver Opera are prepared to take that risk, opera will not grow, and Canadian stories like Lillian Alling will never be heard.”

Based on real events, Lillian Alling tells the story of a mysterious woman who arrived in British Columbia in the 1920s, claiming to have walked alone across the continent from New York. Creative workshops for the opera were held in Banff in 2008 and 2009, and set construction by the Theatre Arts department began in May 2010. In September, the opera’s principal singers spent a week rehearsing on the Centre’s Eric Harvie stage with the full set, while crews perfected the lighting and production details.

Wright says the Centre’s support was crucial. “When The Banff Centre became our co-producing partner, a whole new world of technical and production possibilities opened for us. Those resources were critical to making Lillian Alling soar.”

And soar it did, opening in Vancouver to packed houses and rave reviews in October 2010. For composer John Estacio and librettist John Murrell, the premiere of Lillian Alling represents the successful conclusion to what Murrell likes to call their Canadian opera trilogy. “Starting with Filumena in 2003, then Frobisher in 2007 [both co-commissioned and co-produced by Calgary Opera and The Banff Centre], and now Lillian Alling, we’ve brought three stories about three strong Canadian women to the stage,” says Murrell.

Telling a Canadian story was the furthest thing from William Galinsky’s mind when he began thinking about an opera based on the Air India tragedy.

On June 23, 1985, a terrorist bomb felled Air India flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 on board, including 280 Canadians. Galinsky, who is the director of the Cork Midsummer Festival, says a photo of the victims, lying in dozens of body bags at a Cork hospital, provided the seed for this new work.

“The starkness and the tragedy of that image — from the moment I encountered that photo, I saw this story as an opera.”

At first, Galinsky and composer Jürgen Simpson believed they were telling a Cork story. “The families of the Air India victims have been coming to Cork for 25 years, and they’ve formed strong ties with our community,” Galinksy says. “But as our research progressed, we realized this is also a Canadian story — and that we needed Canadian co-producers.”

Enter The Banff Centre. In summer 2009, Simpson spent a residency in the Leighton Artists’ Colony working on the libretto and score, and this past summer he and Galinsky worked with Opera as Theatre singers in Banff, staging the first 15 minutes of the opera.

Simpson is grateful for the opportunity to explore the creative parameters of the work. “We’re trying to find a language through music to communicate this tragedy in a voice that will speak to everyone.” The company will be back in Banff in 2011 for a production residency. Air India [working title] will premiere at Vancouver’s PuSh Festival in January 2012 and will be remounted in Cork in June 2012.

There’s no Canadian connection to Stephen McNeff and Giles Foden’s The Last King of Scotland, but nevertheless they knew where to come to investigate turning Foden’s bestselling novel [later the basis for an Academy Award-winning film] into an opera — Banff.

McNeff is a critically-acclaimed British composer with a half-dozen successful productions under his belt, but this is Foden’s first foray into the world of opera. He admits writing a libretto is a challenge. “It’s very exhilarating,” he says. “I’m learning a great deal from Stephen and Kelly [Robinson, the Centre’s director of Theatre Arts].”

During two 2010 creative residences in Banff, McNeff and Foden, both recipients of Paul D. Fleck Fellowships, worked with Robinson to hammer out the dramatic structure of the opera, and workshop the first 20 minutes. Based on the results, they are convinced The Last King of Scotland belongs on the world opera stage.

“I can’t think of anywhere else but Banff where we could accomplish what we have,” says McNeff. “There’s no feeling of academia here. This is a centre clearly focused on the performing arts, with resources that provide you with the freedom to take your production in any direction.”

Melinda Hunt works on a portrait of Bobby Driscoll in the Valentine Studio. Photo: Laura Vanags.

A shadowy figure emerges from the charcoal pencil held in Melinda Hunt’s hand. Standing before a canvas in the Centre’s Valentine Studio, Hunt is surrounded by the sun-dappled serenity of a Rocky Mountain forest. But her attention is focused on a person and a place thousands of miles away. She is thinking of Bobby Driscoll, buried 43 years ago in an unmarked grave in New York City’s potter’s field — Hart Island. 

