New Orchestra Workshop Ensemble

NOW Orchestra

The New Orchestra Workshop (NOW) Society has a 37-year history of producing concerts, recordings and tours that span genres and embrace the unexpected. The NOW ensembles present exciting new works, performances and installations that encompasses elements from multiple sources to create a unity of intriguing and engaging creativity. Their music is closely associated with Musique Actuelle and Creative Music, fusing improvisation and composition, the predetermined with the undefined. Events planned and unplanned are linked, craft and skill navigates the endless possibilities of the unknown. Above all, improvisation and the affirmation of possibilities is the defining characteristic of the music of NOW.

The New Orchestra Workshop Ensemble (formerly Orkestra Futura) has been presenting engaging and varied concerts since 2008. With flexible insturmentation drawn from Vancouver's best improvisors, this ensemble never fails to astonish audiences. The NOW Orchestra was formed in 1987. A 15-piece improvising ensemble of Vancouver's greatest champions of improvised music, The NOW Orchestra is known internationally for stellar recordings and perfomances. 

Press

if you're looking for adventure, Orkestra Futura won't disappoint. Review Vancouver Olivia Bevan 2009 read more

It was fascinating to hear how such complex compositions played by so many talented musicians could create a unifying emotional response. Ian Mackkinon Plank Magazine 2012 read more
the orch huffed, grunted, and blew blue flames from its nostrils - Plank Magazine
brilliant aggregation of Vancouver improvisers that sets a national standard for such ensembles – The Whole Note
a super-bad sonic machine, hybrid fuelled. It will take this exceptional musical organization to new heights and its fans to new places. - Kedrick James Plank Magazine 2008 read more

NOW Orchestra

Now nearly 20 years old, this most unconventional orchestra is sounding better than ever.
Alexander Varty, Georgia Straight, November 2006

…the NOW Orchestra featuring Marilyn Crispell. Canada's premier avant-garde big band, NOW draws as freely from contemporary classical techniques as from the standard big band vocabulary, and their performance -- particularly the pointedly topical West Side Stomp -- was an often thrilling mélange of intricate ensemble passages and hair-raising improvisation.
J.D. Considine, The Globe and Mail, June 2006

NOW? More like WOW!
Alexander Varty, Georgia Straight July 26-August 2, 2001 Review of George Lewis/NOW Orchestra The Shadowgraph Series: Compositions for Creative Orchestra (Spool)
…NOW enters a hyper-realm that levitates the stage, becoming a polar star of large improvising ensembles.
Laurence Svirchev, CODA Magazine, November 2004
Sunday night's finale offered a spectacular set by trombonist-bandleader-composer George Lewis and the NOW Orchestra…With Lewis conducting, the band's explosive brass riffs and perpetually churning reed obbligatos hardly could have been delivered more explosively or with more panache.
Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune, September, 2002/Chicago Jazz Festival
The highlight (of Seattle's Earshot Jazz Festival) -and it was a stunner- was the sprawling concert of original music ... by trombonist George Lewis, played by Vancouver's NOW Orchestra.
Paul de Barros, Seattle Times, September, 1999, Earshot Jazz Festival
I regard the NOW Orchestra as one of the finest large creative ensembles active in the last decade..
George Lewis, September, 1999, Earshot Jazz Magazine
"Wowow" is one of the best performances I've heard all year
Jason Bivins, Cadence, June 2000/Review of NOW Orchstra CD WOWOW
Le Tour du Bloc is the most sensational large-ensemble improvisational music of the decade.
Lawrence M. Svirchev, 5/4 Magazine, USA/Review of CD Tour du Bloc.
The result was superb. This was such wondrous spirited music…… this was an extraordinary project.
Bill Smith, Coda Magazine 1995(Canada)