The Music

Venus

Marci Rabe’s Venus invokes the paradoxical nature of both the goddess and the planet. As the goddess of love, Venus’ beauty was matched only by her jealousy. Similarly, the planet is the brightest light in the night sky after the moon, but its mirror-like shine comes from the highly reflective layer sulfuric acid clouds that surround the planet. The music slow and intimate, but is punctuated by low rumblings that suggest the presence of something darker beneath its luminous surface.

Composer, Marci Rabe

Marci Rabe completed an M.Mus. at the University of Victoria after having received a B.Mus., Honours Composition from Wilfrid Laurier University. She has studied with renowned composers Gordon Mumma, Christopher Butterfield, Glenn Buhr, Linda Catlin Smith, and Peter Hatch. Her music has been performed across Canada and broadcast by CBC Radio Two and Radio Canada. Her music has been performed by Vancouver New Music, Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal Music, Continuum Contemporary Music, Aventa and NUMUS. Marci has also participated in the ARRAYMUSIC Young Composer’s Workshop (2001) and reading sessions with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony Orchestra and the Penderecki String Quartet. In 2005, a full concert of her works will be presented by CONTACT Contemporary Music at the Music Gallery in Toronto.

In addition to her skills as a composer, Marci is also a well respected performer. In the fall of 2003, Marci, along with fellow composers Jennifer Butler and Kristy Farkas, founded CURV – a new and innovative composer/performer ensemble. This ensemble is interested in multi-disciplinary work and has performed at the Vancouver Art Gallery in collaboration with the Western Front. CURV’s most recent accomplishment was the presentation of 20 Silent Words. CURV performed this work in collaboration with Continuum Contemporary Music alongside noted Canadian performers Gregory Oh, Wallace Halladay, Peter Pavlovsky, and Kimberley Pritchard.

Marci’s music has a harmonic language based on colour more than function. The essence of her music is in the moment – letting it “be”. Free and intuitive, her music consists of static structures that are defined and suspended by subtle changes in colour and texture along a continuum of time. She is also interested in the colouristic and structural implications/function of silence in music. Sound intimacy through the composer to performer to audience relationship is a compositional interest – connecting on an intimate as well as musical level.