winter soundwalks

WALK #2

culture through ears

CANCELLED: CHINATOWN SOUNDWALK WITH Jiajia Li

CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS!

april 10th

3-4pm

Dragon City Mall - west entrance 328 Centre St S

Unfortunately this walk has been cancelled! Sincere apologies for the inconvenience!

Classically-trained flutist Jiajia Li is being praised as "one of the city's finest and most adventurous flautists”. She was the 2019 recipient of the Stingray Classical Artist in Residency at the National Music Centre, and 2016 recipient of Canada’s Juno music awards Micro-Grant initiative. Since finishing school in Germany and moving to Calgary in 2014, Jiajia has forged her identity through music and performance, cutting across a wide range of modern musical experimentations and traditions. Her wide interests in music have taken her on a journey from concert hall appearances with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra to improvised shows with the Bug Incision experimental concert series, to directing a traditional Chinese ensemble and forming her latest pop band, “Ginger Beef”. 

 A keen and passionate collaborator, Jiajia has been involved in various projects in music, dance and arts communities. Her most recent pandemic duo project “Who Cares?”, with violinist Laura Reid, fostered connections with the local arts community by creating DIY music videos and live chats. As an immigrant in the arts, Jiajia tries to bridge the gaps between communities by initiating projects and creating conversations. Past work includes producing the short film “Off To The Races”, co-producing “Chinese New Year Concert”, and founding the Youth Ensemble under the Calgary Chinese Orchestra in 2018. 

The walk

Due to Covid-19, the community associations and the Chinese Cultural Centre where I was hoping to visit on this walk remain closed. However, Chinatown still has a lot to offer sonically: you’ll encounter different languages and dialects, maybe some oriental music, and the unique soundscape.

On this walk, participants will practice mindful listening to the sonic environment. Could you hear things that were always there but you never paid attention to? Are there entirely new “foreign sounds” that you’ve never heard before? Do you feel your body reacting to certain sounds? I hope that by practicing mindful listening, you’ll notice and enjoy this beautiful ongoing musical composition we are living in, and try to find the connection between it and our own bodies.

We will meet at the west entrance of the Dragon City Mall (on Centre Street), walking through Chinatown towards the river, then passing through Sien Lok Park to end at the Chinese Cultural Centre.

Accessibility

The walk will be on gentle, paved pathways and sidewalks and is fully wheelchair friendly. There will be options to depart from the pathway should you desire.

health and safety

The walk will happen snow or sunshine, so please wear weather-appropriate clothing and perhaps bring a warm drink of your choice in a thermos.

Walkers will be expected to wear a mask at all times, and to maintain a distance of at least six feet between anyone who is not a part of your pack.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Jiajia li

 
Image description: Jiajia Li, an Asian woman with medium-length black-red hair, sits with her back against a bright, open window.  She is holding her flute up to her mouth in both hands, as though about to play.

In advance of her upcoming Soundwalk on February 20th, Jiajia Li spoke with NWC Marketing Coordinator Jesse Locke. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

NWC: How did you first start playing the flute?

Jiajia Li: My parents are both musicians. I started playing piano like many other Chinese kids, then my parents picked the flute for me. My mom plays a Chinese instrument called a pipa, which is a pear-shaped lute, but my hands were too small for that. Or for the piano! My dad first thought I should play trumpet, but then decided flute would be better. Their generation believes the flute is a girly instrument, but that’s changing now, which is very interesting. In my flute studio there’s an equal mix of boys and girls playing. I stuck with it from the time I was an obedient kid until… now. [laughs]

I understand you moved to Calgary in 2014. Where did you live before then?

I was born and raised in Beijing, then I moved to Toronto for university, and moved to Germany for my postgraduate studies. I lived there for about five years until I moved to Calgary.

Which part of Germany did you live in?

Near the middle. I spent a couple years in Darmstadt and a couple of years in Frankfurt. It was a very convenient location to get anywhere, and very rich in culture as well.

When I think of German music and the flute my mind goes to early Kraftwerk.

Kraftwerk, ah! They’re one of my favourites. 

Image description: Jiajia Li, an Asian woman with medium-length black-red hair, sits with her back against a bright, open window.  She is holding her flute up to her mouth in both hands, as though about to play.

Jiajia Li: Bass Flute Improv

Since you’ve lived in Calgary, you’ve performed in a variety of different settings from the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Calgary Chinese Orchestra to Bug Incision’s improvised concert series. How do you navigate it all?

I was trained to be an orchestral player, which is one of the streams you can get training for as a classical musician. Unfortunately, when I moved to Calgary there was only one orchestra, and they weren’t hiring! I had to figure out ways to survive in music. I started contacting people, attending events, and remained open-minded. It evolved naturally from one thing to so many other things.

