Meet Jarrett Martineau, the Chan Centre’s Head Curator

The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts sits at the edge of the Rose Garden on the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus. Shaped like a cello to distribute sound evenly throughout the performance space, the venue consists of a 1,185-seat concert hall and 180-seat choral loft.

People who graduated from UBC in the years since the Chan Centre opened in 1997 might remember crossing the stage during convocation ceremonies. But for a rapidly expanding number of local and international artists, the Chan is better known as a performance venue that curator Jarrett Martineau is taking in bold new directions.

A former Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University and CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics in New York City, Martineau holds a master’s degree and a PhD in Indigenous governance from the University of Victoria. His career in music, television, radio and media has taken him across North America; he has worked in Toronto, Montreal, Berlin and New York.

Martineau is also a sound artist and musician who performs with Paul Finlay in CHXMERAS, an experimental electronic duo. They released their new EP this past spring.

This fall, Martineau also curated VIFF Live, a series of performances that combined music and cinema for the Vancouver International Film Festival. In conjunction with VIFF Live, Martineau presented the Vancouver premiere of the celebrated British music producer and remixer Mad Professor performing No Protection, a dub remix of Massive Attack’s 1994 album Protection.

Martineau is Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and Denesułiné from Frog Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, and he currently lives in Vancouver with his family. Life is undeniably crowded. On the eve of a celebration of Indigenous culture and community at the Chan Centre called Come Toward the Fire 2025, he took a few minutes to chat with The Tyee about his approaches to making art matter at a time when we need it the most.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Tyee: What’s your favourite part about your role at the Chan Centre?

Jarrett Martineau: My favourite part of my job as curator is to create opportunities for artists to share their work — particularly those that are new to Vancouver or new to our venue. The Chan Centre is one of the world’s best performance venues, and witnessing artists share their talents on the stage and audiences respond in real-time is one of the most exhilarating and inspiring parts of my job.

Now, more than ever, it feels deeply important to continue to cultivate a shared space to gather, celebrate, converse and experience joy.

What's hard about your job?

This is the Chan Centre’s biggest and most ambitious season and there are many moving parts happening simultaneously to coordinate and deliver our programming, but we have a fantastic team that are committed to our mission of bringing the world’s best performers to our venue and delivering concerts and events at the highest level.

That said, it’s a hard time for musicians right now and working within the ever-changing landscape of live events, one of the biggest challenges in my work is to secure dates with artists and to ensure that they make time in their busy tour schedules to travel to Vancouver and perform at our beautiful venue.

It takes a lot of patience and persistence, and keeping the big picture in mind, in order to build out our different series and seasons, and working on longer timelines and staying flexible is a big help.

A question for all curators and arts programmers (and something I’m continuing to try to answer myself): how do you reach beyond your core audience?

I would say be willing to try new things — be open to presenting new ideas, formats, sounds and experiences in ways that expand and push you out of your own comfort zone as a curator. What’s something you haven’t tried before, and what has held you back from trying it?

I think both audiences and curators want to experience the arts in new and different ways. So, approaching programming with a spirit of openness and curiosity will lead you and your audiences down unexpected and new paths.

I also believe that building personal and reciprocal relationships with other communities and community members is essential to this work. Working collaboratively will help you reach beyond your core or existing audience.

I am a big proponent of expanding your network of connections and seeking out similarly minded folks that share that spirit of collaboration — that can’t help but bring new voices into conversation with one another and, as a result, encourage new and different folks to come together.

Who else are you trying to reach?

Our current season will be the biggest in the Chan Centre’s 28-year history, and we are hoping to reach even more of Greater Vancouver and beyond.

We’ve seen big shifts in the market in the past few years, and fans are now willing to fly or travel to see their favourite artists.

Some artists in our current season, like Natalia Lafourcade, could and regularly do sell out venues that are much bigger than ours, but they are choosing to perform here at the Chan Centre, and that‘s an honour for us, as well as an incredible and unique opportunity for fans to see and hear these performers right up close.

In terms of expanding our audience, we are also working to highlight more Indigenous voices throughout our season and inviting Indigenous communities into our spaces; we’re creating more opportunities for students and young people to come to our venue.

And, as we continue to expand the breadth and diversity of our programming, that work will continue. I want everyone to feel welcome and included at the Chan Centre.

What do you wish more people knew about the Chan?

I wish more people knew about the Chan! That’s really the first step. Discoverability is a challenge in Vancouver.

People in the city tend to feel a certain way about the arts landscape here, how there’s not much going on culturally in the arts and music, but they’re also frustrated by having a tough time finding out about what is happening!

I think we can all relate to the experience of finding out about a festival the day after it happened or learning that your favourite artist was just in town last weekend, and you would have gone if you’d known about it! (Is that another way of saying subscribe to our newsletter?)

Anything else you’d like to add?

We’ve announced a second wave of artists that will be joining the Chan Centre’s 2025/26 season — and there are even more events and shows still to be announced. We would love to see you at the Chan Centre. If you’ve never been, now is the time!

And if you haven’t been in a while, I can’t wait to welcome you back. We’re just getting started.