This summer the Victoria Conservatory of Music will host the return of its Splash Around Town: Symphony in the Summer Festival. Victoria Symphony CEO Matthew White says that Splash Around Town was designed as a tribute to music and the impact it has on our everyday lives.
“The whole Symphony Splash tradition begin in 1989 when they put the whole orchestra on one barge in the Inner Harbour,” says White. “I think it was designed as a gift to the city and a reminder of the role that music plays in everybody’s life. It was a large-scale, free event.”
White says that this year’s festival—which will close off with a performance from the Barenaked Ladies’ Steven Page and his trio with the Victoria Symphony at the Legislature Buildings’ lawn—is really the Victoria Symphony “providing the gift of music to the citizens of Victoria.”
“This year’s festival will last roughly 10 days and will start off with some ticketed events,” he says. “Dee Daniels, the great Canadian jazz singer, is going to start the festival off on July 22 and then we are going to get the opportunity to hear the complete Brandenburg concertos on the 26th and the 27th in the Christ Church Cathedral, which is one of the city’s most beautiful venues. And then we’re going to have a bunch of free events.”
White says that while he is thrilled that the Victoria Symphony is able to have a large-scale event like Splash Around Town, it did come with one little challenge.
“We will not be putting the orchestra on a barge, because we’ve got some challenges,” he says. “The stage we’ve used over the last number of years is no longer insurable. So, we decided to move the concert from the water to the BC Legislature lawn.”
White says that music can have a very strong presence in everybody’s life.
“Music for me, and I think for a lot of people, serves a really important role in their lives,” says White. “For me, it’s consolation. It’s the knowledge that when human beings put their minds to it they can create beautiful things, and I think increasingly, in this super-complicated world, it’s nice to be reminded of our better parts of our nature.”
White says that what he loves about concerts is how multilayered they can be.
“Part of what I really love about music is how varied it is,” says White. “I like the fact that it mirrors the varied experiences of life… I love a lot of it and love it in different ways and in different times. That said, the first time I heard Mahler 5, I was inclined to believe that God exists and I felt the same way the first time I heard Monteverdi Vespers 1610.”
White says that what he wants the audience to take away from Splash Around Town is the feeling that live music has returned.
“I would like my audience to walk away feeling like live music is back,” says White. “That they can start to look forward to regular concerts, because I think that’s one of the things that has been really hard over the last few years. We just haven’t been able to gather in large groups and enjoy wonderful music together, so I am hoping that they walk away with the confidence that it’s okay to come to concerts again.”
Splash Around Town: Symphony in the Summer Festival
Various times, July 22-31
Various prices and venues
victoriasymphony.ca