Featured Articles

Anoush Moazzeni Weaves a New Narrative In Anoush Moazzeni’s The drops of the rain become one with me, small mechanisms move inside and above an open grand piano. Wooden structures glide across the piano strings of their own accord, hammering and pressing the instrument with mallets, while microphones pick up sounds that are[...] Read more

Featured Article Sara Constant Issue 138

What's Inside Musicworks 130 - Spring 2018 Musicworks turns 40 this year. It’s been quite a journey from the DIY newsprint tabloid published in 1978 to Musicworks 130—our first-ever full-colour issue! Buy the print issue (or print+CD combo) from our shop, or start your subscription today. On the Cover[...] Read more

Featured Article Issue 130

The Musical Colours of Dominique Fils-Aimé On the 2004 live-concert recording Tour de Force, the renowned American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron introduces his 1981 song “Is That Jazz?”: “Go to your record store . . . look at the bottom shelf, you will find a box called miscellaneous. We are miscellaneous. We[...] Read more

Profile Chaka V. Grier Issue 133

Fresh Moves in Music Therapy One hundred and twenty kids, seated on benches and gym mats, are beaming as they beat out a pulsating rhythm on small percussion instruments. Their ecstatic expressions match that of drummer and occupational therapist Leaf Miller [ABOVE PHOTO, LEFT, working with student at Abilities First[...] Read more

Featured Article Lawrence Joseph Issue 123

Los Arroyos in Stereo A springtime hike through the hills of the Sierra Nevada, Andalucía, Spain. I follow my guide, Neftali, scrabbling up switchbacks, sweat from the raw sun cooling in the alpine breeze swishing my neck.   The hike has been filled with talk. Neftali pointing out species[...] Read more

Sonic Geography J. R. McConvey

Cassandra Miller's Unclassifiable Concert Music If you had just commissioned Cassandra Miller to write a new piece of music for you, she might get the ball rolling by chuckling and then asking you, “What do you sing when you’re in the shower? What was your favourite song as a kid? What would you be if you weren’t a musician[...] Read more

Featured Article Richard Simas Issue 113

Meet Our 2014 Contest Winners TORONTO, CANADA     Montreal composer and sound artist James O’Callaghan’s Bodies-Soundings has won first place in Musicworks’ 2014 Electronic Music Composition contest.   “I’m very grateful for [...] Read more

Sound Notes

Buffalo New Music FULL TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY    Buffalo has long held an aura of adventure for me. The first time I visited the city, I was intrigued by the impressive collection of modernist work at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where I returned often in the 1970s, driving[...] Read more

Featured Article Gayle Young Issue 116

Gil Delindro’s instruments of nature Earlier this year, an eight-foot-across circle of solid ice was hung from the ceiling of Winnipeg’s RAW: Gallery of Architecture and Design. Why would anyone in the world’s second-coldest city (after Ulan Bator, Mongolia) want that legendary cold brought indoors? The occasion was[...] Read more

Visions of sound Jonathan Bunce Issue 119

Akio Suzuki This article was originally published in Spring 2013.   The applause following the introduction of Akio Suzuki at his first Toronto performance since 1984 quickly died down to reveal an echo emerging from the concert-hall seats. It was a consistent pattering—not a true[...] Read more

Featured Article Chris Kennedy Issue 115

Frank Denyer Probes the Unconscious In composer Frank Denyer’s dream, he is watching a small monkey that is inexplicably nestled in the flames inside a stove that closely resembles the one in Denyer’s kitchen. The scenario elicits many questions: How did the monkey manage to get in there in the first place, and[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 140

Terri Hron joins the flock The slight, bright-eyed woman comfortably seated in her sunny Montreal studio is known as a musical beast. Hard to imagine. But the epithet is just one of several that contemporary recorder player and composer Terri Hron has earned—not on the expected grounds of virtuosity, but rather[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jason van Eyk Issue 110