Now 19 years old, Victoria composer Camilo Aybar put the finishing touches on his first symphony in 2021. It wasn’t only composed during the pandemic, but inspired by it.
The symphony features 5 movements, each representing a different phase of the pandemic: Outbreak, Lockdown, Restart Process, Variants of Concern, and Vaccine.
Aybar’s story caught the attention of Vancouver Island filmmaker Joseph Boutilier, who recounted it in the recently released documentary The Sound of a Pandemic.
Boutilier says he was gripped by the fact that Aybar would find inspiration in something that was causing so many in the creative community to feel like their lives were on hold.
“I was struck by how well it kind of reflected the themes of the pandemic, but beyond that, just how much there was to unpack there,” he said. “Honestly, it wasn’t until I started interviewing other musicians and composers and teachers, you know, I was like, ‘I think this is amazing, but like you tell me, and everyone everyone who I talked to was really impressed.”
“I was excited to share Camilo’s passion and to share this project that I thought was really cool, and then you know to I guess confirm that it was also just so musically sophisticated, and that people who are much more knowledgeable about music than me were just as excited by it was really cool.”
Aybar says composing is already an inherently isolating experience, even before you factor in the pandemic, but that being able to take any human experience and put it to music is comforting.
“During the pandemic, I was completely isolated, not doing anything. I was hoping that this symphony would be the one thing that made the pandemic worth it.”