On an unseasonably warm night in October, Toronto’s Monarch Tavern was packed to the rafters for a living legend. German electronic and ambient music pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius—best known as a cofounder of 1970s experimental groups Cluster and Harmonia, renowned for their celebrated collaborations with Brian Eno—sat behind the bar’s piano with a pair of glowingContinue reading “Hans-Joachim Roedelius floats against the current”
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The Sonic Transmissions of Geronimo Inutiq
Winter was ending. You could tell, because the sun had returned. Geronimo Inutiq borrowed his sister’s Ski-Doo and rode it past the Iqaluit city limit. The horizon stretched out in all directions: no trees, no buildings, just sky and ice, illuminated by light. “You feel quite small,” says Inutiq. “It’s a humbling thing.” Then, heContinue reading “The Sonic Transmissions of Geronimo Inutiq”
Saxophonist Karen Ng Sets The Scene
THINK OF ANY STYLE OF MODERN saxophone playing, and chances are Toronto’s Karen Ng has done it, and done it beautifully. Her tone can be eerily high and pure, rich and fluid, deep and mellow, alluringly tender or startlingly abrasive. Her fingers fly in a dazzling, exuberant run, then slow down to effect a gentleContinue reading “Saxophonist Karen Ng Sets The Scene”
Victoria Composers Cultivate a Place to Listen
Why has a vibrant community of emerging composers chosen British Columbia’s cozy, scenic capital over more bustling contemporary-music hubs? THERE’S A DEEP HUSH in the church where I am sitting and nervously listening to an especially slow and fragile performance of my piece Ruins. It’s not that familiar, polite, sneeze-stifling, concert-quiet; it’s something else altogether: anContinue reading “Victoria Composers Cultivate a Place to Listen”
The Aural Perspectives of Brodie West
People love a good Jekyll-and-Hyde story, and when it comes to artists, the extreme disparities between their personal and creative lives offer endless fascination. These supposed paradoxes affirm the specious belief that artistic expression magically transcends selfhood. They’re also the pillars of personality cults, painting artists as fundamentally complicated and misunderstood people—exceptional beings occupying theirContinue reading “The Aural Perspectives of Brodie West”
Malcolm Cecil and the History of TONTO
THE FOLLOWING STORY WAS PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE SUMMER / FALL 2017 FEATURE “INSIDE THE NATIONAL MUSIC CENTRE.” Malcolm Cecil’s interest in electronics began at age nine, when he became the youngest member of a ham radio club in England. His mother was an accomplished musician on piano, violin, and accordion, while his fatherContinue reading “Malcolm Cecil and the History of TONTO”
Inside The National Music Centre
The Original New Timbral Orchestra, known simply as TONTO, has been called “a synthesizer the size of Nebraska.” The appearance of this electronic monolith makes an immediate impression. Housed in a twenty-foot semicircle of six-foot-tall wooden cabinets with knobs, keyboards, blinking lights, and colourful wires sprouting from every inch of its curves, this legendary instrumentContinue reading “Inside The National Music Centre”
Dálava explores the landscape of song
On a summer evening, outside this art gallery-cum-coffeehouse somewhere on the Gulf Islands, silver-green alders, not yet dry and summer-drab, sway, as deer graze in a meadow beyond, and small birds sing. Inside, a young couple performs. Julia Ulehla has spurned the venue’s microphone and is keening deep into the timber-framed space with a voiceContinue reading “Dálava explores the landscape of song”
Gong Punks and Culture Bombs
Gentle and intense, soothing and exhilarating, traditional Filipino kulintang music provides the kind of richly immersive experience that makes an hour go by in what seems like a minute. The intertwining, hypnotic rhythms of its gongs and drums rise and fall as the players change tempos and improvise together over repeating patterns to create aContinue reading “Gong Punks and Culture Bombs”
Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde
GONG PUNKS AND CULTURE BOMBS Traditional Filipino kulintang, a style of orchestral music played on a set of brass gongs, is a mesmerizing and exhilarating mixture of the ancient and the avant-garde. This authentic indigenous music has been played in the southern Philippines for centuries, and it has endured despite the many waves of culturalContinue reading “Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde”
The Astral Excursions of John Mills-Cockell
The imagination of electronic composer John Mills-Cockell exists in a liminal space. His music, with its neon-pastoral glow, feels neither jarringly futuristic nor soothingly nostalgic. Nevertheless, as the very first Canadian owner of a Moog synthesizer (purchased the same day Wendy Carlos bought hers from creator Robert Moog in Trumansburg, New York), Mills-Cockell is rightlyContinue reading “The Astral Excursions of John Mills-Cockell”
Thin Edge New Music Collective Joins the Circus
Last year, pianist Cheryl Duvall and violinist Ilana Waniuk joined the circus. This did not involve playing instruments while hanging from a trapeze, but like many big-top acts, it did require a certain amount of risk. Duvall and Waniuk are the artistic directors of Thin Edge New Music Collective, a Toronto chamber ensemble that hasContinue reading “Thin Edge New Music Collective Joins the Circus”
Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra
The year 2017 is being widely celebrated as the centenary of jazz, marked by the hundredth anniversary of the music’s first recordings, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One Step.” Jazz began as a spontaneous, improvised music of syncopated rhythms and bent notes so creatively assembled that it defiedContinue reading “Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra”
The Musical Worldview of Nick Dourado
IT’S A DREARY WINTER NIGHT IN TORONTO. It’s already super late—the last of four bands has already played, and the makeshift bar within the makeshift venue has been closed for a good half hour. Although things are winding down, a healthy crowd is hanging out, chatting, and enjoying the warm, dry indoors. Suddenly, there’s aContinue reading “The Musical Worldview of Nick Dourado”
The Sound Future of Virtual Reality
I HEAR A PERCUSSIVE THUD. SOMETHING IS HITTING THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF ME REPEATEDLY. It’s reverberating (I’m in a large room, I guess) and the rhythm is punctuated by frenzied bursts of high-pitched squeaks nearby. In the distance, I hear shuffling and the murmur of voices. I open my eyes. I’m standing in aContinue reading “The Sound Future of Virtual Reality”
The Musical Lightness of Éric Normand
The world of improvised music has spawned a core of musician–organizers who have built scenes and networks and record labels to support and extend the music. Few, however, have achieved what Éric Normand has, creating a hotbed of free improvisation in the relatively isolated little city of Rimouski, more than 500 kilometres northeast of MontrealContinue reading “The Musical Lightness of Éric Normand”
New Stages For New Music
Intense purple LED light washes over the Thin Edge New Music Collective (ABOVE PHOTO) as they scramble to soundcheck, seeming to heighten the chaotic mood at Long Winter, Toronto’s monthly interarts festival series during the coldest season. Two different sources of electric guitar bleed into the room from other performance spaces inside the historic, ramblingContinue reading “New Stages For New Music”
Burden Unpacks the Piano’s Inner Life
At the 2016 Winnipeg New Music Festival, the members of Burden and their synecdochical piano are set up in the midst of a noisy, beer-swilling crowd at Union Sound Hall. Without so much as a word of introduction to attract attention, they assume positions on three sides of the piano and begin. The only noiseContinue reading “Burden Unpacks the Piano’s Inner Life”
The Idiosyncratic Musicality of Marc Sabat
The emergence of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique in the early 1920s not only presented an altogether new conception of pitch in music, it also prompted a dramatic and widespread shift in the fundamental thinking surrounding Western concert music. Its latent quasiscientific implications precipitated a number of new systems of composition. As composers foraged for newContinue reading “The Idiosyncratic Musicality of Marc Sabat”
crys cole amplifies personal space
I first saw crys cole perform in a tiny gallery in Winnipeg’s Chinatown. Seated with a contact mike, a pane of glass, and little else, cole reflected the minimalism of her setup in quiet soundscapes and restrained gestures. Immediately, she had the room under her command. There was a charged tension in the air, asContinue reading “crys cole amplifies personal space”
Kaie Kellough Sounds It Out
IT’S 2016,YET I FIND MYSELF SPENDING an inordinate amount of time talking about artistic output from the ’70s and ’80s. It was in the latter decade that esteemed Montreal-based sound poet Kaie Kellough’s favourite band, Bad Brains, emerged on the scene with a self-titled debut that advanced the “hard” in hardcore punk. If you needContinue reading “Kaie Kellough Sounds It Out”
The Creative Constructions of George Lewis
“THIS PIECE HAS A NEW NAME,” ANNOUNCED GEORGE LEWIS, composer, trombonist, writer, and professor, speaking from the stage of the Community Church of New York. “I realized as I got into it that the old name—the name you have in your programs—doesn’t really fit.” The title given in the program of the October 23, 2015 concertContinue reading “The Creative Constructions of George Lewis”
Christine Duncan Unleashes the Elements
IT ALL CAME BACK SO FAST: the Whip, the Punch, the Elements. All those gestures unlocked my voice and made it respond exactly as it was supposed to—even after a five-year absence. Late last year, I embedded myself with the Element Choir, the world’s leading structured-improvisation choral group, as it prepared for one of itsContinue reading “Christine Duncan Unleashes the Elements”
The Radical Transcriptions of sfSound
PERHAPS NO OTHER AMERICAN METROPOLIS is more associated with important countercultural movements than the San Francisco Bay Area. From the Beats of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s to the radical punks of the ’70s and ’80s, the “city by the Bay” has long attracted creative visionaries, free thinkers, and fringe seekers. AmidstContinue reading “The Radical Transcriptions of sfSound”