Willow Farm in Sechelt seems to attract creative, musical people.
Of course, it helps that owners Stephanie Crane and Janice Pentland Smith have earned a reputation for holding concerts of high calibre, everyone from the Madrona Ensemble to the Coast String Fiddlers, on the so-called Rock, a sunlit knob of greenery adorned with metal sculptures and rustic benches.
Last Friday, in preparation for another event, a soundwalk to be held on the afternoon of Aug. 28, many of those creative musical types could be seen wandering the nursery gardens or gazing into the dragonfly pool. For example, there was Frances Heinsheimer Wainwright, for many years a producer of CBC music programming, now involved in producing these innovative events, and Giorgio Magnanensi of Vancouver's New Music Society who was involved with the last sound walk on this site a year ago and will collaborate on this one.
Barry Taylor, Davis Bay percussionist, also strolled the grounds, a man who likes to let sound emerge in its own unfettered fashion. As special guest, the Canadian composer and soundwalk architect Hildegarde Westerkamp was also on hand to run a rehearsal walk through the woods. She reminded the group of the nature of a soundwalk.
"It can be as simple as choosing an environment and walking for one hour, listening to what is," she said. "It's one way to get to know your environment."
Westerkamp leads such walks in Vancouver, guiding a silent audience in and out of parks, traffic, playgrounds, the various soundscapes of a city. She's led such walks all over the world: Brussels, India, Brazil and Toronto.
"It's a luxury to be able to do something here," she says of Willow Farm, and suddenly we all become aware of the wind, the crickets, the barking dog and hum of a float plane in the distance.
Westerkamp hopes to create a new sonic relationship for the Willow Farm environment and, in this case, it will involve performers: Taylor along with his young drumming students will explore the percussive possibilities of the many metal sculptures and of the nursery's clay pots, and local playwright Barbara Robertson will put in a surprise appearance. Westerkamp has a few other surprises planned. It could be that the audience itself will be inspired to make sound using the environment Ñ and that would be just fine, she says.
Westerkamp came to this unusual career at an early age. While at Simon Fraser University in the early 1970s she became involved with Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer's World Soundscape Project. It activated deep concerns about noise and changed her way of thinking about listening. She has studied music, but considers her role to be soundwalk design, rather than composition.
The soundwalk at Willow Farm Nursery takes place at 2:30 p.m.
on Sunday, Aug. 28, at 6739 Norwest Bay Road in Sechelt. Tickets can be bought at the door for $20 adults, $15 for seniors and students or by phoning 604-885-3989. Sound walk participants should wear walking shoes and bring appropriate gear for sun or rain. The walk is not long but the trails are somewhat rough. The figure eight route ensures that if a participant wants to linger at one of many resting places, they will not be forgotten.
Two more concerts are planned for Willow Farm: The Thin Air Orchestra performs on Sunday, Sept. 4, at 2:30 p.m. featuring Alcvin Takegawa Ramos and Pepe Danza on the shakuhachi flute. Then, on Sept. 10, Ramos again takes to the stage in Dharmakasa, spiritual music that incorporates ancient and modern instruments, with guests Andrew Kim and Taylor.
