Featured Articles

Liann J. Kang’s L’amour pur Composer and vocalist Liann J. Kang’s composition L’amour pur won the Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronics Music / Prix Marcelle Deschênes pour la Musique Électronique in the 2025 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition (EMC) Contest. This donor-supported[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

The Spatial Sonic Designs of Juro Kim Feliz Genres can be compared to landscapes: they are places where people gawk like tourists, set up camp on Spotify playlists, and explore musical structures. Juro Kim Feliz sat down with me in November 2021 to talk about the challenges of creating in both the Filipino and the Canadian[...] Read more

Sound Bite Rachel Evangeline Chiong Issue 141

Seth A Smith’s Constant Interruption “I’ve always been a fan of silence. So, when I lost the ability to, you know, experience silence, I started looking at noise as a form of quiet in times when I needed some mental clarity,” reflects multidisciplinary artist Seth A Smith via email. Since 2019, he’s been[...] Read more

Sound Bite Andrew Patterson Issue 144

Peggy Lee and the Joy of Unknowable Notes Her cello in a white case strapped to her small back, Peggy Lee had walked several unfamiliar blocks in her hometown Vancouver, since the bus dropped her at the edge of a genteel oceanside neighbourhood. She was looking for the Aberthau Mansion, where she would perform later that evening.[...] Read more

Featured Article Nancy Lanthier Issue 131

FET.NAT’s Post-Punk Palimpsests Around twenty years ago, a post-punk revival was supposedly upon us. Reissue compilations proliferated alongside a crop of new artists who audibly drew from the genre’s heyday. Where punk-rock wedded a rock ethos with rebellious politics (or sometimes just rebellious posturing), post-punk[...] Read more

Profile Nick Storring Issue 136

Urbanvessel and Juliet Palmer Suit-tail-clad Juliet Palmer sits at the top of a stepladder in the middle of the diamond-shaped ring. Tonight, she’s not wearing her Canadian composer hat. Tonight, she’s a sports announcer.   “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Voice-Box![...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 108

What's Inside Musicworks 145 ON THE COVER: SIMONE SCHMIDT Simone Schmidt is a visionary artist who consistently finds new possibilities for the country song form. In the Toronto psychedelic country bands One Hundred Dollars and The Highest Order and as Fiver, Schmidt has created some of the most original[...] Read more

Featured Article Issue 145

Cris Derksen enhances her sonic adventure Some musicians fall in love with an instrument at a very young age and never look back; others experiment with many different ones before they find the ideal match for their talents. Cris Derksen is one of the latter. As a child, she first wanted to play flute, then saxophone, then double[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 121

Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society THERE'S AN ENGAGING CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN LOOK to Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, something that immediately conveys a certain spontaneity, yet disguises—slightly—the complexity of the music. During the band’s North American tour in May 2015, which[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 123

Baroque to the Future Few musical relationships are as difficult to parse as those between musicians and the instruments they play. It’s a type of interaction that feels like it should be simple—something transactional, between human subject and sounding object—but in practice, objects,[...] Read more

Featured Article Sara Constant Issue 135

Plumes Deconstructs Grimes Many Visions: Plumes Deconstructs the Music of Grimes is a genre-spanning music collaboration that seeks to explore and ultimately blur the lines between classical and pop. Thirteen contemporary classical composers have been asked to reimagine and rework the thirteen tracks on Grimes’[...] Read more

In the Works Mary Dickie Issue 126

Luke Nickel Transmits a Living Score Luke Nickel has written me a piece.   No, wait.   That’s not quite right.   Luke Nickel has left me a series of sometimes vague, sometimes specific instructions via audio recordings of his voice, which I am only allowed to listen to[...] Read more

Featured Article Heather Roche Issue 132