Established in 1959, the University of Toronto Electronic Music Studio (UTEMS) was the second university studio in North America, preceded only by the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, founded one year earlier. UTEMS quickly became a hub for internationally recognized composers and composers-in-training, who would play a significant role in defining the electronic music landscape throughout the years that followed. Despite the prestige that UTEMS garnered, the university had lost interest in the studio in recent decades. The countless historical instruments that lined its walls were given away, and many music students were no longer even aware that there was a studio hidden away in the university’s sub-basement. However, of late, UTEMS has seen a surge in activity, accelerated since 2019 when Eliot Britton began directing the studio, and paralleled by a growing interest in the legacy of the studio and the artists associated with it.
The Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE) was founded in 1972 by David Jaeger, Larry Lake, Jim Montgomery, and David Grimes, who all met at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. Though they didn’t all arrive at the university interested in electronic music, they quickly discovered UTEMS and the inspired work being carried out within those windowless walls. They swiftly established what was to become the longest continuously active live electronic group in the world, which has continued to perform, record, and tour up to the present day. Spanning the history, techniques, influences, and impact of the CEE, An Orchestra at My Fingertips is Alexa Woloshyn’s rigorous study of these electronic music pioneers. Moreover, the narrative extends beyond the ensemble’s artistic journey. It offers a compelling look at the musical milieu in Canada that set the stage for the emergence and continued sustainability of the CEE.
Woloshyn’s interest in the group came about through happenstance when, in the first year of her PhD studies at the University of Toronto, she found herself roommates with the daughter of founding CEE member David Jaeger. Jaeger has enjoyed a long and multifaceted career as a composer and radio producer, so it was some time before Woloshyn learned of his decades of work with the CEE. As Woloshyn’s doctoral research progressed, she “became interested in the sonic, performative, and perceptual aspects of live electronic music that were distinct from studio-based electronic work. The CEE offered an obvious opportunity to study electronic music making in the context of real-time collective creativity.”
The timing of the book could not have been better. With the notable exception of founding member Larry Lake, who passed in 2013, the key figures in the CEE’s history are still alive and made themselves available to the author. This allowed Woloshyn to embed rich storytelling and conversations throughout the book. Through detailed research and interviews, she was able to establish the correct year the group began, which had previously been noted as one year earlier, in 1971. Close access to the CEE members also facilitated the precise details about the ensemble’s equipment that appear throughout the chapters. While interested readers are treated to valuable insights into the CEE’s gear and their continuously developing approach to using it, Woloshyn doesn’t simply focus on the technical aspects of the ensemble’s practice but also investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the CEE’s music-making.
Worthy of particular praise is Woloshyn’s evaluation of the CEE’s role in reflecting the systemic whiteness and patriarchy in Canada’s broader new music community while also highlighting the work of the ensemble and its individual members to counter inequalities. Utilizing the CEE as a lens to critique the institutions whose support has sustained the ensemble, such as university music programs, funding bodies, and presenting organizations, Woloshyn details the myriad ways these institutions reinforce gender and racial inequalities and situates the ensemble as a site of privilege within the Canadian new music scene.
An Orchestra at My Fingertips encapsulates the CEE’s sonic journey with meticulous detail, offering readers an immersive and enlightening experience. Anchored in a chronological exploration of the CEE’s evolution as told by its members, it offers the reader an engrossing analysis concerning the ensemble’s approach to live performance, improvisation, and collaboration, while also considering the listener’s perspective in conversations around virtuosity, listening spaces, and community. Woloshyn’s work serves not only as a definitive history of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble but also accomplishes a great deal toward filling in the gaps that currently exist in the documentation of electronic music in Canada.
Patrick O’Reilly is a composer, artist, and a community-driven fixture in the Toronto creative
music scene.