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Fresh off the announcement of an exciting fall season, Vancouver Recital Society is delighted to announce our recruitment drive for new members to the Board of Directors.

Are you passionate about classical music and looking for ways to give back to your community, build your network and become more engaged?

We are currently looking for individuals to bring diverse perspectives, support our governance and committee work, and potentially assume leadership roles within the Board.

We are especially interested in Board Members with a background in:

  • Leadership
  • Corporate/business law
  • Governance/Policy Development
  • Real Estate/Architecture/Venue Design
  • Human Resources
  • Government
  • Indigenous Peoples and Protocols
  • Information technology

In addition, the ideal candidate(s) will have the following qualifications:

  • Some knowledge of non-profit governance and sector
  • Ability to work as part of a team
  • Strong communication and networking skills
  • Enthusiasm for Vancouver Recital Society’s mission and willingness to contribute to the cause

“Being on the Vancouver Recital Society Board has been a wonderful way to give back to the community and help strengthen an organization that has, for many years, been exposing me and my friends to superb music and the best classical music performers in the world. It has been a pleasure to serve with a welcoming and knowledgeable group of Directors and a privilege to support a small staff who consistently punch above their weight in artistic discrimination, professionalism, and commitment.”  Valerie Hunter

The Vancouver Recital Society Board provides strategic leadership and oversight of the organization. Board Members are asked to: 

  • Commit to the mission and work of Vancouver Recital Society
  • Act as a public ambassador for the organization, referencing their association in their personal and professional spheres of engagement
  • Participate on at least one Committee
  • Regularly attend concerts and participate in public engagement, outreach activities and social media engagement when and where possible
  • Donate to the society on an annual basis at a level that is meaningful to the individual, including participation in Board sponsorship of one concert annually
  • Participate and support society fundraising initiatives and events, including the stewardship and thanking of donors
  • Participate in periodic organizational strategic planning processes

 Time commitment:

  • Applicants should be able to serve for the full term of the appointment (suggested two year minimum)
  • Five regular board meetings annually: 1.5 hours each (plus pre-reading)
  • One budget approval conference call: 0.5-1 hour
  • Annual general meeting: under 1 hour, typically in February
  • Regularly attend VRS concerts
  • Committee participation: 1 hour per month (on average)
  • Ongoing communications by email

Applicants 18 years or older of all genders, racial origins, income levels and sexual orientations, and persons with mixed abilities, are encouraged to apply. We are alert and sensitive to the issue of fair and equitable treatment for all, and Vancouver Recital Society has a special concern with the participation and advancement of community members that have traditionally been under-represented in our sector. As a result, the Society reserves the right to give preference/priority to those applicants as part of our ongoing efforts to reflect the diversity of Vancouver.

Interested candidates should email nominations@vanrecital.com by the close of September 30, 2022. Please include your CV or bio and in no more than 300 words let us know why you are interested and think you’d be a good fit.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Vancouver Recital Society Governance Committee

To read about Vancouver Recital Society and our mission, vision, and values, click here.

To learn more about our past programming, browse our archives.

 

The cancellation of Alexander Malofeev’s concert

It has been a few days since we announced that we will not be presenting pianist Alexander Malofeev at this time. As Leila previously mentioned, this was a very, very difficult decision.

We saw the following statement made by Alexander on Facebook: “The truth is that every Russian will feel guilty for decades because of the terrible and bloody decision that none of us could influence and predict.” We are very grateful for his words. We appreciate the challenges Russians face in voicing an opinion on this war. However, the situation has evolved since our announcement, which was prepared and released before Alexander posted his statement.

We made our decision for a number of complex and nuanced reasons, here are just a couple…

A member of our team was born and raised in Ukraine and his family still lives there. The last couple of weeks have been a nightmare and we stand in solidarity with him.

We grapple with the notion that even one cent of the proceeds from a VRS concert would go back into the Russian economy — the very economy that is funding this horrific war.

In the days since our e-newsletter went out, the situation in Ukraine has worsened and Russian aggression against civilians has increased. Feelings are running high here in Vancouver. We have read about local Russian businesses being targeted and a Russian Orthodox Church in Victoria was vandalized. We have a duty of care to every artist who appears on our stage. There would likely be protests at Alexander’s concert if it were to go ahead. The VRS does not have the resources to shield him from that. We know of another organization that has chosen to proceed with presenting him. They will be hiring private security for his concert. Alexander is twenty years old and in the early stages of his career. A demonstration or heckling in the hall could be very impactful on a young artist.

