Blog

Your personal ads, set to music! Irregular hats for cats, mounted lobsters, autographed copies of the Bible: this new work from composer Veda Hille and the CBC’s Bill Richardson explores what humanity has to offer and turns it into comic musical fare. Who wouldn’t want a broken time machine, for free? Come and take a look at the vagaries and intimacies of the internet. Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata features the songs “300 Stuffed Penguins,” “Chilli Eating Buddy,” “Decapitated Dolls,” and more.

With more than 700 local sites in 70 countries, and over 20 billion page-views and 50 million new ads posted monthly, Craigslist has become a treasured online locus where we are sanctioned to share our needs, wants, and offerings. Hille describes it as “the mass of humanity pressed against the glass,” offering a forum that is simultaneously anonymous and incredibly public.

Do You Want What I Have Got?, an 80 minute song cycle of quick-witted and heartfelt spoken text and song, is the brainchild of two of Vancouver’s most beloved cultural icons. An award-winning writer and broadcaster, Richardson has contributed to CBC Radio since 1984 and currently hosts “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera” and “In Concert.” Composer Hille is one of Canada’s foremost indie singer-songwriters and has been described as “visceral, luminescent, fierce, haunting, and with talent to burn” (The Coast, Halifax).