“Sometimes,” Hunt says quietly, “I think those buried on Hart Island are like the shades in Dante’s Inferno. They are stuck in purgatory. They come out of the ether, and they tell you something about their lives, and then they disappear. And so my drawings are never fully formed. They are sketches, suggesting someone who isn’t completely there.” 

Hart Island is the final resting place for over 850,000 people. Situated at the western end of Long Island Sound, within sight of the Bronx, it is where New York City’s anonymous, forgotten, and indigent have been buried for over 140 years. Four days a week, a ferry arrives carrying the dead in plain pine-plank caskets. They are interred three deep in long dirt trenches — over 1,200 burials a year, about half of them infants and stillbirths. New York’s Department of Corrections oversees the work, and the dead are laid to rest by inmates from the nearby Riker’s Island prison. 

For almost 20 years, Melinda Hunt has been telling the stories of those buried on Hart Island through her art. Born and raised in Calgary, she moved to New York City in 1988. In 1991, she began a project to re-photograph images of Hart Island first captured by pioneering social reformer and journalist Jacob Riis a century ago. The result was Hart Island (1998), a book featuring collaborative work by Hunt and photographer Joel Sternfeld. 

“I think artists ask questions,” Hunt says. “In the case of the Hart Island Project, I am asking why we treat those buried on Hart Island this way. What does it say about our society that we allow these people to disappear? 

In 1997, Hunt created an installation for New York’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum featuring photographs, burial and archival records, and tiny coffins holding blankets embroidered with the names of infants buried on the island. 

Adult mass burial with pages from the Hart Island burial record books, 1997, Melinda Hunt. From the Lower East Side Tenement Museum installation.

And that’s when the phone calls, letters, and emails began. 

“What I discovered in the course of researching the project is that it is very, very difficult for families to gain access to the records of who is buried on Hart Island,” Hunt says. “Families began contacting me for help.” 

Hunt also learned that, because the Department of Corrections considers the island part of the prison system, it rarely allows visitors, even those with family buried there. “It took me nearly six months to get special permission to visit the island for my original project,” Hunt says. “To use the prison system to prevent people from fulfilling basic human needs, such as visiting the grave of a child — it makes no sense. There is no need to guard the dead.” 

And so Hunt added the role of archivist to her artist’s portfolio. With the help of a lawyer, she filed a Freedom of Information request, and eventually gained access to handwritten ledgers recording 50,000 burials since 1985. Working with volunteers, Hunt scanned each page, entered the names and details into a database and, with funding from the New York Foundation for the Arts, published a website — hartisland.net — which allows families to search for the burial places of their loved ones. 

In 2006, Hunt completed a film about Hart Island co-produced by The Banff Centre’s new media institute. She notes that the Centre has contributed to the project in a number of ways. “I met jazz pianist Fred Hersch while on residency in Banff, and he composed the soundtrack for the film — a work based on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. We did some recording in Banff. Fred had a Guggenheim Fellowship to create the score for a performance at Carnegie Hall, and it also seemed to fit my project.” 

Hunt says her connection to Banff goes back even further. “Barbara Leighton (wife of AC Leighton, who founded the Centre’s visual arts program) encouraged me to pursue art. It was a recommendation from her that first got me into art school.” Hunt eventually obtained an MFA in sculpture from Yale University’s School of Art. 

Hunt’s practice focuses on installations and community-based public art. She says that she didn’t plan for Hart Island to become such a long-term and multi-faceted project. “Some projects evolve over time. Whitman worked on Leaves of Grass for over 40 years….perhaps this is my life’s work. I don’t know.” 

Over the years, Hunt’s work has attracted significant media attention — generating coverage about the Hart Island project in The New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Associated Press, and National Public Radio.  

In September, with funding from the Canada Council, Hunt applied to The Banff Centre’s Leighton Artists’ Colony to create a series of simple charcoal portraits of the dead. “Families send me letters and photographs. They tell me stories about their lost daughter or son …. and I use this material to create sketches …” 

Hunt gestures to the portrait she is currently working on. 

“Bobby Driscoll’s daughter contacted me in 2008, searching for her father’s grave. He was a very well-known and successful child actor in the 1950s. He even won an Academy Award.” But Driscoll’s career foundered in the 1960s. He became addicted to narcotics and lost touch with his family. He died penniless and alone in 1968, and was buried in an unmarked grave on Hart Island. 

Hunt smiles at the sketch. “I don’t think this has to be a sad story. The island is beautiful — one of the last wild green spaces in New York. … at times, it has the sense of a huge outdoor cathedral.” 

What’s important, Hunt says, is that those buried on Hart Island be remembered. “This project is a way to make those lives visible, and, in doing so, celebrate them.” 

Since 1985, The Banff Centre’s Leighton Artists’ Colony has provided a retreat environment for artists engaged in the creation of new work. Located in a secluded wooded area of campus, the Colony consists of nine unique studios, each designed by a distinguished Canadian architect. Over the years, hundreds of artists have penned new books, composed new music, created new visual art, and imagined new stage works in these inspirational surroundings. With a generous lead donation from former Banff Centre president David Leighton, and his wife Peggy, the Centre has established the Leighton Artists’ Colony Renewal Endowment to ensure that the Colony continues to inspire artists like Melinda Hunt for generations to come. For more information: banffcentre.ca/support

Adrián Villar Rojas in his Banff Centre studio. Photo: Dayna Danger.

Adrián Villar Rojas spent his time in Banff thinking about the end of the world. “Banff is big and empty,” says Rojas. “It’s a little like the end of the world — a world without people.”

The Buenos Aires-based artist is the first recipient of The Banff Centre’s Raul Urtasun – Frances Harley Scholarship for Young Emerging Artists from Argentina.

Rojas’s work focuses on the constructs of time and space, and the impact of time on human beings as individuals, and as a society. During seven weeks in a Visual Arts residency at the Centre this past fall, he explored concepts surrounding permanence and impermanence. “This project is about how the end of the world could actually be a productive space,” he says. “What would the last humans construct, if they could only produce one last artwork to represent us?”

“Adrián opened my eyes to a new way of seeing The Banff Centre, one where the campus became the setting for a productive “end of the world” scenario,” says Kitty Scott, director of Visual Arts. “With his ambitious and compelling vision, he was able to find numerous collaborators at short notice. He is a young formidable force — an artist I’m sure we will hear more from in coming years.”

“What I appreciate about being in Banff is the opportunity to experiment,” Rojas says. “I was able to work with video and audio for the first time. I was given time and space to ask questions and to experience the work of other artists. Sometimes institutions demand that you finish something. Here there was no pressure to produce. Instead there was time to experiment — to try something new.”

Rojas is proficient in many different kinds of media, but for the past six years has worked primarily in sculptural installations. He has recently shown works in Berlin and Mexico; and has participated in exhibitions at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, Panorama del Arte Brasiliera, and the Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo; and has been chosen to represent Argentina at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

His most recent work Las mariposas eternas (The Eternal Butterflies), created for Mexico City’s Kurimanzutto contemporary art gallery, consists of a traditional figure astride a horse, standing alongside a futuristic humanoid mounted on a robot. “Here I am mixing the typical European equestrian tradition with Japanese anime. It is contrasting different ways of representing heroism — one from the past, and one from a post-human future.”

“In my work I am always reflecting about time — how we perceive it and how we express it. We are always trying to freeze time and to build fictionalized stories about ourselves.”

In addition to experimenting with audio and video material, Rojas used his residency in Banff to assemble sculptural works from recycled vehicle parts, using photography to document his creations. “What I created and experienced in Banff will inform my future work,” he explains. “It is wonderful to be in a creative space in which everything is possible.”

Fostering innovation is one of the aims of the Raul Urtasun – Frances Harley Scholarship. “This scholarship is a way to say thank you to the Argentinean school system that supported my education,” says donor Dr. Raul Urtasun. “The intent is to give young emerging Argentinean artists the same opportunities that I had in order to expand, innovate, and make connections at a Canadian centre of excellence.”