For two-time Grammy Award-winning composer Osvaldo Golijov, the creative impulse doesn’t stop with the composer – he feels that composers pass that spirit of creativity on to performers.

On October 2, 2007, at the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics 2007 Summer World Games in Shanghai, China, Golijov passed the debut performance of his work Kuai Le on to a special group of performers – his audience. Every one of the 90,000 people in the stands that day had been handed a flute when they entered the stadium, and with celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble playing with them from the stadium stage, their efforts combined to create one harmonious sound.

Golijov developed the concept for Kuai Le during his week-long stay at The Banff Centre in July 2007. He had been awarded a Paul D. Fleck Fellowship in the Arts, which offers established artists in all disciplines the opportunity to create new work in residence at the Centre. Golijov’s stay lasted only a week, but according to Barry Shiffman, the Centre’s director of Music Programs, it was enough. “In one week, we achieved more than I ever dreamed possible,” Shiffman says.

Kuai Le was a collaboration between Golijov and Wu Tang, a Beijing vocalist and musician who also came to Banff to work on the composition. “It’s a great adventure to meet somebody and say, let’s make this piece,” Golijov says. “You don’t know if it’s going to happen, but you put all of your best energy and experience into it, and hope that the inspiration will come.” He adds that the composition itself was inspired in part by Banff’s atmosphere and setting. “Banff allows people to experiment without the pressure of completion,” he says. “There’s no failure here.”

Golijov’s volatile, dreamlike, and category-defying style has made him one of the most sought-after composers in the world, though he still finds time to mentor emerging artists. “It is as important for me to write my music, as it is to help the young composers discover their own,” he says. “As a young person, I had people who believed in me and gave me encouragement and opportunities, and I feel that it’s a natural thing to give that back to the next generation.”

In Banff, Golijov had a tremendous effect on other artists. “It was very important for emerging musicians to see that it’s possible to succeed in the field of classical composition,” Shiffman says about Golijov’s interaction with musicians and young composers in the Centre’s summer music residency. “Seeing success is in itself inspiring.”

After leaving Banff, Golijov travelled to Utah to mentor film composers at the Sundance Institute (he recently worked with Francis Ford Coppola on the original score for Youth Without Youth, and has been commissioned to score the director’s next film, Tetro) and he has been working on a new opera commissioned by New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Shiffman hopes he’ll return to Banff soon, to take advantage of a place that Golijov himself calls “ideal for creativity.”

The success of the Golijov residency inspired the Centre to initiate a fully-scholarshipped 75th anniversary Composer’s Residency for July 2008.