Fresh forms of an east-west fusion.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Music: Mark Armanini

Mark Armanini is a naturally inquisitive composer whose forte is grand scale concepts. His passion is creating new music dialects and, more often than not, his work runs against the gram of long-entrenched conventions of the European classical music tradition. Even when he openly embraces such traditions, he seeks to expand and refresh that familiar language.

Armanini is also a bridge builder. For almost two decades, he's been an integral part of Vancouver's fertile and constantly evolving music scene. In recent years, the immigration to this Canadian cultural melting pot of world-class musicians from the Far East has afforded new opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and artistic maturation. Keenly aware of the potential for fruitful partnerships, Armanini has spearheaded efforts to create opportunities for musicians from China and other Pacific Rim cultures to present their artistry under circumstances and in settings that pay full respect to the importance of the traditions they represent and the high level of musicianship they possess.

Armanini's entree to the music world came not through the inspiration of anything as exotic as traditional Chinese music but through circumstances not unfamiliar to countless others of his generation. Initially drawn to rock music and the guitar, he became a skilled bassist and performed in a Vancouver-area rockabilly band for close to two decades before deciding a solid background in classical music was what he really needed. He studied the oboe and piano and, at the University of British Columbia, composition with Elliot Weisgarber. Receiving a master's degree in 1984, Armanini began to earn the respect of Vancouver's classical music community by composing works for small ensembles, orchestra, voice, and choral groups, and today leaches composition at the city's Capilano College.

"In the early 1990s, a number of professional musicians came to Vancouver from China, mostly because of the political upheaval there," the fifty-two-year old composer recalls of the events that would dramatically alter his approach to music composition. "There had been a large Chinese population here, much like Salt Francisco, for many years," he adds, "but within few years, there were a quarter of a million Chinese in Vancouver. It totally transformed our culture. For me, it was a case of deciding to join in because it is big, wonderful, and rich. I could see the possibilities."

Asian ensembles began to pop up in...