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”
Author Archives: Musicworks
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?”
Epa Fassianos’ Chromatocosmos
Epa Fassianos’ Chromatocosmos won third place in Musicworks’ 2018 Electronic Music Composition Contest, and also won first place in Category A of Musica Nova 2018 (the long-running international electroacoustic music composition competition presented by Society for Electroacoustic Music of Czech Republic). Chromatocosmos is an electroacoustic piece which is based on original recordings of the baglamas,Continue reading “Epa Fassianos’ Chromatocosmos”
‘Greedy Music’
“In 1993, I was making word clouds because I wondered what my computer’s hard drive was thinking about during its idle time,” Canadian writer and artist Douglas Coupland said in a 2013 interview. This summer, I wondered what my hard drive (aka my brain) was doing when I was at the computer editing this issue.Continue reading “‘Greedy Music’”
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”
Chroma Mixed Media’s Water
Water, the second-place winner of Musicworks’ 2018 Electronic Music Composition Contest, is a multimedia performance piece structured around changing states of water. It was composed collaboratively by three members of Chroma Mixed Media for a performance with the Co.Crea.Tive collective that took place at the Golden Saucer in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Earth Day (April 22)Continue reading “Chroma Mixed Media’s Water”
HAVN Records: Fronting Art Music in ‘The Hammer’
First came the band, then the space, then the label. The band is Haolin Munk, a jazz and hip-hop quartet formed in the early 2010s by drummer Aaron Hutchinson, tenor saxophonist Connor Bennett, alto saxophonist Chris Ferguson, and bassist Josh Wiener. The space is HAVN—Hamilton Audio Visual Node—a gallery and performance space just off JamesContinue reading “HAVN Records: Fronting Art Music in ‘The Hammer’”
Carmen Vanderveken is full of surprises
Quebec-born composer Carmen Vanderveken was commissioned by the Dutch annual festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek to write a piece for a quartet featuring Dutch bass clarinetist Fie Schouten. An earlier piece sheds light on the shape and sound of the music Carmen Vanderveken is after. In about two and a half minutes this “very short étude,” asContinue reading “Carmen Vanderveken is full of surprises”
Pleasure Calls, by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh
Pleasure Calls is a collaborative, interdisciplinary installation and performance by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh that activates revolutionary ways of loving one another. The installation is the culmination of a week-long residency in early March of 2019 at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, an artist-run centre for noncommercial work located in the historic HalifaxContinue reading “Pleasure Calls, by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh”