Grandview Park Playlist

GRANDVIEW PARK PLAYLIST

An outdoor summer concert 

August 16, 2025 at 8:00 pm

Grandview Park ( Commercial Drive at Charles St.)

Admission: FREE! (bring a lawn chair or a blanket)

Featuring 

D’arcy Han
Robyn Jacob
Saina Khaledi
Amy Stephen

This free outdoor concert – a new collaboration between The Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO) and Little Chamber Music, supported by Rumble Theatre – promises a beautiful evening of intercultural music: the perfect playlist for a summer evening on the Drive.

Vocalists D’arcy Han, Robyn Jacob, Saina Khaledi, and Amy Stephen will perform a colourful selection of folk/pop/contemporary songs, which they have arranged specially for this concert, accompanied by a VICO chamber ensemble that includes Molly MacKinnon (violin), Laine Longton (cello), Dai Lin Hsieh (zheng), Mike Brown (bass clarinet), Saina Khaledi (santour), Amy Stephen (accordion and harp), and Jonathan Bernard (percussion).

This “Grandview Park Playlist” weaves together strands from Chinese, Persian, Celtic, and North American West Coast cultures into a fresh, uniquely Canadian tapestry of sound. Come for dinner on the Drive, and stay for an hour of “music that sounds like Vancouver looks” (as Alexander Varty once described the VICO’s programming in The Georgia Straight). Bring a blanket or a lawn chair, and join us in the park!

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The VICO and Little Chamber Music respectfully acknowledge that this concert takes place on the traditional, unceded territories of the Coast Salish people, in particular the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tseil-Waututh First Nations. 

We also extend grateful thanks to the following funders and community partners, whose support is crucial to this project:
The Canada Council for the Arts, City of Vancouver Cultural Services, the Province of BC (Community Gaming), and the BC Arts Council.

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D’arcy Han

Beijing born, Vancouver raised D’arcy Han has been singing and performing since she made her vocal debut on Chinese national TV at the age of 7. As a vocalist and artist, she performed at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and toured the USA, Europe, and Asia with her many music projects. In 2017, D’arcy appeared on Sing! China (“The Voice”) with an international audience of over 400 million. The program vaulted this Canadian singer/songwriter to celebrity status. This was followed up by special performances and appearances at national television events including the Chinese Spring Gala show, the Miss World 2017 Final, the Silk Road International Film Festival, the Strawberry Music Festival and China International Fashion Week, and more. In 2018, her debut EP This is Me, reached #4 on the BBC Soul Charts, and is still peaking on Spotify and other online mediums. From stadiums to intimate stages, D’arcy captivates with what critics describe as a uniquely charming voice paired with an unmatched classiness in personal style and stage presence. An honorary member of the Canadian Association of Songwriters, D’arcy co-writes, produces and collaborates with songwriters/producers, artists, and performers from both North America and Asia. She is a cultural ambassador, committed to bridging people through music, acting and performances.  

Robyn Jacob

Robyn Jacob is a composer, pianist, vocalist and educator living and working from the unceded territories of the Sḵwxwú7mesh, Xwməθkwəyəm and Səl’il’wətaʔ Nations, also known as Vancouver. Her compositions include commissions by Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion (Chicago), Architek Percussion (Montreal), Grammy Award-winning Sō Percussion (Brooklyn), Chor Leoni (Vancouver), and the Victoria Symphony, as well as collaborations with visual artists and instrument makers. Her avant-pop project Only A Visitor (Mint Records) has toured internationally and released four albums to date. She has released two albums with her duo project The Giving Shapes in collaboration with harpist Elisa Thorn. Her new solo project Immix explores the emotive narratives of voice and electronics. From 2012 – 2024 she was part of the multi-disciplinary art collective Publik Secrets, whose work includes a variety of public space interventions, performances, installations and ephemeral gatherings, including Gamelan Bike Bike, which she co-led with artist and composer George Rahi for over ten years.

