Leah Reid’s electronic music compositions explore and reveal the possibilities that exist between the abstract spaces in which she structures her compositions and the everyday timbres outside her window. Reid attended high school at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts—majoring in composition and vocal performance—before heading north in the mid-2000s to completeContinue reading “Leah Reid’s Reverie”
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First-place winner, Musicworks 2024 Electronic Music Composition Contest: Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus
The title of Intortus, a recent electronic composition by Rocío Cano Valiño, is a word used for a kind of cirrus cloud with twisted, seemingly entangled filaments. Even casual cloudwatchers know that these painterly wisps are shapeshifting storytellers; they may start out looking like contrails or skywriting, then turn into strands of punk-rock hair orContinue reading “First-place winner, Musicworks 2024 Electronic Music Composition Contest: Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus”
The Living Songs of Edzi’u Explore Indigenous Experiences, Sovereignty, and Culture
Every performance is a spiritual experience for Tahltan and Tlingit artist Edzi’u, who invites their ancestors to join them each time they make music. Drawing deeply from personal experience and cultural knowledge, their works explore grief, love, and healing. Connecting with their ancestors through intuition, storytelling, and sound is central to their creative process. WithContinue reading “The Living Songs of Edzi’u Explore Indigenous Experiences, Sovereignty, and Culture”
Chuck Copenace is redefining jazz fusion
Chuck Copenace is breaking down barriers in his art form, much as Jeremy Dutcher did in merging his classical music training with the words of the Wolastoqiyik people on his two Polaris Music Prize-winning albums. On his 2023 album Oshki Manitou, Copenace constructed a unique jazz fusion, bringing Ojibway sweat-lodge melodies into the world ofContinue reading “Chuck Copenace is redefining jazz fusion”
The Parallel Multiverses of Kalaisan Kalaichelvan
Mariam gathers her resolve. What happened to Asad after that road accident? She dons her headscarf with determination. In the background, the instrumentals of the song Seenay lag jao na (Asim Raza, arranged by Sohail Abbas) fade out, leaving Saima Jehan’s singing undisturbed. Replacing the music, echoing conch horns encroach underneath the vocals with perverseContinue reading “The Parallel Multiverses of Kalaisan Kalaichelvan”
Evan Parker in Canada
Evan Parker has had a long and fruitful relationship with Canadian musicians and audiences. His first North American tour in 1978 introduced his uncanny solo soprano saxophone techniques to audiences in Toronto and Vancouver as well as affording chances for him to play with various ad hoc ensembles, including Michael Snow and the CCMC atContinue reading “Evan Parker in Canada”
Art in the Age of the Sellout
It’s staggering to think about what it actually takes to be a professional music artist in 2024. We write and record music, practise for live shows, travel from town to town, and perform for audiences. But today, it’s also de rigueur for a musician to stay up to date with industry trends and be aContinue reading “Art in the Age of the Sellout”
Charles Harding’s Sound Thinking
For twenty-one days last October, as part of an artist residency, New Brunswick sound artist Charles Harding and two composer friends cycled back and forth across Kökar, a small Finnish island accessible only by boat or helicopter, to capture its character using various field recorders and microphones, including hydrophones. Harding found the first night “aContinue reading “Charles Harding’s Sound Thinking”
Okan’s Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magdelys Savigne Celebrate the Here and Now
Canadian Afro-Cuban ensemble Okan takes its name from the word for heart in Lucumí, the liturgical language used in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria. The heart of Okan is two songwriter-performers who bring the experiences and potent emotions of their lives to their music, which infuses its Afro-Cuban roots with jazz, folk, and global rhythmsContinue reading “Okan’s Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magdelys Savigne Celebrate the Here and Now”
First-place winner, 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest
At age five, Ningxin Zhang started her classical training on the pipa—a lute-like plucked Chinese instrument in use for more than 2,000 years—and followed the traditional route of practising repertoire (classical and folk songs) and performing in competitions. While studying translation, interpreting, and intercultural studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, Ningxin was inspired to exploreContinue reading “First-place winner, 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest”
Currently Arts Society is Activating the Future
The term “experimental art” often elicits vacant looks and furrowed brows, even among artists and arts communities. For experimental artists Roxanne Nesbitt and Anju Singh, co-artistic directors of the Vancouver-based Currently Arts Society (CAS), the nebulous term poses no significant problem. “We keep the definition really open,” says Nesbitt. “I think that’s the value ofContinue reading “Currently Arts Society is Activating the Future”
Sonny-Ray Day Rider is opening gates to a different world
