Her cello in a white case strapped to her small back, Peggy Lee had walked several unfamiliar blocks in her hometown Vancouver, since the bus dropped her at the edge of a genteel oceanside neighbourhood. She was looking for the Aberthau Mansion, where she would perform later that evening. Across a shaded park, Lee climbedContinue reading “Peggy Lee and the Joy of Unknowable Notes”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Jean-Sebastien Audet’s Songs of Ephemera
Jean-Sebastien Audet and I drink coffee in a café on Toronto’s Queen Street West, as we try to pin down his elusive music. The man who has kindly given us his larger table is now squeezed into a corner with his laptop and is feigning interest in nondescript wall art. He perks up his earsContinue reading “Jean-Sebastien Audet’s Songs of Ephemera”
Bug Incision: Calgary’s Cross-Pollination Buzz
The world of free improvisation is like a parallel universe, a global underground community of nonidiomatic soundmakers, recording with each other in every imaginable permutation, connected via a proliferation of text- and link-heavy Web 1.0 sites, DIY venues, and CD-R labels, with a passionately devoted audience consisting of— in large part, if not exclusively—improvisers themselves,Continue reading “Bug Incision: Calgary’s Cross-Pollination Buzz”
What’s Inside Musicworks 131?
Musicworks 131 is the second issue of our 40th anniversary year, featuring artists who are active in interarts, DIY culture, collaborative composing, and more! Buy the print issue (or print + CD combo!) from our shop or start your subscription with the Fall 2018 issue. ON THE COVER Vancouver cellist, improviser, and composer Peggy Lee talksContinue reading “What’s Inside Musicworks 131?”
Getting Out More Often
In my five years as editor of Musicworks, I cannot recall a more action-packed time than the three-day whirlwind of stimulating events, conversations, and music I experienced last May. All the chatting and typing and reading and listening that I do in front of (or holding) a screen certainly keeps me connected to my colleaguesContinue reading “Getting Out More Often”
BLACKOUT MUSIC
Deep black space is speckled with birdcalls and falling water until an ominous boom looms and the drumming of rat-a-tat-tat – insect infestation or insistent rain – is jarring and subsides in the darkness a piano perforates the heavy steely rumble of trains and we tumble up the keyboard to dissolve into sparkles tiny fireflyContinue reading “BLACKOUT MUSIC”
Julia Mermelstein’s “wonted II-III”
Toronto-based composer Julia Mermelstein creates music focused on detailed tone, colour, textures, and gestural movement that reveal evocative, immersive, and subtly changing soundscapes. Her work aims to blend acoustic and electronic sound worlds in seamless interactions. Drawing inspiration from Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and ritual, as well as her extensive background in ballet, Mermelstein blends multipleContinue reading “Julia Mermelstein’s “wonted II-III””
Rebecca Bruton Lets The World In
Rebecca Bruton describes her work as an “understated, Surrealist folk music”—music that’s experimental but also simple, with a sensuousness and a weirdness to it. “Music that makes sense,” she says, “but you’re not sure why.” A composer, violinist, and vocalist, based in Calgary, Bruton studied music first at York University and then at Simon FraserContinue reading “Rebecca Bruton Lets The World In”
Demian Rudel Rey’s “Theophilus”
Argentinian composer and guitarist Demian Rudel Rey has received numerous awards and honorable mentions in various national and international composition compstitions, and his pieces have been selected and programmed at prestigious festivals across Europe and the Americas. Theophilus (which you can hear on this page) was written on the occasion of a tribute festival toContinue reading “Demian Rudel Rey’s “Theophilus””
Tomoko Sauvage’s Waterbowls
Delicate clusters of tones sound and resonate. An orchestration of chimes and drips, they mix to form a potent brew of sullen melodies and serene reverberation. Adrift, immersed, submerged—there are many metaphors one might use to describe a close listening of Clepsydra, the opening track on Tomoko Sauvage’s latest album, Musique Hydromantique, and most ofContinue reading “Tomoko Sauvage’s Waterbowls”