Musicworks is pleased to announce that Panayiotis Kokoras has won first prize in the 2025 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest for Viper Snake. “I have been following Musicworks for more than 15 years, so this recognition is especially meaningful to me,” said Kokoras upon receiving the news. “Viper Snake explores the physicality, friction, and volatileContinue reading “2025 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest Winners Announced!”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Leah Reid’s Reverie
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”
Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands and Forest Rhythms
Natural environments mold ecosystems and identities. Myths, histories, and the knowledge of local populations move to their natural rhythms. Today’s exploitation of resources poses dangers to life as we know it. Mining, quarrying, deforestation, and fossil fuel extraction threaten vulnerable environments and Indigenous communities living in their ancestral lands. Rising global temperatures accelerate glacier melting.Continue reading “Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands and Forest Rhythms”
Kalun Leung’s warped trombone
One afternoon last August, I watched performer-composer Kalun Leung wave his wrist as a shriek of clarinet notes wailed through the high-ceilinged main room at Perte de Signal, a small multimedia studio in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood where he’s an artist-in-residence this year. With another swoop of his hand, a cluster of trombone notes explodedContinue reading “Kalun Leung’s warped trombone”
The Art of Troubleshooting
Writer and musician Julia Eckhardt has noted that we tend to use the word “quality” as a way of making vague value judgments about music, without ever having to justify them. “Speaking about quality in music seems to be simply a way to divide music into the categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ without ever askingContinue reading “The Art of Troubleshooting”
Koala Karnival is Deeper than the Dancefloor
Montreal is known for its exciting nightlife, teeming with live music, outdoor festivals, and sweaty dance clubs. Lately, a different kind of outing has emerged on the local scene. Instead of dancing, you sit. Instead of talking, you listen. No beat or booze, just bliss. “In my community, a lot of us meet on theContinue reading “Koala Karnival is Deeper than the Dancefloor”
Music as a Teaching Lodge: Marek Tyler’s ASKO
On “nôkosiw,” the opening track of nêhiyaw (Cree) drummer Marek Tyler’s 2024 solo debut ASKO, his mother’s voice tells the listener, “As an artist you’re not the creator.” With ASKO, also the name of his solo project, he is shifting from the indie rock of nêhiyawak—his previous amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton)-based band with guitarist Kris Harper andContinue reading “Music as a Teaching Lodge: Marek Tyler’s ASKO”
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”
Leaf Music’s Uniquely Canadian Colours
These days the world of pop music often seems to be winding itself into a kind of ouroboros of nostalgia, with anniversary reissues, reunion tours, and tribute acts programmed at venues far and wide—but are we making enough space in those places for new and innovative music? It may be less obvious, but some ofContinue reading “Leaf Music’s Uniquely Canadian Colours”
NOISE VS. PLEASURE
Canadian musicologist and historian Dr. Marcia Jenneth Epstein is the author of Sound and Noise: A Listener’s Guide to Everyday Life (2020). She listened to Lola de la Mata’s album Oceans on Azimuth in advance of her conversation with writer Angus MacCaull about how the body interprets sound. This interview has been edited for lengthContinue reading “NOISE VS. PLEASURE”