In his early teenage years, Sonny-Ray Day Rider started playing piano in the home of his paternal grandmother. The thirty-six-year-old Blackfoot composer from the Kainai Blood tribe was raised with the music of powwows and other ceremonial rituals, but it was this hands-on experience that set him on his creative path. While Day Rider isContinue reading “Sonny-Ray Day Rider is opening gates to a different world”
Mustafa Rafiq’s Music of Self-Determination
The opening track of guitarist Mustafa Rafiq’s album If I Were a Dance, featuring music recorded in 2020, provides two points of entry. One is through words—visceral, personal poetry composed and recited by Edmonton-based poet Dwennimmen. The other is through the instrumental sounds that bloom behind the poems: sparse, crackling sonorities that gently swell andContinue reading “Mustafa Rafiq’s Music of Self-Determination “
Evan Dysart Designs Invisible Architecture
A musical project may have a clear beginning, but sometimes it’s difficult for an artist to know when it’s actually finished. For Evan Dysart’s latest album, Invisible Architecture, a tight deadline provided the push to the finish line that he needed. The album’s origins can be traced to the thesis project for Dysart’s master ofContinue reading “Evan Dysart Designs Invisible Architecture”
A Eulogy for Café Resonance
Down here in the basement the air is sticky and humid, and the music is loud. I can feel the bass moving through my body. It’s in the floor, beneath me. Up on the top floors you can listen to music, too, but in the basement you can play it loud. The room is nestledContinue reading “A Eulogy for Café Resonance”
You Can Can’s Tonal Possibilities
In late March, Felicity Williams and Andrew Zukerman found themselves in a familiar place—the Main Hall of Toronto’s Tranzac Club—doing something they haven’t done before: performing live as the experimental electronic–folk act You Can Can. Zukerman is an audio and visual collage artist who releases music under the Fleshtone Aura moniker and collaborates with BadgeContinue reading “You Can Can’s Tonal Possibilities”
Wayne Lavallee’s Journey to Bones of Crows
Wayne Lavallee has taken an adventurous creative path to reach his latest milestone: writing music with fellow Vancouver musician Jesse Zubot for filmmaker Marie Clements’ Bones of Crows, one of the largest Indigenous-led production in Canadian screen history. Lavallee grew up in residential schools and foster care and left home to start working at ageContinue reading “Wayne Lavallee’s Journey to Bones of Crows”
Nicole Mitchell and Coco Elysses at Women From Space
“How is wonder experienced in your life?” This text has been placed in a small gold frame, tucked under a tree-like structure with leaves of dazzling colour, and left for curious concertgoers to find at Women From Space (WFS), a four-day festival that celebrates and creates space for women’s innovation during the International Women’s DayContinue reading “Nicole Mitchell and Coco Elysses at Women From Space”
Levy Lorenzo Maximizes the Human Algorithm
New York City’s David Geffen Hall opened its doors again to the public in October 2022, and the New York Philharmonic wasted no time in settling back into its reimagined home. After departing from Carnegie Hall in 1962, the orchestra performed in David Geffen Hall’s previous incarnation, which was muddled with acoustic problems; the newContinue reading “Levy Lorenzo Maximizes the Human Algorithm”
Ohama’s Alternative Dimensions
Tona Walt Ohama has lived many lives. Born on a potato farm in Southern Alberta, he has spent the past forty years making passionate, deeply personal music while forging friendly connections with anyone who enters his orbit. Since his debut album, the 1982 cassette release Midnite News, Ohama has become a prolific producer and sound-artContinue reading “Ohama’s Alternative Dimensions”
Mariana Vieira’s The Unexpected Encounter with Diversity
Electronic music has the potential to free composers and sounds from physical and cultural constraints while also bringing those elements closer together. Composer Mariana Vieira has been exploring ideas in this creative space since her undergraduate studies in composition at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (ESML), where she is currently pursuing her master’s inContinue reading “Mariana Vieira’s The Unexpected Encounter with Diversity”
Giulia Regini’s NeOnSound
Italian composer Giulia Regini’s NeOnSound is the winner of the 2021 Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronic Music, as selected by the jury of Musicworks’ 2021 Electronic Music Composition Contest. “NeOnSound is an audiovisual composition inspired by Dan Flavin’s light installations,” wrote Regini, when asked to describe the composition. “This work comes from my personal interestContinue reading “Giulia Regini’s NeOnSound”
The Complex Stillness of Mark Ellestad
“For me, there is a kind of stillness in music that comes from a generous and welcoming place. It has nothing to do with speed or style or tradition or school. It can come from dark or light, from any shade of intensity. It doesn’t need to express anything at all. I love it whenContinue reading “The Complex Stillness of Mark Ellestad”
Pierre Kwenders Dreams for the World
“I grew up surrounded by music lovers. There was always music playing and people dancing. There was always a reason for a family gathering, and I was one of those kids always ready to dance. Whenever there was a family gathering, there was an acoustic guitar around and my uncle would take the guitar andContinue reading “Pierre Kwenders Dreams for the World”