Tosca Terán Has a Brand New Spawn Bag The lobby is cavernous and cool compared to the heat under the blazing mid-afternoon sun outside. It’s mid July, and I’m visiting Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) on a decidedly peculiar mission: to listen to music made by fungus. As part of the seventh edition[...] Read more

Featured Article Greg J. Smith Issue 135

Ian Battenfield Headley “Working with John Chowning at MusicAcoustica in Beijing was like touching history,” confesses a reverent Ian Battenfield Headley during our Skype call. “I had this image of him being this serious composer who doesn't take time to speak to underlings, but he’s[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jesse Ship Issue 112

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

Sarah Davachi flies into psychoacoustic space One could say that Sarah Davachi’s drone-based music is all about meditative states, or texture, or duration. But more than anything else, it’s about balance—between the theoretical and the practical, the material and the cerebral, the antique and the avant-garde, the[...] Read more

Sound Bite Alexander Varty Issue 122

Mariana Vieira’s The Unexpected Encounter with Diversity Electronic music has the potential to free composers and sounds from physical and cultural constraints while also bringing those elements closer together. Composer Mariana Vieira has been exploring ideas in this creative space since her undergraduate studies in composition at Escola Superior[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jennie Punter Issue 143

Nadah El Shazly’s Music from Invented Places You wouldn’t think ’80s punk rock, traditional vocal jazz, electronica, early-twentieth-century Egyptian pop, Ornette Coleman free jazz, and contemporary experimental music could have much in common or mix well with each other in a song. But they all live together quite amicably[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 134

Christopher Mayo In 2005, Christopher Mayo had a summer that unexpectedly changed his approach to composing. The Toronto-born composer spent three weeks at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Institute in North Adams, Massachusetts, where he came into contact with composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe[...] Read more

Featured Article Julian Cowley Issue 110

Allison Cameron’s Rarefied Soundworld "I NEVER THOUGHT I WAS DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENT THAN ANYBODY ELSE—I just thought, I’m doing what anybody else would write,” states Allison Cameron, matter-of-factly. Anyone familiar with her music—or her characteristic wry humour—could read this particular[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 122

Sonic City We presume hush because business has yet to come. People stand, the movement of feet inaudible Over the creeping perception of noise An indistinguishable hum pervading the acoustic Of suitcases’ wheels Clitter-clattering across cobbled stones Some[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Imogene Newland Issue 124

The Expanding Universe of Yamantaka // Sonic Titan I HAD BEEN GRIPING TO ALASKA B, cofounder of the creative ensemble YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, that Bloordale didn’t have any decent pizza. I’d recently transplanted myself to the Toronto neighbourhood, one of her stomping grounds, and found it discomfiting to not know where to[...] Read more

Featured Article Zack Kotzer Issue 123

Olivia Block FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY     The sound of a clarinet passage emerges from a quiet section and is punctuated by a series of minute electronic tones. Accompanying the clarinet is a recording of the wind, but the sound is more than just that of a rush of wind; it is[...] Read more

Featured Article Chris Kennedy Issue 112