Experimental music festival asks the question - 'What is jazz?'
The harbour symphony has been a time-honoured tradition in St. John's since 1983, and the arrangement performed on Wednesday marked the beginning of the Sound Arts bi-yearly festival Onsound.
This year's theme is What Is Jazz?, a question perfectly suited to a song made from the deep ringing — or barmping — of several ships' horns.
This time, it was a symphony of one, with a Coast Guard vessel acting as the first and only chair in its oceanic orchestra.
Harbour symphony assistant Mahina Graham-Laidlaw said the uncertainty is part of the beauty of the 42-year-old act.
"You never know what to expect," she said, looking through the harbour fence as the barmping started to fade.
"There's always something different each time I've done this and that's my favourite part of it."
Wednesday was Jacob Cherwick's first time composing a harbour symphony. He wrote a score for four horns, but ended up with only two horns on one boat.
It wasn't a problem, according to Cherwick.
"It's more about the experiment than writing an actual melody," he said.
The musician says there's something freeing about exploring new sounds without being confined by theory or traditional song structure, and that's why he was happy to be involved with the jazz edition of Onsound.
Sound Arts executive director Michelle LaCour says Newfoundland and Labrador is seeing a revival of that same carefree music-making, and jazz along with it.
Featured musicians Ana Luísa Ramos and Florian Hoefner have noticed it, too.
"When I came here 11 years ago, there wasn't much of that," said Hoefner. "That's really changed. It seems like the scene is really alive."
Ramos added she'll be bringing her signature bossa nova style to the festival.
"I think that's really interesting too, to kind of explore different styles of music from around the world outside of the Western canon of jazz music," LaCour said.
Onsound also hosts a range of workshops and touring musicians from the rest of Canada at venues across St. John's.
The festival ends on Saturday, July 19.
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