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”
Genre Archives
Winter 2017
Suoni per il Popolo Festival: 17th Edition.
With over 100 events across diverse musical categories, the Suoni per il Popolo Festival encompasses several thriving thematic series. While it is theoretically possible for fans of free improvisation, contemporary classical, noise, or alt-rock to attend a concert almost every evening and remain within their preferred genre, the quality Canadian and international performers entice mostContinue reading “Suoni per il Popolo Festival: 17th Edition.”
OBEY Convention X.
“In New York, there would be twelve people here,” venerable Halifax percussionist and mentor Jerry Granelli declares. “Here we are in Halifax, and tons of people are coming out to hear weird music!” OBEY is weird. Its programming is marked by an aesthetic of eclecticism that reflects the diversity of contemporary expressive music. (“Experimental” andContinue reading “OBEY Convention X.”
Festival de International Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 33rd Edition.
Festival de International Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) has defined itself by diversity, crossing genres to present fresh, unexpected music, whether intimate or epic, and maintaining a tradition that touches on classical, pop, and jazz. The festival is a major event, mounting twenty-one performances in four days, with concerts starting as early as one p.m.Continue reading “Festival de International Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 33rd Edition.”
Tate Carson’s Before, I wandered as a diversion
Tate Carson is a composer and upright bassist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Before, I wandered as a diversion (2016), for clarinet and live electronics, won second prize in Musicworks’ 2016 electronic music composition contest. Listen to the full piece, streaming on this page. Here’s what Carson has to say about this beautiful composition: “This pieceContinue reading “Tate Carson’s Before, I wandered as a diversion”
Cerro Bellavista Rooftop, Valparaíso
When rain falls, it falls into the open-air stairwell unopposed, rattling metal banisters and pattering on tile. Human sounds congeal below you like wet papier-mâché: gentle voices ricocheting around the stucco walls; kids’ laughter bubbling out of an open window; loose sandals slapping themselves silly on the stairs. A flute that’s been carving filigree inContinue reading “Cerro Bellavista Rooftop, Valparaíso”
Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde
GONG PUNKS AND CULTURE BOMBS Traditional Filipino kulintang, a style of orchestral music played on a set of brass gongs, is a mesmerizing and exhilarating mixture of the ancient and the avant-garde. This authentic indigenous music has been played in the southern Philippines for centuries, and it has endured despite the many waves of culturalContinue reading “Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde”
GONGS ARE US
My childhood memories of gongs in action are mostly associated with entertainment spectacles: snooze-interrupting crashes at symphony matinees, the bare-chested Gongman swinging a mallet in the Rank Organisation’s film logo, a minor celebrity banishing a contestant on The Gong Show. But during those years—thanks to my globetrotting grandparents, and the photos they took and LPsContinue reading “GONGS ARE US”