Alexander exemplifies the kind of gifted young artist we get excited about. It saddens us greatly that we will not get to experience his artistry as we had planned. His engagement on our series was six years in the making, and we postponed his concert not once but twice due to the pandemic. We would absolutely present Alexander at some point in the future — when, hopefully, circumstances have changed — if he still wished to appear on our series. We would also understand if he didn’t want to. How can all this not feel personal to him?

We understand that people have strong feelings about this cancellation. We have strong feelings about it, too. More importantly though, we have heard directly from our audience — the people who know us and our history. They have overwhelmingly supported our decision and have told us so through phone calls and emails. The truth is that many in our city don’t have the appetite for this concert at this time.

Cancelling the remainder of our 2020-21 Season

This is the announcement we were hoping we wouldn’t have to make: we’re cancelling the balance of our 2020-21 Season. No doubt this news won’t come as a surprise, but it’s terribly disappointing nonetheless. When we announced the cancellation of our fall concerts back in July, we held on to the hope that we’d be in a position to resume concerts by January, 2021. It’s become increasingly clear that we’re still very much in the throes of this pandemic, and restrictions on large gatherings and travel will be the norm for the forseeable future.

To our valued subscribers and single ticket buyers affected by these cancellations: please note that we’ll automatically issue refunds to your credit cards this Friday, October 16. Please allow a couple of weeks for the credit to show up on your card, but do feel free to contact our box office at 604-602-0363 if you have any questions. If you paid for your subscription by cheque, we’ll issue a refund cheque to you and mail it by October 30.

The tally of VRS concerts cancelled between March, 2020 and May, 2021 is 29. It’s a grim number. The impact of these cancellations cannot be overstated; ticket sales account for a significant proportion of our annual revenue. In the absence of concerts, we’re now more reliant than ever upon philanthropic support. We’re so very grateful to The Peak Group of Companies, RBC Foundation, The Edwina and Paul Heller Fund at the Vancouver Foundation, The Martha Lou Henley Charitable Foundation, and a number of individual concert sponsors and very generous donors who have pledged to continue their support over the coming year. We hope that we can count on you to do so as well. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation to the VRS, you can do so by clicking here, or you can mail your gift to our office (201 – 513 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 2V1). Donations over $20 are eligible for a charitable receipt.

We miss seeing you all and we can’t wait to reconnect with you once we’re back in the concert hall. Because we will be back… we’re determined to weather this storm. In the meantime, please stay engaged with us online via this website, our social media pages, and our weekly e-newsletter.

Stay well, stay healthy, and keep listening.

VRS concerts from September through December 2020 are cancelled

We’ve made the difficult decision to cancel all concerts scheduled to occur in the first half of the 2020-21 Season. The eleven cancelled concerts include, in chronological order: soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, The Jerusalem Quartet playing all the Beethoven Quartets (five concerts), cellist Abel Selaocoe, trombonist Peter Moore, pianist Tamara Stefanovich, cellist Zlatomir Fung, and pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati. The Beethoven Celebration Lecture at the VPL Central Library is also cancelled.

For the past few months we’ve been working behind the scenes, considering various scenarios in which we could safely present these concerts. With the passage of time it has become increasingly clear that theatres are unlikely to re-open in the coming months. That reality, coupled with the ongoing uncertainty surrounding travel and quarantine, have necessitated that we make this difficult decision.

As of now, we’re still hanging on to the hope that we can re-start live performances in January 2021, or shortly thereafter, but that will depend upon many things, such as the ability to congregate in theatres, the international travel situation, and, of course, the readiness of music lovers and staff to return to the concert hall.

In the meantime, we’re working on trying to reschedule some of the concerts we lost from March – May of the 2019-20 Season, as well as those we’re going to lose in the first half of the 2020-21 Season. Success will depend as much upon the availability of the Playhouse as on the availability of the artists and their willingness to travel. It may take a season or two, but we’re determined.

Please know that we’re working on other initiatives that will help us to remain visible and audible over the coming months.

To those who purchased subscriptions, first and foremost, we extend our deepest gratitude for your enthusiastic support and willingness to take this journey with us. As promised when the pandemic first hit, we’ll automatically issue refunds for tickets that were purchased to concerts that are now cancelled. Credit card refunds will be issued on July 15. Please allow a couple of weeks for the credit to show up on your card. If you paid for your subscription by cheque, we’ll issue a refund cheque to you and mail it by July 31.

Thanks to the support of government, the Vancouver Foundation, and the remarkable support of our sponsors and donors, we’re stable and will continue work behind the scenes to ensure that when the concert hall is open, and you’re ready to venture out once more, we’ll be ready to receive you. We cannot express just how much we’re looking forward to that day.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to keep you updated via this website, our weekly e-newsletter, and on social media.

Stay well, stay healthy, and keep listening.

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