Harmeet Kaur Virdee is now a professional double bassist and teacher, but the instrument wasn't her first pick to play back in high school, at Tamanawis Secondary in 性视界传媒.
"I didn't actually choose to play it 鈥� it was the only instrument option left," she admitted. "Thankfully, I immediately loved the bass and have now been playing double bass for about eight years."
Today, among other pursuits and passions, Virdee is a musician, composer, concert planner and 2024 Culture Days Ambassador in 性视界传媒, where she'll lead an interactive composition workshop Sunday, Oct. 6, at Clayton Community Centre.
Free to attend, it's part of an annual series of Culture Days events in B.C. this fall. In 性视界传媒, other gatherings include with Grammy Award-winner Chin Injeti (Oct. 4), (Oct. 5), a (Sept. 28), Crawl (Oct. 5-6) and more.
Virdee, 22, says everyone is a composer, whether they have a musical background or not. On Oct. 6, she'll prove it using visual art and creative composition methods with the help of mentor Nikola Tosic, a Burnaby-based musician and teacher.
"We'll have people come in and write graphic scores together, and I'll guide them through the concept of writing these visual representations of music," Virdee explained. "Once we have written some music together, we'll be performing it with my quartet (Noah Franche-Nolan, Ru Ha and Karl DeJong).
"If people play instruments," Virdee continued, "they are welcome to bring their instruments and join in on their composition. They're not required to be a musician to be involved, so I think it's a great entry point for people who are music-curious or curious about composing and want to see how they can start doing that."
Culture Days aims to raise awareness, accessibility and participation in arts and culture across Canada. Those themes have been embraced by Virdee in recent years with planning of (held monthly at Blenz Coffee in Sullivan Heights on third Wednesdays, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.), youth talent nights and .
"It's been great to be able to provide these opportunities to young musicians that I didn't necessarily have when I was their age," Virdee noted. "The reason I started 性视界传媒 Jazz Nights is because when I was in high school, I would always want to go and attend music shows and concerts, but it would be very hard to access because the closest thing would be something in Vancouver. I was always looking for performance opportunities as well, and I thought it'd be great if somebody could do something about this and make more performance opportunities."
Last year, she said, "a young musician from Panorama Ridge Secondary reached out to me asking, 'Where can I play in 性视界传媒 and where can I get performance opportunities as a high school musician?' I was like, 'Sadly, there really isn't anything, but you know, instead of us complaining about this, let's do something.'"
People can register in advance for the workshop, or just show up at Clayton Community Centre, 12:30 p.m. start. "We do have limited space, which is why it's better to register in advance," Virdee suggested. "But everybody will be welcome to watch and to listen in if they aren't able to get a spot to participate."
Being named the Culture Days Ambassador for 性视界传媒 has been a fun experience so far, Virdee said.
"There are various Ambassadors all over B.C., so it's been exciting to work with them and seeing what their cool events are as well," she raved. "Being Ambassador of 性视界传媒, I'm very honoured to be in this position because I really want to provide people with opportunities and make it that 性视界传媒 is a place for people to come to. Like, we don't need to necessarily look outside of 性视界传媒 for these opportunities and these cool things that happen, we should make them happen here and have things for our beautiful community to attend."