What has your experience been like performing improvised music?

It was definitely intimidating at first, because I’ve never done anything like that. I’ve always read music, so it was a very different approach, but I also found it liberating! Improvised music probably suits my personality better in certain ways. I love it. Chris Dadge [drummer/Bug Incision founder] and I are even working on an album together.

You’re a very frequent collaborator. Can you tell me a bit about the work you’ve done with the dancer Barbara England?

Going back to my personality, I love working with people, maybe even more than working with myself! [laughs] You have to cultivate your own creativity, but I see it at the same time as building up a community. How can you really foster a good relationship without working on something together? I didn’t grow up here or go to school here, so music-making is one of the best ways that I can get to know people. 

When I first came to Calgary I didn’t know anything, but I had heard of the Banff Centre. I did a couple of residencies there, and Barbara was attending a dance program during one of them. Somehow it was decided that all of the musicians and dancers would jam together, so one night we headed into a studio, and that’s how I met her. We started working together on this new piece that we wanted to create for one of the Chinese New Year concerts I organized in 2018. Again, working with a dancer was something very new to me.

I realized that dancers think very differently than I do as a musician. We’re mostly focused on sounds while they’re focused on how it looks on stage. The pacing of the process is also very different. I feel like I’m flexible in terms of accommodating other people’s needs, so it wasn’t very difficult to collaborate with Barbara. We’re very different, but we wanted to bring the best of each other into that project. Chinese New Year just happened, so I was recently revisiting the piece we made together in 2018 called Eight Lucky Foods. I’m still very proud of it. 

Thirteen Changes by Pauline Oliveros
Laura Ried, Violin. Jiajia Li, Flute.

Your duo project Who Cares with violinist Laura Reid is really lovely. I noticed you recently performed a text score by Pauline Oliveros with interpretive instructions. How do you choose works to perform?

When we started, it was during the pandemic, so nobody had anything to do! [laughs] We basically just chose the repertoire that we could find, which led to our first album. We recorded more music during the summer of 2021, and again when Laura was visiting during Christmas, so we’re now planning to release Volume 2! This album was curated to only include 20th century composers. 

This project started as a way to support each during a very difficult time, a way to explore different repertoires, and a way to use digital technology to make music together when we couldn’t be in the same place, since Laura is physically in Toronto right now. We used a lot of those limitations as our creative inspirations to make it work.

The video by your band Ginger Beef gave me a nice flashback to my own experiences eating at Chinese restaurants in Calgary with a rotating table. Can you tell me a bit more about that band and the video project?

Sure! It’s another one of those pandemic-birthed collaborations between me and my husband, Warren. He’s also a musician and producer going by the name MSG, and we’ve been married since 2014, but have never worked together until now. Warren is really into ‘80s pop, so you can probably hear a bit of that. Ginger Beef is a duo project and we have our friends Dave Lewis and Steve Jackson back us up. We actually wrote some new songs, so we’re applying for Sled Island again.

Ginger Beef is a perfect name for a band from Calgary.

Thank you! That’s what we thought too, especially since we’re both Chinese. Warren is a perfect Ginger Beef because he was born and raised here.

Music Video for “Flashback” by Ginger Beef

What can people expect from your upcoming Soundwalk?

When I was asked to do this project, I decided to bring people to one of my favourite places. It had to be Chinatown, because whenever I visit a city, that’s the first thing I find. 

I initially checked out a Peking opera club that’s hidden in a little room on the second floor of a building. A lot of the time people don’t know about these hidden spaces, so I thought I could bring the Soundwalk there. Unfortunately, it’s not open yet because of the pandemic, but I decided to bring people to the neighbourhood anyway, look at the buildings, and imagine the sounds inside. Hopefully we can visit the Chinese Culture Centre, which has rich programming. I’m hoping we can listen to the sound of Chinese language classes, instrumental classes, and people playing mahjong. That’s a very distinct childhood memory.

Another location where I’m going to bring people is by the Bow River. You mentioned Pauline Oliveros earlier, and I’m hoping we can do some deep listening while thinking about the connections between Chinatown and the nature that surrounds it. I think we’ll have a lot of things to do despite the fact that many indoor areas are closed. 

Do you have any other future projects that you’d care to mention?  

I’ve been working with the artist Teresa Tam on the Immigrant Story Project. We collected some stories from the immigrant community and are doing two separate presentations. One is with CJSW in a podcast format, and the other one will be an exhibit at the library in the spring. The podcast will be released on February 23rd with three story submissions included. You'll hear their interviews, music performances, and poetry reading. We are looking forward to sharing these important stories with the world.

 

with financial support from