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Kyle Brenders. WAYS.

Saxophonist-composer Kyle Brenders has assembled a sextet from among Toronto’s community of improvising musicians to perform an extended composition called Ways. Five segments of the work are heard here (Sections 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8) so the recording explicitly resists the notion of definitive performance, as does the music itself. While each segment, accordingContinue reading “Kyle Brenders. WAYS.”

Iannis Xenakis. Translated by Sharon Kanach. Music and Architecture.

It is commonly known that Iannis Xenakis was more than a composer; that he studied engineering rather than composition; that he worked for Le Corbusier as an architectural assistant; that he taught himself computer programming in order to create composition algorithms, new methods for digital synthesis, and a graphic music computer system (UPIC); that heContinue reading “Iannis Xenakis. Translated by Sharon Kanach. Music and Architecture.”

Robert Adlington, editor. Sound Commitments: Avant-Garde Music and the Sixties.

“If you remember the ’60s, it means you weren’t there” is a cliché with a kernel of truth in it—especially the insistence that rock sounds then subsumed other music. Yet the ’60s also saw mass acceptance of new and electronic music, while jazz’s most radical sounds divorced it from its role as entertainment. Sound CommitmentsContinue reading “Robert Adlington, editor. Sound Commitments: Avant-Garde Music and the Sixties.”

X Avant Festival. The Music Gallery, Toronto. October 21–25, 2009.

The fourth X Avant Festival at Toronto’s Music Gallery was entitled Convergence and Collaboration. As noted in gallery artistic director Johathan Bunce’s program notes, the theme was “inspired by ambient music forefather Brian Eno’s idea of ‘scenius,’ . . . the notion of co-operation in modern music making, as opposed to the glorification of individual genius.” TheContinue reading “X Avant Festival. The Music Gallery, Toronto. October 21–25, 2009.”

Toca Loca. P*P.

Toca Loca is a kick-ass ensemble with some of the heaviest performers in new music: Gregory Oh, piano and voice; Simon Docking, piano and voice; and Aiyung Huang, percussion and voice. All of them deserve kudos for this ambitious project of taking on pop music in the context of peer-to-peer sharing in new music. TheContinue reading “Toca Loca. P*P.”

Jorge Lima Barreto. Zul Zelub.

Melding inside-and-outside piano explorations with the pulsations of a randomly tuned shortwave radio or with pre-recorded ambient sounds issuing from four CD players, Jorge Lima Barreto creates an altogether unique, double-barrelled program here. A veteran Portuguese pianist, academic, and sonic conceptualist, who helped found Telectu, his country’s pioneering experimental musical ensemble, Barreto does more thanContinue reading “Jorge Lima Barreto. Zul Zelub.”

Paul Steenhuisen. Sonic Mosaics. Conversations with Composers.

Sonic Mosaics is a collection of interviews conducted by Paul Steenhuisen with thirty-two contemporary music composers between September 2001 and November 2004. Most of these were originally published in Wholenote Magazine, a monthly Toronto publication covering all aspects of musical activity within the Greater Toronto Area. James Harley: I’m willing to argue that all musicContinue reading “Paul Steenhuisen. Sonic Mosaics. Conversations with Composers.”