Alfredo Flores admits he doesn’t know a lot about computers. He does know music.
With support from his local library, the Vancouver street musician is now a recording artist of a kind – compiling the traditional Andean music he plays into a CD that he sells when he’s busking at Skytrain stations around the city. He’d been dreaming for years of making an album, knowing that sales could help him support his teenage daughter. Renting recording space was costly and he didn’t have the money for it.
A friend heard about how the library was supporting the city’s creative community, and they were at the opening of the VPL Inspiration Lab, an extensive digital media space for sound and video recording, analog-to-digital conversion and self-publishing.
Together he and his friend worked with the Inspiration Lab’s high-quality recording gear, computers and software with help from VPL staff who did “a really good job” getting them started. It was a project over many hours that would have cost several thousands of dollars at even the most affordable local studio.
“Thanks to the library, it’s free,” he says. “It’s very expensive otherwise and I just don’t have the money to do that. I feel very lucky.”
“I’ve recorded more than 20 songs already,” he told the Westender community newspaper, which profiled how the library’s space, equipment and workshops open up opportunities the community might not have otherwise. “I have a CD that I’m selling now.”
Sales are going well – “it’s turned out great” – and passersby regularly buy his CD now instead of capturing his performance on their mobile phones, as they sometimes did in the past.
He came to Canada from Guatemala via the US more than 25 years ago, leaving behind the political unrest of the time. His first job here was as a labourer in a factory. It wasn’t for him, and he started performing as a street musician a few years later.
Now that he’s seen the success of his first CD – dream fulfilled – he has more in the works. Next is a stop in the VPL Inspiration Lab to record Christmas music. “I want to make it really good and maybe even collaborate with two or three other musicians.”
Fulfill a dream
