Fuhong Shi Closes the Distance If Canada has any meaning to most Chinese, it is likely through a widely read essay written by the late Chairman Mao in praise of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Montreal doctor who ministered to Mao’s suffering soldiers during the Long March of the late 1930s.   Musically,[...] Read more

Sound Bite William Littler Issue 117

A Few More Words About Times Square Max Neuhaus’ permanent sound installation, Times Square (1977–1992; 2002–present), has become a place that I visit every time I find myself in New York City. There is something about revisiting it, spending some time standing on the pedestrian traffic island between Forty-[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Sean Peuquet Issue 114

Kamancello explores a new duo dimension “Kamanche means little bow in Kurdish and Farsi,” says Shahriyar Jamshidi, the kamanche player in Kamancello, his Toronto-based duo with cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne. The pair marry rich lyricism and microtonal ornamentation, influenced by Iranian, classical, and metal musics[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 129

June Young (Will) Kim's "Black, Emerald" June Young (Will) Kim won second place in Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest for Black, Emerald, the third piece in his series of works for amplified canvas. A commission by München Landeshauptstadt Musikstipendium, Kim completed the piece in September 2020 and[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

Jairus Sharif and the Expression of Truth Jairus Sharif believes in the transformative power of music. On his debut album, Water & Tools, the thirty-three-year-old multi-instrumentalist constructs dense, impassioned improvisations that fuse the murky beatscapes of underground hip-hop with the scorching intensity of free jazz.[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jesse Locke Issue 144

Pheeroan akLaff Pheeroan akLaff believes in drums first, rather than last. He can drive an ensemble forward with the machine-gun attack of his snare and the rolling thunder of his bass and toms, compounding and enriching the music with dense polyrhythms, or using the metallic shimmer of his cymbals to surmount[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 114

Rocío Cano Valiño’s Okno wins first place in Musicworks' 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest After following the enigmatic whooshes, dangling creaks, and scene-stealing clunks around the evocative sonic space of Okno, I was not surprised to learn that its composer, Rocío Cano Valiño, has a background in interior design—a talent she employs in the various[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jennie Punter Issue 140

Quatuor Bozzini Quatuor Bozzini is poetry, sweat, talent, idealism, determination, love, survival, fate, and a wonderful wild dance with the spirits. For fifteen years, the Montreal ensemble has steadfastly explored the notion of what contemporary music means today. The players are irrepressible creators[...] Read more

Profile Richard Simas Issue 118

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

Video Game Music: New Directions in Play       The first time I played PaRappa the Rapper was a struggle. I was with my parents at a novelty deli where each table was outfitted with a television and a PlayStation video-game console. I didn’t have one at home, but a paper-thin, hip-hop cartoon[...] Read more

Featured Article Zack Kotzer Issue 120

Rings of Beijing I sit staring at the laptop screen in my Beijing hotel room. Writers’ block. Silently trying to formulate words. No sounds enter my consciousness. Only the insistent hum of the laptop. Until my listening body is dropped into a pool of sound. Concentric sonic circles ripple out from the[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Millie Chen Issue 110