Biography
Led by trumpeter John Korsrud, the Hard Rubber Orchestra assembles anywhere from 15 to 30 jazz players drawn from the Vancouver, Canada scene. Its fusion of rigorous composition and driving grooves produces a potent form of thoughtful entertainment that Korsrud has repeatedly applied to elaborate multimedia projects, several of them deliberately provocative. The ensemble, weighted toward brass with rhythm section support and occasional string additions, has worked alongside vocalists, DJs, dancers, and video artists. In the studio the group concentrates on avant-funk works written by its own members and by outside composers.
Korsrud established the orchestra in 1990 shortly after finishing his studies at the University of British Columbia School of Music. A new wave of jazz musicians was then claiming local stages; the NOW Orchestra had already formed a few years earlier, and performers such as cellist Peggy Lee, guitarist Ron Samworth, saxophonist François Houle, and drummer Dylan van der Schyff were launching their professional careers, each destined to become a central voice in Vancouver’s modern jazz community.
Realizing Korsrud’s goal of an orchestra that would intertwine the serious with the vernacular and the conceptual with the entertaining required several years. The ensemble’s scale, combined with the crowded calendars of its musicians, kept appearances infrequent and localized from the outset until 1998. Key presentations during those years included the 1994 event Elvis Cantata with vocalist Sook-Yin Lee and the 1995 production White Hot Core created with the Kokoro Dance troupe, as well as repeated appearances at the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Michel Levasseur, director of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville and already a supporter of Vancouver projects, extended the group’s first invitation to the East Coast in 1998 and placed it on his Victo label. Cruel Yet Fair was issued in April 1998, after which the H.R.O. undertook its first tour, reaching Amsterdam, the city where Korsrud had studied with Louis Andriessen; the album received a Juno Award nomination later that year.
In April 2000 the orchestra mounted the multimedia spectacle The Ice Age, featuring 12 figure skaters together with hockey players, curlers, and Zamboni choreography. At the same time several members, Korsrud among them, joined leading Latin musicians from Vancouver to form the offshoot group Orquesta Goma Dura. Victo released the second Hard Rubber Orchestra album, Rub Harder, in 2002.
Korsrud established the orchestra in 1990 shortly after finishing his studies at the University of British Columbia School of Music. A new wave of jazz musicians was then claiming local stages; the NOW Orchestra had already formed a few years earlier, and performers such as cellist Peggy Lee, guitarist Ron Samworth, saxophonist François Houle, and drummer Dylan van der Schyff were launching their professional careers, each destined to become a central voice in Vancouver’s modern jazz community.
Realizing Korsrud’s goal of an orchestra that would intertwine the serious with the vernacular and the conceptual with the entertaining required several years. The ensemble’s scale, combined with the crowded calendars of its musicians, kept appearances infrequent and localized from the outset until 1998. Key presentations during those years included the 1994 event Elvis Cantata with vocalist Sook-Yin Lee and the 1995 production White Hot Core created with the Kokoro Dance troupe, as well as repeated appearances at the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Michel Levasseur, director of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville and already a supporter of Vancouver projects, extended the group’s first invitation to the East Coast in 1998 and placed it on his Victo label. Cruel Yet Fair was issued in April 1998, after which the H.R.O. undertook its first tour, reaching Amsterdam, the city where Korsrud had studied with Louis Andriessen; the album received a Juno Award nomination later that year.
In April 2000 the orchestra mounted the multimedia spectacle The Ice Age, featuring 12 figure skaters together with hockey players, curlers, and Zamboni choreography. At the same time several members, Korsrud among them, joined leading Latin musicians from Vancouver to form the offshoot group Orquesta Goma Dura. Victo released the second Hard Rubber Orchestra album, Rub Harder, in 2002.
Albums
