Christine Duncan Unleashes the Elements IT ALL CAME BACK SO FAST: the Whip, the Punch, the Elements. All those gestures unlocked my voice and made it respond exactly as it was supposed to—even after a five-year absence.   Late last year, I embedded myself with the Element Choir, the world’s leading[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 124

Joëlle Léandre For Joëlle Léandre it all begins and ends with the double bass. After playing the often unwieldy bull fiddle from the age of nine and carefully studying its intricacies, she creates with it sounds so personal that defining them as free music, new music. or anything else, is[...] Read more

Profile Ken Waxman Issue 105

Joseph Shabason’s patient unravelling When we listen to music, are we meant to enter the hearts and minds of those who’ve created it? Or is listening more of an interior experience—of turning inwards and creating space to experience our own feelings? For Joseph Shabason, the answer to both questions is yes.[...] Read more

Sound Bite Brennan McCracken Issue 132

Philip Glass Most people get presents or have parties thrown for them on special occasions. Philip Glass, however, was in more of a giving mood as he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday at the end of January. The candles on his cake marked the start of a remarkable year that has the American composer[...] Read more

Featured Article John Terauds Issue 112

Aaron Oppenheim’s October 12, 2014 (excerpt) October 12, 2014 (excerpt) is a recording of a live performance held in New York City on October 12, 2014 as part of ABC No Rio’s COMA Series, which presents experimental and improvised music. “This piece uses samples of voice for all of its material, manipulated in real time[...] Read more

Sound Bite

The Spatial Sonic Designs of Juro Kim Feliz Genres can be compared to landscapes: they are places where people gawk like tourists, set up camp on Spotify playlists, and explore musical structures. Juro Kim Feliz sat down with me in November 2021 to talk about the challenges of creating in both the Filipino and the Canadian[...] Read more

Sound Bite Rachel Evangeline Chiong Issue 141

What's Inside Musicworks 143? Settle into an autumnal groove with our Fall 2022 issue and direct your curious ears toward new aesthetic coordinates. ORDER YOUR PHYSICAL COPY OF MUSICWORKS 143 FROM OUR SHOP. or SUPPORT MUSICWORKS, A REGISTERED NON-PROFIT, WITH AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION.   ON[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF Issue 143

The Idiosyncratic Musicality of Marc Sabat The emergence of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique in the early 1920s not only presented an altogether new conception of pitch in music, it also prompted a dramatic and widespread shift in the fundamental thinking surrounding Western concert music. Its latent quasiscientific[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 125

Glenn Buhr FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   Definitions of personal style don’t get any clearer with life experience. This becomes obvious during my interview with Canadian composer and pianist Glenn Buhr. It also becomes clear however, that personal style[...] Read more

In the Works Gloria Lipski Issue 115

Adam Basanta “I’ve always been interested in perception and apperception,” writes Montreal-based composer Adam Basanta in a recent e-mail correspondence. “This has led me, as a musician and composer, to centre my work on listening as a perceptual and psychological experience.[...] Read more

Sound Bite Nick Storring Issue 111