Featured Articles

Charlemagne Palestine Pulls Out the Stops Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there. What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more. —Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation”  [...] Read more

Featured Article Julian Cowley Issue 117

Anthony Pateras: Sonic Phenomena in Real Time The music of Anthony Pateras covers vast expanses of composition and improvisation, of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, and combinations of these. He is also a virtuosic pianist. Between 2012 and 2019 he created Immediata, an ambitious series of fifteen albums, self-released[...] Read more

Featured Article René van Peer Issue 136

Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde GONG PUNKS AND CULTURE BOMBS Traditional Filipino kulintang, a style of orchestral music played on a set of brass gongs, is a mesmerizing and exhilarating mixture of the ancient and the avant-garde. This authentic indigenous music has been played in the southern Philippines for centuries[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

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

MUSICWORKS UNVEILS 2016 CONTEST WINNERS MUSICWORKS UNVEILS 2016 CONTEST WINNERS   Vancouver musician Craig Aalders and B.C. poet Tom Wayman win top marks in Musicworks’ 2016 Electronic Music Composition and Sonic Geography Writing Contests   For the first time in Musicworks contest[...] Read more

Sound Notes

Carmen Vanderveken is full of surprises Quebec-born composer Carmen Vanderveken was commissioned by the Dutch annual festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek to write a piece for a quartet featuring Dutch bass clarinetist Fie Schouten.   An earlier piece sheds light on the shape and sound of the music Carmen Vanderveken is[...] Read more

Sound Notes René van Peer Issue 131

Samuel Andreyev’s Sonic Organisms There’s a strange duality about the music of Strasbourg-based Canadian composer Samuel Andreyev.             His official bio states that his compositional process is “marked by a rigorous perfectionism,”[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 133

The Apperceptive Musical Adventures of Taylor Brook Canadian composer Taylor Brook—whose music can strike an unusual balance between challenge and charm, sometimes with an astonishing delicacy—had been based since 2011 in New York City, where he was first a doctoral student and then a lecturer at Columbia University, all the while[...] Read more

Profile Kurt Gottschalk Issue 140

Shift Your Frequency! Ready to submit to our twelfth annual Electronic Music Composition Contest?   Read the rules below and ENTER here.   Please share this announcement with your friends, audiences, and communities.   Our annual juried contest spotlights new[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

Barry Truax With a friendly disposition and unassuming personality, Barry Truax would hardly be thought of as a trailblazing radical. But this soft-spoken composer and teacher is a groundbreaking Canadian icon. Not only did Truax pioneer granular synthesis with the PODX computer music system, he is viewed[...] Read more

Featured Article Jerry Pergolesi Issue 108

Alanna Stuart Embraces the Bombast Multidimensional artist and music producer Alanna Stuart is constantly evolving. She regards categories not as borders but as things to be transcended. In her acclaimed duo Bonjay, with Ian “Pho” Swain, as well as her collaborative projects and her solo songwriting, she is[...] Read more

Featured Article Gloria Blizzard Issue 141

Scrap Arts Music: Dr. Seuss meets steampunk Scrap Arts Music is a joyous collision of creativity, experimental sound, and energetic movement, with percussion pieces performed on reborn hunks of junk. It’s challenging to describe and impossible to ignore.   Since 1998, when he founded Scrap Arts Music in[...] Read more

Sound Bite Linda Barnard Issue 139