An artist who works with sound.

Feather will feature in an upcoming book/dvd that will include footage of sylvi, who has multiple sclerosis, when she was standing and playing guitar.

sylvi macCormac recording The Feather at Vancouver Adapted Music Society’s fully-accessible recording studio.

sylvi’s music runs from folk to cinema-for-the-ears soundscapes. Her songs have a particular depth.

The VAMS recording studio, located at GF Strong Rehab Centre, has all-custom equipment that makes music accessible.

www.vams.org

Hear VFMF Soundscapes Here

Soundscapes of the Festival

Longtime Festival devotee sylvi macCormac is an artist who works with sound. She has created, and gifted to the Festival, an extraordinary work entitled VFMF Soundscapes 1999-2002: Festival Quartet for Solitude. You really need to hear these amazing compositions, a tapestry of ambient sound, spoken word, song and music, to really know what we’re talking about.

To learn more about sylvi and her work, visit www.sylvi.ca.

Introduction

Dugg Simpson: “Years ago I went to hear John Cage perform, and afterwards he answered questions from the audience. Someone asked him to define music. He paused, then smiled and said, ‘I believe it has something to do with the ears.’ Takeo Yamashiro was the next artist I heard express a similar sentiment. He was about to play a concert here in the park. Before he began, he pointed out all the sounds one could hear from that spot – children laughing, the wind in the trees, people talking and a generator in the distance. He asked us to listen to, and not be upset by, all those sounds while we listened to the sound of his shakuhachi”. – VFMF 1999 program notes

Throughout the 1999 weekend, I realized that one of the sweetest spots was between stages where musicians seemed to be playing together in harmony and time. When the birds joined in perfect syncopation my ears and heart opened wider. While composing the audio portrait of the festival i came across one of the recordings made between stage 2 of the Total Gospel Choir & and stage 7 of Takeo Yamashiro. On careful listening i realized that Takeo had intentionally followed the Choirs lead and repeated melodically what he had heard from far far away varying it in an improv with the wind. There are many moments so beautiful.

These compositions inform my ongoing work with Audio-Portraits and Soundscape(s). To work with so many wonderful voices is an honour and treasure. They give me great joy. They are also part of my commitment to a larger community. The compositions are given to the care of and for the benefit of the VFMF. They were never mine to keep or call my own since “the sum of all these parts are we”. (Martyn Joseph)

sylvi macCormac

iTunes

ABILITIES EXPO! Celebrates the Art of the Possible – ConnecTra’s multi-agency resource fair connected hundreds of individuals with disabillities and Metro Vancouver’s most useful service providers … “I really liked the focus on abilities at the Expo. There were people from all over who were working, and involved in the arts, and really participating and doing amazing things in the community”, said Paul Gauthier, Network Coordinator for the BC Personal Supports Network … The event was also noteworthy for being the launch of musician sylvi macCormac’s ambitious multimedia project, Th Rose & Th Railway. This combines the written word, with music and environmental recordings to delve back into the life and times of Irish poet WB Yeats. May 2010 ConnecTra Newsletter

www.connectra.org
Creating Opportunities for People with Disabilities
www.vams.org
Vancouver Adapted Music Society
www.vams.org/artists/sylvi-maccormac.html

For Immediate Release / Pour Diffusion immédiate
to be released
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 12:30pm
End Time: Nõ End Time
Location:
www.sylvi.ca

Description:

Th Rose & Th Railway: of Yeats & Nõ Being & Blooming on Line
about WB Yeats, the Japanese Nõ Theatre, Maud Gonne and Being in Relation to Language

with Hyper*Text*Music*L’image*Sound

Audio Tracks include
Aural Shadows, 8 Directions, Railway Lines: Trains o Thought

presented originally @ *e-lounge* 2001, Vancouver New Music Festival – www.newmusic.org/

Nõ Book (eBook) © 2010 online, 1999 off line
sylvi & see through publishing (socan) *except as noted*

while Nõ Book is released online @ 12:30
sylvi macCormac will perform and read
from th Rose & th Railway at

CONNECTRA ABILITIES EXPO
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
12:30 to 4:30 pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
EXHIBITION HALL – 181 Roundhouse Mews
Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory, B.C.

www.connectra.org/

“Sylvi is an inspiration to the world. A superb composer and sound artist who easily rises above every conceivable obstacle to create memorable and demanding projects with extremely positive social values” Charlie Richmond – www.richmondsounddesign.com/

