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Sound Symposium XX

The Newfoundland and Labrador Sound Symposium returned in full form this year, delivering nine jam-packed days of events for its twentieth anniversary. There was a special energy to this year’s festival, maybe because collaboration was something we had taken for granted pre-pandemic. In the 2022 program notes, associate artistic director Benton Roark wrote of theContinue reading “Sound Symposium XX”

Listening Conditions

We tend to think of an emergency as something sudden—the kind of jarring, life-and-death situation that leaps out at us with abrupt urgency. And when we think about what an emergency sounds like, that assumption is often fresh in our minds: sirens, clatter—noises sharp and loud that aggressively hold our attention. But what happens whenContinue reading “Listening Conditions”

Pleasure Calls, by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh

Pleasure Calls is a collaborative, interdisciplinary installation and performance by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh that activates revolutionary ways of loving one another. The installation is the culmination of a week-long residency in early March of 2019 at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, an artist-run centre for noncommercial work located in the historic HalifaxContinue reading “Pleasure Calls, by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh”

2019 Push International Performing Arts Festival.

“Art should be understood, and enjoyed, as a world that hasn’t been infected by commercialism. And within that, it should serve as a reminder that we are creatures who have the ability to access our souls.”                                                                                                                        —Helmut Lachenmann The Vancouver Push Festival’s fifteenth season featured three inspiring performances of sound art from Japan, overContinue reading “2019 Push International Performing Arts Festival.”

wnoondwaamin | we hear them

Inspired by the idea that sound travels and has purpose beyond the human ear, wnoondwaamin | we hear them is about the materiality of sound, the social implications of the transmission and reception of sound, and the politics of being or not being heard. Artists Autumn Chacon, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Melissa General, and Suzanne MorrissetteContinue reading “wnoondwaamin | we hear them”

Sound Symposium XIX.

The nineteenth iteration of the biennial Sound Symposium was distinguished by its colloquium, new awards, and of course, world premieres of risk-taking works. The event opened with the Indigenous Improvisation Colloquium: Freedom and Responsibility; and heritage ceremony and cultural ontology soon became the themes that were threaded throughout the ten days of Symposium performances. Raven Chacon, aContinue reading “Sound Symposium XIX.”

Tomoko Sauvage’s Waterbowls

Delicate clusters of tones sound and resonate. An orchestration of chimes and drips, they mix to form a potent brew of sullen melodies and serene reverberation. Adrift, immersed, submerged—there are many metaphors one might use to describe a close listening of Clepsydra, the opening track on Tomoko Sauvage’s latest album, Musique Hydromantique, and most ofContinue reading “Tomoko Sauvage’s Waterbowls”

Les Transformables (V).

The opening night of the sound-art exhibition Les Transformables (V) featured two live performances. Adorned with a sound-generating mask, Diana Burgoyne was a constant, awesome presence as she marched mechanically throughout the space. Alexandre St-Onge, meanwhile, was in constant motion back and forth into the storeroom of the art centre, creating an exciting barrage ofContinue reading “Les Transformables (V).”