Saina Khaledi

Saina Khaledi, an Iranian-Canadian musician, achieved significant recognition by emerging victorious in the Iranian Santour Festival in 2003. Holding a diploma from Iran’s most prestigious music school, the Tehran Music Conservatoire, Khaledi dedicated herself to her musical education and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Music in 2007. Subsequently, she relocated to Canada in 2009. Since her arrival, Khaledi has performed extensively across various countries, including Iran, Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and

Canada. Her performances have showcased her versatility as a composer, soloist, and collaborator with esteemed groups such as Music On Main, the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO), Vashaan Ensemble, Vancouver Bach Choir, BC Chinese Music  Ensemble (BCCME), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO), Vancouver Opera Orchestra, Canadian Music Centre (CMC), Allegra Chamber Orchestra, Richmond Choir, VanChoir, Medusa Society, Artemis Society, National Orchestra of Iran Conservatoire, Mellal Orchestra, and Hamnavazan Ensemble.  Currently, Khaledi holds teaching positions at Capilano University, and offers private lessons.

Amy Stephen

Born in 1967 in Edmonton, Alberta, Amy Stephen grew up in Vancouver, BC and now resides in Coquitlam. Amy was a founding member of internationally-acclaimed celtic funk ensemble ‘Mad Pudding’ and is currently a member of Vancouver’s World Music Collective. She writes and performs cultural fusion music with her husband, Persian vocalist Amir Haghighi, and is a popular studio musician and performer around Vancouver, playing piano, accordion, celtic harp and penny whistle.

The founder and director of Vancouver’s Aurora Celebration Choir and the Coquitlam Celebration Choir, Amy obtained a B.Mus. and a B.Ed. from UBC, studying conducting with James Fankhauser, and sang with the University Singers and the University Chamber Singers. Since then, she has sung with various groups around Vancouver, including the Vancouver Chamber Choir, the Vancouver Cantata Singers and Musica Intima. 

The Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO), founded in 2001, is a contemporary classical music ensemble – one of the world’s first concert orchestras devoted specifically to performing new intercultural music on a grand scale. It is currently the only professional ensemble of its kind in Canada. The ensemble includes Western strings and winds (violin, viola, cello, contrabass, oboe, flute, clarinet) alongside Chinese erhu, pipa, sanxian, zheng, and sheng/suona; Persian kamanche, tar/setar, oud, and tombak; percussion from many world music traditions; and a variety of other instruments as required. Through composition, performance and educational outreach to both music professionals and the general public, the VICO supports the development of BC composers and musicians of diverse backgrounds (including Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Indian, Persian (Iranian), Latin and South American, Vietnamese, North American and European). Since repertoire for the VICO’s novel instrumentation does not already exist, creating new works (150+ new Canadian compositions since 2001, and counting!) is an integral component of all our programming – providing a framework for bringing musicians and composers together to learn from each other, in a uniquely collaborative process. The VICO’s programming includes standalone concerts and our biannual Global Soundscapes Festival; public educational events; a biannual Summer Academy, professional development workshops for established and emerging musicians and composers; the creation and distribution of educational materials (video, audio, text) via the web; outreach and collaboration with other artists and organisations in the contemporary and world music scenes of Vancouver, Canada, Europe and Asia; and more. https://www.vi-co.org

Little Chamber Music

Little Chamber Music (LCM) is a non-profit performing arts society that supports diverse artistic practice through the creation of distinctive, free public events that combine music (new music/classical music/world music) with other art forms such as dance, poetry, and storytelling, as well as local history. Founded in 1990, LCM quickly became highly regarded as an innovative presenter of new music in Vancouver. As resident series at the Cultch, it gained acclaim for commissioning and producing original work (The White Album Concert, Cam Wilson’s Playground Rhymes for Grownups). From 2012-2015 Little Chamber Music was in residence with the Vancouver Park Board as part of their Field House Artist program, and in January 2015, Mark Haney became the first Composer in Residence for Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery. In the years that followed, LCM created more than 25 free events at the cemetery that welcomed a total audience of over 12,000. During the pandemic, Little Chamber Music launched the Isolation Commissions, a series which saw $30,000 donated by the community and redistributed to almost 150 artists who created 130 short videos, which have accumulated over 85,000 views to date. LCM welcomed new leadership in 2024 with Molly MacKinnon stepping in as Artistic Director. Molly has a long history of working with the organization as a performer, producer, and artistic associate. She is extremely excited to continue and expand on LCM’s reputation for innovative, interdisciplinary, community-minded projects. littlechambermusic.com