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Aural Shadows: o th Rose & th Railway

like ships that should never pass
lines that would never cross
cousins that could never kiss
from opposite sides of the tracks
with theremin on the radio
you are beautiful and gone
with breezes off the water
and the train slowing down
i was going to bring you a book of yeats
from the bookstore down the street
no realizing our hearts might never meet

we are our mothers daughters
and our fathers child
down by the water side
forever wild
like ships that should never pass
lines that would never cross
cousins that could never kiss
from opposite sides of the tracks
then why is our baby girl
more than ten years old
forever greater
than any gold

and do you still read that book of yeats
from the tower down the street
the one i gave you long ago
so our hearts might meet
were we just some aural shadows
through the sky
as upwords
shooting stars go by

like ships that should never pass
lines that would never cross
cousins that could never kiss
from opposite sides of the tracks
with dripsody on the radio
we are here and then gone
with breezes off the water
and the train slowing down

Theremin – electronic musical instrument which responds to movements of hands, inventor Leon Termen (1920’s Russia)

Dripsody – composition with sounds of water drops by Hugh LeCaine, electronic synthesis pioneer (1955 Canada)

Aural Shadows: of th Rose & th Railway (5:30)
appears on Raven Shadows CD (2006)

Kickstart Festival 2010 – an inspiring array of exhibits, performances and workshops that will be presented to Vancouver audiences, as well as to our 2010 Winter Paralympics guests, from March 8 to 27.

Come, be amazed by the Kickstart Festival Experience !

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Heroes

March 8-27, 2010

Twenty artists from across Canada explore the meaning of “heroism” from a disability perspective. Curated by Sima Elizabeth Shefrin and Bernadine Fox

sylvi macCormac & Nicole Dextras collaborate to create a hand made paper book

Heroes
Pendulum Gallery
HSBC Building, 885 West Georgia Street
Reception: March 11, 7-9pm
Hours: Monday – Wednesday: 9am – 6pm
Thursday and Friday: 9am – 9pm, Saturday: 9am – 5pm
Closed Sundays and Holidays
Free

Presented in partnership with the Pendulum Gallery (www.pendulumgallery.bc.ca)

A rotation of sound projects by artists and musicians and a documentation of wordly music, curated by Riccardo Giagni (2002) including

Sylvi MacCormac Co-Op Radio: Changing Times 2001 (42:35)

Glenn Gould The Idea of North 1976 (58:53)

BrianEno RobertSheckley PeterSinfield In a Land of Clear Colours 1979 (50:26)

Jean-Luc Godard Histoire(s) du cinéma – Part 2 1999 (41:36)

Gavin Bryars Juan Moñoz A man in a room, gambling 1992 (51:22)

http://www.radioartemobile.it/

http://www.radioartemobile.it/pages/flussoram.htm

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

www.vancouverdisabilitiesday.ca

Thursday, December 3, 2009 1pm-6:30pm at the Roundhouse

3:35pm in centre of Hall : sylvi macCormac will present WHEELS Soundscapes: Voices of People with Disabilities and play very bad Harmonica with Aural Shadows from Raven Shadows CD (2006)

COASTAL CHANTS CD & Digital Release (2008)

re-release of Tape (1992) with 5 xtr unreleased trks from Too Young Too Old (1994) and spoken word, Who is She ? Fragile as SuperMan (1:00) (1998)    see through publishing 04 CD / 01 Tape

http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/movie-guide/story.html?id=01181282-25bf-4d90-aa1f-cbc79a7de904

Tom Harrison, The Province, Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

STILL TUNED TO FOLK

Last night, Sylvi MacCormac oversaw the CD release of her Coastal Chants at Iron Works. This might be her most accomplished and focused collection, with its pronounced sense of atmosphere and MacCormac’s dusky folk voice. She’s been immersed in spoken word, sound collages and other projects, but she first was recognized as a folk-influenced singer and is impressive in that role.

SoundCrawl:Nashville - http://www.soundcrawlnashville.com/index.html – 2009

does this SOUND like me ? (5:42) xrpt w th voices of 21 artists w dis abilities 2001

composed for KickstART! Society for Disability Arts & Culture http://www.s4dac.org

For the first time ever, Nashville will introduce a sound art festival in conjunction with the city’s monthly Art Crawl. On October 3, Nashvillians will be among the first in the nation to experience a festival of this type, an international festival bringing new compositions from all over the world.

Where better to introduce this than Music City.

SoundCrawl:Nashville Sound Art Festival Oct. 3 – By Steve Haruch in Cream Calendar

http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/2009/09/sound_art_festival_comes_to_na.php