Catalytic Endeavours: How Culture Days Inspired Me to Explore New Angles of Creation

In a time when disruptors and innovators are key to inspiring change and action, Culture Days stands out as a powerful incubator for artists and cultural organizers to delve into new angles of creation.

My Culture Days Experience

In 2022, I was offered the role of BC Culture Days Ambassador. Inspired by the year’s Ambassador Series theme of Earth Endeavours, I had a seed of an idea that challenged my existing artistic practice as a classical musician. Bolstered by the network of support and mentorship offered by the Ambassador Program, the idea grew into a successful offshoot of my artistry. The project I created enriched my frame of reference and enhanced my perspective as a community-engaged creator and facilitator.

Prior to my Culture Days experience, my practice focussed on classical music creation in primarily traditional avenues: recitals, competitions, and opera productions. Despite having an eclectic background that included a BSc in Zoology and diverse lived experiences as a member of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ and Chinese Canadian communities, these were not making their way into my artistic practice.

The support of the program and the thematic ‘Earth Endeavours’ prompt allowed me to connect my existing artistic practice with my wealth of zoological perspectives, so I could offer something new to the musical community and the public at large. This took the form of the Citizen Soundscape, an immersive sound work built from crowd-sourced recordings of our outdoor environments.

During Culture Days, the soundscape was showcased through a short video documentary and at an interactive in-person event, which took place at Swan Lake Nature House in Saanich, B.C. The project brought forward the poignancy of environmental sounds, showcasing the difficult balance between the anthropogenic and ‘natural’ sounds that surround us day-to-day.

The process of creating my project expanded my musical skills to include field recording, composition, and sound design. With funding from BC Culture Days, I received mentorship from sound ecologist and composer Hildegard Westerkamp, growing my confidence in a new artistic niche at the confluence of my areas of expertise.

Equally as important, the community engagement during my time as an ambassador situated my artistic practice in a context much broader than the realms of concert halls and opera stages.

By putting crowd-sourced elements into my Citizen Soundscape project, I better understood how widely I could connect with the public and how deeply my contributors cared about the focus of this work. Citizens shared recordings of the vibrant sounds around them, like owls in the night, the crash of ocean waves, and the distant tolling of rural bells. Contributions hailed from close to home in Victoria all the way to the Czech Republic.

The Story Since

Since my Culture Days experience in 2022, I have diversified the artistic opportunities I’ve allowed myself to explore. Seeing a call for civically-minded ocean projects through Ocean Wise’s 2023-24 Ocean Bridge program, I saw a role for my artistry where I previously would not have. With the confidence I’ve gained to bring classical music, composition, and sound design into novel contexts, I created The Adventures of Kelp Creature. This new musical narrative about ocean conservation and ocean literacy brings to life Salish Sea kelp forests through my expanded artistic practice.

Inspired by an intriguing project opportunity with the Integrate Art Society in Victoria, B.C., I also delved into creating a podcast for sleep called Bach & The Soundscape (March 2024 release) which is a melding of nocturnal sounds with J.S. Bach’s hypnotic sleep aria “Schlummert ein”.

The project management skills I fostered while creating the Citizen Soundscape empowered me to effectively coordinate vibrant project teams moving forward. With Kelp Creature, I successfully administered a fabulous team of musical, dramatic, and visual artists that populated the whimsical undersea world of the project.

Also, as co-director of Gay4Nature Collective and producer for the short film project Green, I structured the production for a multi-disciplinary, multi-venue project that integrates perspectives from music, dance, and film to interface with queer and ecological themes (stay tuned for the 2024 release at Gay4Nature on Instagram).

Still inspired by my Culture Days experience of connecting music with my less conventional expertises and lived experiences, I am currently exploring how to bring the genre of Chinese art song to Canadian audiences.

Thanks to the championing of the genre by collaborative pianist Jialiang Zhu, I even participated in national and international discourses on Chinese art song during two recent conferences: the Dream Big Collaborative Piano Conference (Winnipeg, MB) and Art Song: A Global Force (London, UK).

Whether you’re an artist looking for a new avenue for your practice, an organizer brainstorming new ways to connect with your community, or a member of the public hoping to see the joy, relevance, and vitality of arts first-hand, I encourage you to get involved with Culture Days. The opportunity to catalyze your arts practice and connect meaningfully with your community is rewarding and worthwhile.

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Alex Chen is a collaborative pianist, baritone, and vocal coach. Yet he began his professional life studying zoology and working with birds – entertaining crows, flying kestrels, and trading glances with owls on his gloved hand. Alex grew up in Cambridge, ON, beginning piano lessons at 9 and voice at 12. While studying science at the University of Guelph he pursued a minor in music. Unable to resist the allure of a juicy melody, a rich story, or a misty musical passage, he pursued the Master’s in Collaborative Piano program at Western University. Alex moved West to study with Baroque soprano Nancy Argenta. Now, he is a key member of the Victoria musical community, frequently performing as an art song collaborator, solo singer, and opera chorus member. His projects with Gay4Nature Collective (co-founder), BC Culture Days, and Ocean Wise provide outlets for Alex to share the crossover between human music and the natural world.