I “Like,” “Love,” “Follow,” and otherwise engage with an array of working musicians and music people—from coast to coast and beyond—through my Musicworks and personal social-media channels. They share news of residencies or gigs or recordings, commiserate, debate, and celebrate. And when they’re researching sound equipment or places to crash—or specialized things like score proofreaders—theyContinue reading “the art of crowdsourcing”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Julie Andreyev and Simon Lysander Overstall’s Biophilia
November, some might say, is not the ideal time to visit the wild West Coast. The days are short, the leaves are down. In any normal year, monsoon season will have kicked in, producing alternating bands of drizzle and downpour, both equally grey and almost equally wet. But when the International Society for Contemporary MusicContinue reading “Julie Andreyev and Simon Lysander Overstall’s Biophilia”
Michael Pounds’ “Breathing 2: Re/Inspiration”
Michael Pounds began his career as a mechanical engineer, receiving a B.S. from Ohio University. After working at the NASA Lewis Research Center, he returned to the academic world to study music composition with a focus on computer music and music technology. After undergraduate music studies at Bowling Green State University he earned graduate degreesContinue reading “Michael Pounds’ “Breathing 2: Re/Inspiration””
Another Timbre’s Canadian Composers Series
“I earn my living as a sound recordist on TV programs,” Simon Reynell relates. “I don’t put creative energies into that, but it’s well paid, so I don’t have to work more than an average of six days a month, which allows me to spend most of my time on the label, doing the thingsContinue reading “Another Timbre’s Canadian Composers Series”
Artificiel’s “Three Pieces With Titles”
“I had never seen such new things before. I didn’t even know what a new object could be,” the poet and art critic André Salmon wrote, after visiting the studio of Pablo Picasso in the spring of 1914. Of particular interest to Salmon was Guitar, a wall-mounted 3-D collage of a semi-exploded guitar built withContinue reading “Artificiel’s “Three Pieces With Titles””
Senyawa plays the music of the universe
On a chilly, rainy Thursday May night, a crowd of sixty or so people, spread unevenly around the pews of Halifax’s Fort Massey United Church, is waiting. OBEY Convention creative director Andrew Patterson has just introduced Indonesian “doom folk” duo Senyawa, but after the applause has faded they have still not appeared. Finally, two diminutiveContinue reading “Senyawa plays the music of the universe”
Bekah Simms’ Music of Discomfort
Bekah Simms likes music that challenges. “I don’t want to ever get too comfortable,” she tells me, as we sit down to talk about her work. “I don’t want it ever to be super easy to write a piece, because I feel like then I won’t be a better composer when I’m done it.” It’sContinue reading “Bekah Simms’ Music of Discomfort”
The Aural Perspectives of Brodie West
People love a good Jekyll-and-Hyde story, and when it comes to artists, the extreme disparities between their personal and creative lives offer endless fascination. These supposed paradoxes affirm the specious belief that artistic expression magically transcends selfhood. They’re also the pillars of personality cults, painting artists as fundamentally complicated and misunderstood people—exceptional beings occupying theirContinue reading “The Aural Perspectives of Brodie West”
Malcolm Cecil and the History of TONTO
THE FOLLOWING STORY WAS PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE SUMMER / FALL 2017 FEATURE “INSIDE THE NATIONAL MUSIC CENTRE.” Malcolm Cecil’s interest in electronics began at age nine, when he became the youngest member of a ham radio club in England. His mother was an accomplished musician on piano, violin, and accordion, while his fatherContinue reading “Malcolm Cecil and the History of TONTO”
Inside The National Music Centre
The Original New Timbral Orchestra, known simply as TONTO, has been called “a synthesizer the size of Nebraska.” The appearance of this electronic monolith makes an immediate impression. Housed in a twenty-foot semicircle of six-foot-tall wooden cabinets with knobs, keyboards, blinking lights, and colourful wires sprouting from every inch of its curves, this legendary instrumentContinue reading “Inside The National Music Centre”