Explore

The NOW Orchestra has a mandate to create an original West Coast musical idiom. The West Coast sound, and the mission to create, develop and promote it, has evolved out of the need for certain artists and audiences to play and hear music that has been shaped by three great changes of the last 50 years:

  1. avant-garde trends in art;
  2. globalization; and
  3. technological advances.

This unique sound, closely associated with "Musique Actuelle" or "Creative Music", refers to a blend of musical genres, but improvisation is its defining characteristic and jazz its roots.

History

The NOW Orchestra traces its roots to Vancouver’s C.O.R.D. Orchestra (Community Orchestra for Research and Development) of the late 1970s. Inspired by the exploration of improvisation in a large ensemble context, the NOW Orchestra has picked up where C.O.R.D. left off and continues to explore how the composed form and improvisation can best enhance each other. The NOW Orchestra features some of the most important voices in improvised music in Canada today and is highly representative of the West Coast improvised music scene.

Boasting a 20-year history, the NOW Orchestra is rightly renowned for its longevity and creative output of improvised music. Under the umbrella of the New Orchestra Workshop Society (in its 30th year), the NOW Orchestra is a 15-piece improvising ensemble that has gained local, national and international acclaim for its past work. It is the only ensemble of its kind in Canada – an improvisational group with a unique West Coast music style. Deriving from both big band jazz and contemporary new music, the NOW Orchestra has a sound all its own.

Performances, recordings and touring in recent years have spread the sound of the NOW Orchestra and the group is considered one of the top ensembles of its kind in the world today. The NOW Orchestra ’s real depth developed from its longevity (the NOW Orchestra was formed in 1987), its numerous collaborations with great artists like the London Jazz Orchestra’s Barry Guy, composer/trombonist/dean at Columbia University George Lewis, Montréal guitarist/composer René Lussier, trumpet/composer/professor at California Institute of the Arts Wadada Leo Smith, and trumpet/ “conduction” pioneer Butch Morris among many others. What also separates this group from others is the fact that most of the same players have played in the group since 1992. This consistency is especially important in developing a common vocabulary as an improvising ensemble with real coherency. This is something that is tremendously difficult to do, and the NOW Orchestra is considered one of the top groups in the world in this area of music.

Vision and philosophy

The artistic mission of the NOW Orchestra is to create, develop and provide a focus for original music that fuses composition with improvisation and is distinctly a product of the Canadian West Coast experience. We are committed to providing opportunities for musicians to gain musical experience and exposure to an improvisational community of creative artists and audiences. By producing CD recording, concerts and tours, the NOW Orchestra engages in adventurous work and offers composers a context in which to develop new compositions. Canadian audiences benefit by exposure to local and international artists who are making a lasting contribution to improvisational music. We also develop and implement workshop to explore improvised music and its relationship to other disciplines such as dance, theatre, spoken word, video and film.

Past Collaborators

© 2007 - NOW Orchestra