Third place in Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest was awarded to João Pedro Oliveira’s La Mer Émeraude (The Emerald Sea). The composition has also received awards at SIME Competition, Città di Udine Competition, the Destellos Competition and the Chicago Composers Consortium Competition. “Let us imagine a small invented world, a micro universe where everythingContinue reading “João Pedro Oliveira’s “La Mer Émeraude””
Author Archives: Musicworks
June Young (Will) Kim’s “Black, Emerald”
June Young (Will) Kim won second place in Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest for Black, Emerald, the third piece in his series of works for amplified canvas. A commission by München Landeshauptstadt Musikstipendium, Kim completed the piece in September 2020 and premiered it in Munich on October 12, 2020 with Sakhile Humbane (flute), AdrianContinue reading “June Young (Will) Kim’s “Black, Emerald””
Reclaiming Chinatown
In many respects, the year 2020 was a time of reckoning for Asian Americans.Hot on the heelsof the landmark Asian ensemble-cast blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made history with Parasite, which took home the first Academy Award for Best Picture ever to be received by a subtitled film. After a decades-longContinue reading “Reclaiming Chinatown”
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”
Xylem Records: Building Community for Live Coding
The exploratory, collectivist ethos of the U.K. live-coding scene laid the groundwork for Xylem Records, an experimental electronic music netlabel founded by composer and computer scientist Dr. Norah Lorway. Originally from Vancouver, B.C., Lorway moved to the U.K. in 2010 to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham, where she researched electroacoustic composition andContinue reading “Xylem Records: Building Community for Live Coding”
Rocío Cano Valiño’s Okno wins first place in Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest
After following the enigmatic whooshes, dangling creaks, and scene-stealing clunks around the evocative sonic space of Okno, I was not surprised to learn that its composer, Rocío Cano Valiño, has a background in interior design—a talent she employs in the various collaborative, multidisciplinary projects she’s pursuing in Lyon, France, where she is based. “Space isContinue reading “Rocío Cano Valiño’s Okno wins first place in Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest”
Musicworks’ 2021 Electronic Music Composition Contest closes Dec. 20, 11:59 p.m. PST!
Ready to submit to our eleventh annual Electronic Music Composition Contest? Read the rules below and ENTER here. Please share this announcement with your friends, audiences, and communities. Musicworks’ annual juried contest spotlights new musical talent from around the world and offers cash prizes and opportunities to be published and heard. PRIZES First prize is CAD$500, aContinue reading “Musicworks’ 2021 Electronic Music Composition Contest closes Dec. 20, 11:59 p.m. PST!”
What’s Inside Musicworks 140?
The Fall 2021 issue connects you to music artists of distinctive styles and from distant places with expertly crafted words and carefully chosen images. It is accompanied by a CD of deeply felt, hand-blown music, enhanced with chiselled edges and unusual colours. IF YOU ARE A PRINT ENTHUSIAST, YOU’LL WANT TO SNAG A SINGLE COPYContinue reading “What’s Inside Musicworks 140?”
Listening Conditions
We tend to think of an emergency as something sudden—the kind of jarring, life-and-death situation that leaps out at us with abrupt urgency. And when we think about what an emergency sounds like, that assumption is often fresh in our minds: sirens, clatter—noises sharp and loud that aggressively hold our attention. But what happens whenContinue reading “Listening Conditions”
Shifting the Narrative
The time for postponing discussions of environmental issues is over. This is the main thrust of two music-and-sound-powered documentary projects, both of which aim to encourage honest conversations about climate change and to explore the many ways our lives intertwine with—and impact— the fate of the natural world. In her documentary theatre work Tar SandsContinue reading “Shifting the Narrative”