The first time I met guitarist-composer Amy Brandon, we talked about the lineage of a particular sound. Her 2019 composition Mimic—written while she participated in the Canadian League of Composers’ Pivot mentorship progam (presented in partnership with the Canadian Music Centre and Continuum Contemporary Music)—contains a percussion technique in which a woodblock set on topContinue reading “Amy Brandon is Capturing Intimate Chaos”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Ana Sokolović wants you to enjoy her imagination
“Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms / Inside your head, and people in them, acting.” These lines from “The Old Fools,” English postwar poet Philip Larkin’s fearsome ode to aging, sparked Montreal composer Ana Sokolović’s full-length opera of the same title, which the Canadian Opera Company commissioned in late 2018 and is scheduled toContinue reading “Ana Sokolović wants you to enjoy her imagination”
Laraaji, Forever Expanding in Experimental Directions
New Age legend Laraaji has soared through a five-decade artistic voyage, propelled by the fiery spirit of positivity that’s represented by his trademark orange clothes. The seventy-six-year-old African-American visionary, who continues to joyfully record, perform, and present laughter-meditation workshops around the world, kicked off 2019 with a pair of releases from Canadian labels. The firstContinue reading “Laraaji, Forever Expanding in Experimental Directions”
Charlie Morrow, Sonic Nomad
“My work is what it is and I move in many worlds. I would have nothing except for being carried on the shoulders of friendship and shared interest.” Intrepid sonic investigator Charlie Morrow’s early-’90s Lower East Side event, Urban Jungle, spilled out way beyond the confines of the Sareido Gallery on West Broadway, mushrooming intoContinue reading “Charlie Morrow, Sonic Nomad”
Sami Blanco’s Experimental Atmospheres
Yellowknife-based experimental electronic-music artist Sami Blanco plays me a snippet of a soundbank he made for late-night broadcast on Yellowknife’s francophone radio station, CIVR-FM, familiarly known as Radio Taïga. Emerging from a Korg MS2000—the virtual analog synthesizer Blanco dreamed about owning since he was sixteen—is a dazzling sequence that twinkles like stars on a clearContinue reading “Sami Blanco’s Experimental Atmospheres”
The Restless Sonic Architecture of William Kuo
Adjudicating applications for an emerging-composer program is a sort of high-volume evaluation scenario that necessitates a concentrated mode of listening in order to provide fair and sufficiently individualized appraisals. But every so often, you come across a candidate whose music is so immediately arresting that it shatters this hyperfocus and engulfs you. This is preciselyContinue reading “The Restless Sonic Architecture of William Kuo”
Mystery & Wonder Records: Extending the Sound
A striking musical and visual aesthetic distinguishes Mystery & Wonder Records from other artist-curated labels. The recordings are concise yet complete musical statements. High-definition sound with a lively, in-your-face feel results from microphones placed very close to the instruments. Releases are downloadable from the label’s Website but are more fully appreciated on vinyl or CD,Continue reading “Mystery & Wonder Records: Extending the Sound”
The Quiet Waves of Silla and Rise
In early 2016 Ottawa-based DJ, producer, and dancer Eric Vani, aka Rise, was hired to create music to be played at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Nature Nocturne—a themed-evening series that Vani describes as a “rave in the middle of dinosaur skeletons.” “They hired me to remix a bunch of music from around the circumpolar—differentContinue reading “The Quiet Waves of Silla and Rise”
Bekah Simms’ Skinscape and Elliott Lupp’s Hinge
Bekah Simms’ Skinscape received an honourable mention from the jury of Musicworks’ 2018 Electronic Music Composition Contest. Skinscape is a work for flute and fixed media inspired by the transformation of something intimately familiar into something processed and alien, particularly through the lens of tattooing. “Using almost exclusively flute samples for the fixed media part,Continue reading “Bekah Simms’ Skinscape and Elliott Lupp’s Hinge”
What’s Inside Musicworks 134?
The artists in the Fall 2019 issue expand their perspectives through innovative collaborations and combos—they just can’t get enough! Order Musicworks 134 now. Ana Sokolović Serbian-born Canadian composer Ana Sokolović’s fantastical, imaginary worlds are encapsulated in her internationally renowned, critically acclaimed operas, chamber music, instrumental, orchestral, and interarts works. The multi-award-winning, Montreal-based artist garnered theContinue reading “What’s Inside Musicworks 134?”