Camosun Music Performance student Trevor McMorran, also a member of jazz-infused rock band Baba Chaka, has created a Spotify playlist to showcase the talent of Camosun student musicians.
The playlist is called “Camosun-VCM Students!” and McMorran hopes that the playlist keeps on growing even after he graduates. The playlist includes music from any student, not just students in the music programs.
“If anybody is going to Camosun, any student who would like to submit their recorded content, send it to me,” he says. “Hopefully when I graduate someone else takes it on… My dream would be that it just continues building and continues updating. I would love to develop something within the student body where people are really aware of what [students] are putting out. People I go to school with are extremely talented.”
McMorran says that COVID closed a door for him but also opened the opportunity to come to Camosun. He says that Camosun’s music programs can help people with musical talent excel in their abilities.
“I first started playing guitar when I was 14, it didn’t stick, and I picked it up again when I first went to university,” he says. “Through my 20s, I pursued music in Vancouver as a secondary to working, and eventually I started a band in Vancouver called Polynice. I played for them for about five years… We did many things I hoped to accomplish but then COVID derailed the whole project, and during it, I elected to go back to school. I came to Camosun specifically because it has a contemporary music program.”
McMorran says that the program has helped him become a better songwriter and musician.
“Before, when I would write a song I would just sit and take enough time to grind out whatever it was that I liked,” he says. “I wanted to know how to actually read and write music and what are the fundamentals of harmony? How do you write sheet music? How do you write scores? How do you write for five people and have the whole harmony actually work and blend well?… [Now] I have been exposed to so many instruments, so many different types of players, so many people I can collaborate with… I’ve learned tons about just writing music and harmonies… I have become a much better songwriter through this process.”
Not only did McMorran have the opportunity to become a better musician here at Camosun but he also met the people he would form Baba Chaka with. (Baba Chaka are playing live at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall on Saturday, November 18.)
“Through my first in-person semester in Camosun I met two guys and we just started to jam together,” says McMorran. “I showed them some of my ideas that I had lying around and then we did a Thursday Lunch Concert… We did four performances through that, and that was the basis of the band. We started to add more people from the program, started practicing independently, and spent the whole summer learning tons of repertoire and practicing a ton.”
The Thursday Lunch Concerts is a series of Camosun student performances. They’re open to the public and held at the Victoria Conservatory of Music from 12:30 to 1:30 on alternating Thursdays. But McMorran wanted to promote students’ talents further.
“When I went to BCIT for the television broadcasting program… they had a really good student radio station,” he says. “In terms of just getting people to hear your music, Camosun does not have a student radio… I wanted something to give us the opportunity to share these projects that everyone is working on.”