wnoondwaamin | we hear them Inspired by the idea that sound travels and has purpose beyond the human ear, wnoondwaamin | we hear them is about the materiality of sound, the social implications of the transmission and reception of sound, and the politics of being or not being heard. Artists Autumn Chacon, Jeneen Frei[...] Read more

Visions of sound Lisa Myers Issue 131

Meet the Winners of the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest TORONTO, CANADA, April 22, 2024:   San Francisco-based composer Ningxin Zhang has won first prize for her composition Kagemusha: for Pipa and Electronics.   “I am deeply honoured to have received the first prize in the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music[...] Read more

Featured Article

Tanya Tagaq Grabs The World By The Throat Watching Tanya Tagaq perform is more than just an auditory and visual experience: it’s physical. As the Nunavut-born, Manitoba-based throat singer moves around a stage, she unleashes something fierce and powerful that comes from deep within her body, yet seems positively unearthly. She[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 118

Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut Mount Thor   Sometimes the Arctic sun never goes down, never rises. Today though, in the middle of the Akshayuk Pass, I wake up just before the sunrays reach the thin layer of ice on my tent. It is early, dark, and cold. The wind is tirelessly beating against everything that[...] Read more

Sound Notes Bea Labikova Issue 135

Tenzier: History Outside the Margins “There’s a group of students who used a term I really liked: countermemory,” Tenzier founder Eric Fillion tells me over Skype from Montreal. “I almost like that better than counterculture.” He’s talking about Tenzier, the avant-garde label which has put[...] Read more

Sound Bite Kristel Jax Issue 124

Victoria Composers Cultivate a Place to Listen Why has a vibrant community of emerging composers chosen British Columbia’s cozy, scenic capital over more bustling contemporary-music hubs? THERE'S A DEEP HUSH in the church where I am sitting and nervously listening to an especially slow and fragile performance of[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 129

The Unsung Songbooks of Dave Burrell TO SAY THAT PIANIST, COMPOSER, AND—AT THIS POINT—JAZZ ELDER DAVE BURRELL WAS NOT made for these times is a bit of a shortsighted claim. Burrell is a jazz classicist preceded by a reputation for free improvisation. He was present for the fabled Parisian Summer of 1969, when[...] Read more

Sound Notes Kurt Gottschalk Issue 122

The Ring Road, Iceland FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   It’s not often in a lifetime that you get to circumnavigate an entire country. And it’s not often that you come across an entire country that’s a small island whose most remarkable work of public infrastructure is a two-[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Jonathan Bunce Issue 115

Victor Gama builds a brave new soundworld Wherever Victor Gama plays, you can be sure clusters of people will be jostling to percuss the upturned metal bowls of his tipaw (so called because the surface of the instrument looks like the pads of a tiger paw), to bow the eight metal strings of the tahra, or simply to wander the length[...] Read more

Featured Article Louise Gray Issue 118

What's Inside Musicworks 152? ON THE COVER Lisa Conway Lisa Conway's music bridges sound installation, improvisation, experimental composition, and song. In conversation with Sara Constant, Conway traces her creative journey across the genre and disciplinary lines of Canada's experimental music scene. She studied[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF Issue 152

Paul Walde Subverts Nature as Culture The column of light is beamed directly into the sky. As if intended to summon some celestial visitor, the beam of photons is emitted from a circle of glowing discs, placed in the most unassuming place imaginable—a farmer’s field (don’t ET’s always land there?). This,[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 109