The thin, luminous sound of the shô, a Japanese mouth organ, is very particular and very beautiful—presenting a pleasant and impossibly clear glassy tonal surface. Sarah Peebles’ new shô-centred disc Delicate Paths demonstrates a thorough, painterly understanding of this instrument’s saturated astringency in solo, small ensemble, and electroacoustic contexts. There’s a contemplative austerity to theContinue reading “Sarah Peebles. Delicate Paths.”
Genre Archives
Erin Sexton
Erin Sexton is in awe of the universe. By situating her creative practice in relation to the stars and the planets, the Montreal sound artist seeks to engage in conversations with the cosmos. Her work is grounded in the hard materials we know as nature, electricity, and the elements. She employs matter, energy, space, andContinue reading “Erin Sexton”
The Intimacy of Summer Listening
One Friday evening in early May, I jumped on my bicycle and dipsy-doodled to the Music Gallery along Toronto’s pothole-ravaged streets. Musician–producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh was premiering a new work by Jerusalem In My Heart, the evolving performance project he founded in 2005. With a Canadian tour in the early summer, and European dates inContinue reading “The Intimacy of Summer Listening”
Margaret Noble’s Safer Is Better
With an underground club DJ’s flair for performance and a conceptual artist’s commitment to the rigorous investigation of ideas, San Diego interdisciplinary artist Margaret Noble explores in her sound work Frakture the resonance in contemporary society of George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. First presented as a solo electronic–acoustic performance at the experimental musicContinue reading “Margaret Noble’s Safer Is Better”
Music from the New Wilderness
What can sound tell us about a place? Listen to British Columbia, and it might sound something like Music from the New Wilderness, a multimedia performance work that conjures B.C.’s past and evolving present by incorporating historical and current field recordings into new compositions. One piece relies on the fast-changing sounds of a remote coastalContinue reading “Music from the New Wilderness”
Margaret Noble and Caitlin Smith win top marks in Musicworks’ 2013 Electronic Music Composition and “Sonic Geography” Writing contests
TORONTO, February 4, 2014 Musicworks is thrilled to announce the winners of its 2013 contests. San Diego interdisciplinary artist Margaret Noble’s Safer Is Better has won first place in Musicworks’ 2013 Electronic Music Composition contest, and Toronto composer and writer Caitlin Smith (now based in Vienna, Austria) has won first place in its 2013 “Sonic Geography” Writing contestContinue reading “Margaret Noble and Caitlin Smith win top marks in Musicworks’ 2013 Electronic Music Composition and “Sonic Geography” Writing contests”
Elastic Planets
Stepping into this black cube is like entering an intergalactic observation deck. Enveloped by mechanical whirs, buzzes and clicks, a parade of heavenly bodies is presented for inspection. This particular set is kaleidoscopic in colour, malleable in shape, kinetic in nature, frenetic in texture, as if the Painters Eleven had created their own solar system.Continue reading “Elastic Planets”
Giorgio Magnanensi in the Sonic Playground
Admirers of Giorgio Magnanensi—composer, conductor, teacher, and the artistic director of Vancouver New Music Society—tend to be lavish in their praise of him. “Giorgio is singularly the best conductor of modern music, period,” says composer and Capilano University jazz instructor Bradshaw Pack. Vancouver music critic Alex Varty calls him “one of the most outgoing, provocative,Continue reading “Giorgio Magnanensi in the Sonic Playground”
Lisbon, Portugal
FULL TEXT AVAILABLE ONLY IN PRINT EDITION A wolfman wanders Lisbon’s Praça do Comercio, the broad public square facing the Tagus River estuary leading to the sea. It is nearly midnight. He is bearded, shirtless, and his bare feet slap the calçadas, the white stones that pave the city. He eyes the moon, tips hisContinue reading “Lisbon, Portugal”
Christof Migone. Sonic Somatic: Performances of the Unsound Body. / Fingering.
It comes as no surprise that the first word of Sonic Somatic is “Merdre!” Migone has long been a purveyor of bodily functions, putting out recordings of knuckle-cracks (Crackers, 1999), collected bottles of spit (Spit, 1997–1999), and crassly named music projects (Fingering, 2012). However, he is extremely capable of intellectualizing this rudeness into a legitimateContinue reading “Christof Migone. Sonic Somatic: Performances of the Unsound Body. / Fingering.”