Following the work of Darsha Hewitt is like feeling your way through the inside of an electronic circuit. It is tactile, visceral. Her trial-and-error approach comes from a truly experimental place, and during my conversation with her, I suggest that I have imagined her jotting down observations on a clipboard while wearing a white labContinue reading “Darsha Hewitt”
Author Archives: Musicworks
St. John’s, Newfoundland
It’s July 2001 in St. John’s, Newfoundland—the one-hundredth anniversary of Marconi’s successful reception of transatlantic wireless transmissions on Signal Hill. In town on a visit, I decide to pay homage to the event by hiking up the Harbour Trail to Signal Hill. The trail possesses a variety of physical and aural features that define bothContinue reading “St. John’s, Newfoundland”
Yannis Kyriakides
“Why don’t you come by my place and I can sell you the CDs you’re seeking,” said the voice on the phone. It was the spring of 2005, I was in Amsterdam and looking for recordings from the Dutch label Unsounds. The voice on the other end of the line was that of Dutch-Cypriot composerContinue reading “Yannis Kyriakides”
Debashis Sinha
“La montaña. El cuervo. Cada mota de polvo elevada por mis pasos alberga incontables palabras,” intones the deeply resonant voice, as the rhythmic sound of footsteps fades up and a single gong-stroke repeats slowly. This is Kailash, a radiophonic work by Toronto’s Debashis Sinha, commissioned from him in 2009 by Centro para la Difusión deContinue reading “Debashis Sinha”
Anna Friz
Right off Yonge Street, in the midst of Toronto’s all-night Nuit Blanche art festival, I and some others found respite from the revels in the atrium of a relatively nondescript office building. After a short line-up and passage through a revolving door, we found ourselves within a captivating sound installation. Over two hundred pocket-sized radioContinue reading “Anna Friz”
Eve Egoyan and David Rokeby’s Surface Tension
Surface Tension is a thirty-five-minute collaborative interarts work that the two of us (pianist Eve Egoyan and installation artist David Rokeby) created for Disklavier piano and interactive video. The piece explores the relationship between what we do separately in our respective creative practises. It is an exploration of possibility, of ways to integrate our two very different approachesContinue reading “Eve Egoyan and David Rokeby’s Surface Tension”
Nicole Lizée invites us to hear things her way
Nicole Lizée is a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock, science-fiction films, and Lars von Trier, the maverick Danish director whose Dogme (dogma), about film, inspires her own reflection on how to compose music. She says composers should be just as bold and inventive about creating music as von Trier is about making films. The director,Continue reading “Nicole Lizée invites us to hear things her way”
Extermination Music Night
It’s quarter past midnight in late May 2008. Storm clouds loom but hold, on this surprisingly humid night. I open the garage, grab my bike and check my backpack: flashlight, five cans of beer, five-dollar donation, notepad and pen. I recheck the instructions I printed from an online forum: “Do not be seen entering theContinue reading “Extermination Music Night”