A 性视界传媒-born composer is celebrating a Juno Award he won for music recorded in a unique space now filled with water.

鈥� 鈥淚mmersion,鈥� named Classical Composition of the Year at the recent awards gala in Ottawa, was performed by nine musicians of Negative Zed inside the so-called Break Head Tank, a huge concrete bunker located at the Capilano works yard in North Vancouver.

The sloped, chambered tank 鈥� described on the as 鈥渉igh-vaulted subterranean passageways of some Tolkien-inspired superstructure鈥� 鈥� is connected to a seven-kilometre tunnel that carries water from the Capilano reservoir to a filtration plant.

鈥淭he tank had this amazing reverb,鈥� recalled Nobles. 鈥淚t was all kind of silent down there, with no cables, no electricity, no lights or anything. The only thing you could hear is the water fall at the dam, far away. So someone decided to have a musical performance in there, in this space, before they filled it with water.鈥�

Any hopes of a public concert in the tank were drowned by safety concerns, so Noble and the others went to work recording the four-part, 27-minute 鈥淚mmersion鈥� on their own in October 2015, in collaboration with . Audio and video productions of the recording were released in 2016.

( to see video)

鈥淭hey basically gave me free reign to do what I wanted down there for the recording, so we went with nine musicians,鈥� Nobles, a Deep Cove resident, told the Now-Leader. 鈥淏ut I honestly could have done it with one, you know 鈥� one saxophone player or something, because you could play one note in there and it would hang in the air forever. It was great.鈥�

Prior to the creation of his 鈥淚mmersion,鈥� commissioned Nobles to compose 鈥淪pace and Time,鈥� which was performed by 性视界传媒 Youth Orchestra at both 性视界传媒 City Hall and the adjacent City Centre Library in February 2015. More than 100 young musicians, along with their audience, moved from one atrium to the other for the two-part concert, a project that aimed 鈥渢o make Canadian orchestral music accessible to a wider public for free, and to celebrate two unique cultural spaces in 性视界传媒.鈥�

Since the recording of 鈥淚mmersion,鈥� which was done in a single day and with no overdubs, the Break Head Tank has been filled with three million litres of water.

鈥淢aybe you can taste our music in the water everyone drinks, I鈥檓 not sure,鈥� Nobles said with a laugh.

鈥淭hat particular space is gone for, like, 100 years,鈥� he added. 鈥淭hey might drain and clean it, or whatever, eventually, and maybe they鈥檒l do another recording, or maybe a concert, at that time, but we probably won鈥檛 be around to hear it.鈥�

tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com