{"id":27870,"date":"2026-02-18T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=27870"},"modified":"2026-02-16T13:04:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:04:43","slug":"spark-to-flame-showcases-victoria-conservatory-of-music-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2026\/02\/18\/spark-to-flame-showcases-victoria-conservatory-of-music-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Spark to Flame showcases Victoria Conservatory of Music students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spark to Flame is a student concert held by the Victoria Conservatory of Music (VCM), a satellite campus of Camosun College. The annual concert is a tradition of the VCM as it works to highlight the talents of its students and engage the public, who may not have otherwise attended this type of event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seven students were chosen for this year\u2019s performance, all young soloists with different musical specialties. The concert is also a fundraiser for the VCM, a non-profit organization whose mission is to train the next generation of musicians and keep the art alive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

VCM Music Performance diploma student Marlo Karakas is a vocalist performing this year. Karakas is in their second year of the two-year program, which Camosun offers in partnership with the VCM, and has been thoroughly enjoying their journey in studying music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Victoria Conservatory of Music student Marlo Karakas (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been one for academics, and when I was graduating [high school] I was excelling in music so I figured I may as well take a year or two at the Conservatory and see if I like it and I want to pursue it. And I love it; I\u2019m just having so much fun. It\u2019s just really cool to be able to do something I genuinely love and enjoy everyday,\u201d says Karakas. \u201cIt\u2019s a really cool program through the Conservatory and I get college credit from the Conservatory through the college, but I get to be at this cool downtown campus at the Conservatory, which is really awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karakas has selected two pieces by Henry Purcell, a Baroque-era composer, for the concert. The student loves translating complex human emotions into something more digestible and understandable through singing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so fun to take something so incredibly tragic, I don\u2019t know why because it\u2019s so macabre. One of my favourite things about music is that you can take these insanely hard to express emotions, these super raw, deep, animalistic feelings, and express them in a way that makes sense to you,\u201d says Karakas. \u201cI can take these other [works] and then interpret them in a way that is really emotional and deep. It really helps me work through some things, and that\u2019s what I really love about singing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karakas is the only vocalist in the concert; all the others play instruments, such as flute and violin. They\u2019ve been preparing for weeks leading to the concert, including special rehearsals with a full orchestra and guidance from the Conservatory staff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited to see everyone else perform because as a vocalist I don\u2019t really have much familiarity with the more instrumental stuff. I\u2019ve been hearing a bit of it, and it\u2019s so cool because we have some really young performers who are insanely talented, and getting to listen to their work is something I\u2019m really excited about,\u201d says Karakas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Spark to Flame gives an opportunity for the next generation of musicians to showcase their talents in front of a large audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be so cool to see different community members, because these are future professional musicians,\u201d says Karakas. \u201cThese are young students and it\u2019s going to be really cool to see, and to help fundraise for the Conservatory. It\u2019ll be super fun to experience something kinda different because I know a lot of people aren\u2019t familiar with classical music and there\u2019s a huge variety [of performances], and I think it\u2019ll be pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spark to Flame
\n7:30 pm Saturday, February 21
\n$20, Alix Goolden Performance Hall
\nvcm.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spark to Flame is a student concert held by the Victoria Conservatory of Music (VCM), a satellite campus of Camosun College. The annual concert is a tradition of the VCM as it works to highlight the talents of its students and engage the public, who may not have otherwise attended this type of event.\u00a0 Seven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,348,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-18-2026","category-campus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27872,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27870\/revisions\/27872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}