Criss-Cross
Criss-Cross Programme is an extension of the Creative Sparks programme. Criss-Cross is a new Esprit Orchestra project aiming to create innovative, imaginative works of art having deep resonance in the community. It will feature multi-disciplinary teams of artists working with Esprit Orchestra (composers, instrumentalists, film makers, photographers, visual artists, writers, theatre artists, choreographers and dancers) to produce a number of pieces that will be performed/installed at Esprit’s New Wave Composers Festival held each spring. Principal artistic works are created by professional artists, however, senior artists, in a cascading mentorship stream, influence, guide and blend with emerging artists, post secondary students and high school and public school students to create parallel works reflecting a variety of cultural backgrounds found in Toronto.
The project is meaningful to a broad range of people, from the artists involved, to participating students and amateurs plus diverse audiences in concert halls, schools, community centres and alternative locations (art galleries boutique hotels, night clubs etc.) where performances take place. An important aspect of the project is the production of related print documents, audio recordings, DVDs and internet materials of artistic, educational, social and historic value. With Esprit Orchestra serving as the core around which Criss-Cross activities are centred, the project is produced by Esprit under the direction of composer/conductor Alex Pauk, Esprit’s Music Director.
AIMS OF CRISS-CROSS
Cross-disciplinary collaboration
Diversity of audiences and participants
Accessibility through varied means and media and in non-traditional venues
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CRISS-CROSS
Criss-Cross involves the development of multimedia pieces or performance events created with Esprit Orchestra surrounded by artistic teams each producing segments or performance layers. The teams will also produce marketable artworks and documents on the development of the pieces as well as the culminating final productions. In relation to professional teams, student composers, performers and students from other artistic disciplines will be involved directly or will create parallel or alternative versions to what the professionals create. Works produced by various artists and groups will eventually be brought together with pieces from other teams to make up the repertoire of the New Wave Composers Festival. While audiences could experience the changing flow of a piece situated in one space, the teams might decide that it would be more effective to have the audience move, over varied time periods, from space to space where different environments are created (e.g. in non-tradition performing spaces - outdoors, large building plazas or interiors - ROM, MaRS Centre, AGO, galleries, clubs etc.).
CRISS-CROSS SPIN-OFF MATERIALS
will include:
Artworks marketable to the general public
Teachers’ Guides
Study Guides for students
Audio recordings of Criss-Cross performances and student works
DVD covering all aspects of Criss-Cross (music, dance, video, readings etc.)
Pamphlet on the project (collected writings, photos, poems, paintings etc.)
Souvenir packages
Website and Internet access to Spin-off Materials and documentation
RESOURCES, INFRASTRUCTURE AND EXPERIENCE
Esprit has an outstanding track record of producing outreach projects and professional events combining varied artistic disciplines in unusual spaces. Esprit has been the recipient of three Lieutenant Governor’s Awards in the Arts awarded to recognize our deep community involvement and support from the community. Recently,(as part of our 2008 New Wave Composers Festival) Esprit produced a huge event using all parts of the MaRS Centre to perform over 30 pieces by professional and student composers. The project engaged over 300 student performers from five Toronto area schools performing together with Esprit players. A video document of the event was produced as well as teaching materials.
Esprit’s annual New Wave Composers Festival, established in 2002, serves as a rendezvous for new talent and an interface with new audiences. It not only presents music by Canada’s rising star, emerging composers and performers, but has an important role in connecting them to younger people who they inspire, as well as senior composers that they can look up to. Student performers frequently perform together with Esprit Orchestra and young conductors and composers often have their first important public exposure at our festival. The festival has become a primary audience development vehicle for Esprit. Criss-Cross aims to extend the New Wave Composers Festival concept to other arts that are involved in the project.
Leadership is a key factor in Esprit’s ability to carry out the Criss-Cross project. For demonstrating strong leadership, Esprit’s Founding Music Director and Conductor, Alex Pauk, was awarded the 2007 Canada Council Molson Prize in the Arts. The jury citation read:
“A passionate and visionary conductor, artistic director, composer, and educator, Alex Pauk has demonstrated remarkable skills in the arts of initiative, risk-taking and the building and promotion of a leading Canadian arts organization, Esprit Orchestra which is recognized around the world. A fervent believer in the richness and vitality of Canadian new music, he is a cutting edge leader in the cultivation and presentation of contemporary music, in Canada and abroad. His true brilliance has emerged in the way that he has introduced new audiences – including young people and more traditional audiences for orchestral music – to the joys of exploring uncharted terrain, both musically and in new and unusual venues where he has set his performances. Alex Pauk is a true champion of new music who continues to introduce Canadian and international composers to the world.”
Esprit Orchestra has more than 25 years experience in the film industry providing on and off camera scores and performances for performing arts films, feature films and live performances involving film. Esprit has been involved in ten Rhombus Media performing arts films and Rhombus has used Esprit often to record feature film scores (most recently the score for Paul Gross’ Passchendaele and Larry Weinstein’s Inside Hana’s Suitcase and Mulroney: The Opera.
