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”
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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”
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”
The Apperceptive Musical Adventures of Taylor Brook
Canadian composer Taylor Brook—whose music can strike an unusual balance between challenge and charm,sometimes with an astonishing delicacy—had been based since 2011 in New York City, where he was first a doctoral student and then a lecturer at Columbia University, all the while making the most of the city’s wealth of performers. But in 2020,Continue reading “The Apperceptive Musical Adventures of Taylor Brook”
Ashley Au Is Stretching Out
Most music fans in Winnipeg have seen plenty of Ashley Au playing bass in recent years in a wide range of idioms—Americana, hip-hop, jazz, and sludge metal. Pausing to tally current projects, Au counts in blinks before saying, “I’m in an open relationship with maybe seven or eight different ensembles right now, constantly negotiating theContinue reading “Ashley Au Is Stretching Out”
Aidan Baker’s Ambient Autonomy
Over the past twenty years, Berlin-based Canadian guitarist and composer Aidan Baker has developed a creative rhythm, using his guitar as a gateway to seemingly disparate sounds and marrying noise, krautrock, metal, drone, and free jazz in thrilling and unexpected ways. Through his workmanlike approach, he has amassed a sprawling discography—the selected discography on hisContinue reading “Aidan Baker’s Ambient Autonomy”
FET.NAT’s Post-Punk Palimpsests
Around twenty years ago, a post-punk revival was supposedly upon us. Reissue compilations proliferated alongside a crop of new artists who audibly drew from the genre’s heyday. Where punk-rock wedded a rock ethos with rebellious politics (or sometimes just rebellious posturing), post-punk let exploratory radicalism infiltrate the music itself. Looking at that much-touted resurgence withContinue reading “FET.NAT’s Post-Punk Palimpsests”
The Many Trajectories of Erin Rogers
Erin Rogers and Dennis Sullivan are facing each other on the stage of Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge in late February of 2020, a small table of gear between them. They take turns triggering samples of sportscasters by pounding large, illuminated buttons as if playing bare-knuckle Whac-a-Mole, altering sample speeds with joysticks and catch-and-releasing looped phrases.Continue reading “The Many Trajectories of Erin Rogers”
Tim Olive’s Flexible Aesthetic
It’s a typically humming Saturday night at the Tranzac Club. Different events are in progress in each of the Toronto venue’s three rooms. The Tiki Room (the smallest and most living-room-like of the three) is hosting a special edition of the Audiopollination series, which is usually held elsewhere; its regular events are self-curated affairs, whereContinue reading “Tim Olive’s Flexible Aesthetic”
Webber/Morris Big Band
On a cold January evening in 2019, Angela Morris approaches the bandstand of Manhattan’s Jazz Gallery and announces that she will be able to conduct her piece that night. A few days ago it was still uncertain. Weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve, she broke her shoulder, making the arm movements required to lead the bandContinue reading “Webber/Morris Big Band”
The Musical Colours of Dominique Fils-Aimé
On the 2004 live-concert recording Tour de Force, the renowned American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron introduces his 1981 song “Is That Jazz?”: “Go to your record store . . . look at the bottom shelf, you will find a box called miscellaneous. We are miscellaneous. We did not mean to be miscellaneous. Somehow itContinue reading “The Musical Colours of Dominique Fils-Aimé”
Lina Allemano is Splitting Time
If Toronto’s avant-jazz and free-improv community has a living room, it’s the Southern Cross Lounge, the front room of the Tranzac Club—a cluttered bandstand with an ancient upright, a friendly bar in the back corner, a familiar audience—where drummer Nick Fraser books bands from the creative edges. Lina Allemano plays here regularly when she’s inContinue reading “Lina Allemano is Splitting Time”
Vanese “VJ” Smith is Right on Time
Vanese (pronounced va-NIECE) “VJ” Smith and I are on the Spadina streetcar, chatting like old friends. Just minutes earlier we met for the first time. I arrived from up North (aka Thornhill) in a state of winter-blues petulance, but when I saw her bright smile and waving arm from across the street, I was gratefulContinue reading “Vanese “VJ” Smith is Right on Time”
Vicky Chow Is Just Warming Up
Against a deep blue, backlit stage, Vicky Chow sat at the baby grand in the Scheuer Auditorium at the Jewish Museum on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in April 2017, flanked by forty speakers hanging from stands. For an uninterrupted hour, she played dizzying sequences of interlocking melodies against a latticework of pulse tones. The pieceContinue reading “Vicky Chow Is Just Warming Up”
The Piano and Erhu Project Expands the Repertoire
“Let’s begin with a short history of this instrument,” says Nicole Ge Li, in a video shot at the Vancouver offices of the Canadian Music Centre. She’s speaking to a roomful of composers, gathered there to learn more about writing for PEP (Piano and Erhu Project), her joint undertaking with the man who’s just introducedContinue reading “The Piano and Erhu Project Expands the Repertoire”
Bret Parenteau widens the loop
When Bret Parenteau’s name is attached to a release or performance, those familiar with his music find themselves wondering what kind of intensity the Winnipeg artist is unleashing this time. His work ranges through harsh noise, urban field recordings, and looping synth sounds, but the only way to find out which spices are in theContinue reading “Bret Parenteau widens the loop”
Carmen Braden Raises the Volume on the Subarctic
“I’M JUST GOING TO TOUCH IT ON THE TOP,” SAYS CARMEN BRADEN, LOOKING AT A BLACKENED PORCUPINE-LIKE LUMP OF ICE. “WHAT I THINK WILL HAPPEN: IT’S JUST GOING TO FALL APART. READY?” It’s May 2014, and she’s talking to a camera. Her now-husband, Eli Purchase, is filming her on the banks of the Mackenzie RiverContinue reading “Carmen Braden Raises the Volume on the Subarctic”
Andrew Staniland accelerates toward the next idea
IN 2013, NASA CONFIRMED THAT the Voyager 1 probe had become the first manmade object to cross the heliopause, leaving the bounds of our solar system and entering interstellar space. In addition to its scientific instruments, Voyager 1 was famously carrying a Golden Record entitled The Sounds of Earth. Put together by a committee led by notedContinue reading “Andrew Staniland accelerates toward the next idea”
The Passion and Curiosity of Barbara Hannigan
“An absolute stroke of luck for opera” is just one of the countless accolades Canadian-born, Amsterdam-based soprano Barbara Hannigan has received for her performances of both classical and contemporary music. Composers and musicians she has worked with are unanimous in their praise. She has premiered a large number of major works, among them operas withContinue reading “The Passion and Curiosity of Barbara Hannigan”
Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber
Wolf Edwards’ various stories are so interesting and so curiously entwined that it’s hard to know where to start. Working in the fish-packing plants of Ucluelet, B.C., the ugly-duckling sibling of Tofino’s trendy swan? Playing guitar on the stage of some black-hole dive with anarcho-punk band Iskra? Swapping musical knowledge with British violinist Irvine Arditti,Continue reading “Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber”
Isaiah Ceccarelli
“I know it may sound crazy, but I am interested in making beautiful music—music that sounds good. I’m not saying this just to be different, and it might not be in line with a lot of the reasons that people make music today, but I am actually not very involved with, or worrying so muchContinue reading “Isaiah Ceccarelli”
Quatuor Bozzini
Quatuor Bozzini is poetry, sweat, talent, idealism, determination, love, survival, fate, and a wonderful wild dance with the spirits. For fifteen years, the Montreal ensemble has steadfastly explored the notion of what contemporary music means today. The players are irrepressible creators and innovators, whether working in the far lands of experimental sound art, the closeContinue reading “Quatuor Bozzini”