After a month delay due to challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic, Musicworks is thrilled to announce the winners of its 2019 Electronic Music Composition Contest. We thank composer entrants for their patience. Brazilian composer Alex Buck, who is currently based in California, won first prize with his composition Screaming Trees. An article about BuckContinue reading “Winners of Musicworks’ 2019 Electronic Music Composition Contest Announced . . . at Last!”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut
Mount Thor Sometimes the Arctic sun never goes down, never rises. Today though, in the middle of the Akshayuk Pass, I wake up just before the sunrays reach the thin layer of ice on my tent. It is early, dark, and cold. The wind is tirelessly beating against everything that comes in its way. IContinue reading “Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut”
Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi is just scratching the surface
“My relationship to sound is [an] obsession with texture and how sounds affect each other, and also [with] playing with the human psyche.” Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi then bursts out laughing, saying, “That’s a lot in one sentence.” Koochakzadeh-Yazdi is very funny, and she’s also very focused. The Iranian-Canadian Simon Fraser University student is just twenty-one yearsContinue reading “Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi is just scratching the surface”
Tosca Terán Has a Brand New Spawn Bag
The lobby is cavernous and cool compared to the heat under the blazing mid-afternoon sun outside. It’s mid July, and I’m visiting Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) on a decidedly peculiar mission: to listen to music made by fungus. As part of the seventh edition of Vector Festival, Tosca Terán is staging a workshopContinue reading “Tosca Terán Has a Brand New Spawn Bag”
Buffy Sainte-Marie reflects on Illuminations
“God is alive / Magic is afoot / Alive is afoot / Magic never died.” Those words, written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie, open a doorway into the mystical world of Illuminations—one of the most musically beguiling, technologically groundbreaking, and undeniably brilliant albums of the 1960s folk era. Unlike a few ofContinue reading “Buffy Sainte-Marie reflects on Illuminations”
Baroque to the Future
Few musical relationships are as difficult to parse as those between musicians and the instruments they play. It’s a type of interaction that feels like it should be simple—something transactional, between human subject and sounding object—but in practice, objects, especially culturally situated ones, can come with as much baggage as their owners. Often they haveContinue reading “Baroque to the Future”
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”
Emilie LeBel’s Field Notes
For many composers, a work in progress comes with strings attached—no pun intended. There are arts councils and concert presenters to satisfy, musicians to liaise with, premiere dates that draw ever closer. Deadlines, of course, can get the juices flowing, and creative constraints (such as writing for a specific ensemble) can certainly focus the mind.Continue reading “Emilie LeBel’s Field Notes”
We Are All Connected
I have often stopped to listen to the trees during a walk in a forest on a breezy day. Only recently, however, did I realize that it is possible to stop and listen to the fungi. Mycelium is the underground network of fungal threads that connects the roots of different plants and provides a kindContinue reading “We Are All Connected”
What’s Inside Musicworks 135?
The artists in the Winter 2019 issue are connected through the sonic mycelium of Musicworks! Order the Winter issue now. Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Illuminations Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Illuminations is one of the most sonically beguiling, technologically groundbreaking, and undeniably brilliant albums of the 1960s folk era. Sadly, it failed to find commercial success upon its release in 1969 andContinue reading “What’s Inside Musicworks 135?”