Featured Articles

Music from the New Wilderness What can sound tell us about a place? Listen to British Columbia, and it might sound something like Music from the New Wilderness, a multimedia performance work that conjures B.C.’s past and evolving present by incorporating historical and current field recordings into new compositions[...] Read more

In the Works Nancy Lanthier Issue 118

Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra The year 2017 is being widely celebrated as the centenary of jazz, marked by the hundredth anniversary of the music’s first recordings, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One Step.” Jazz began as a spontaneous,[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 127

Tim Olive’s Flexible Aesthetic It’s a typically humming Saturday night at the Tranzac Club. Different events are in progress in each of the Toronto venue’s three rooms. The Tiki Room (the smallest and most living-room-like of the three) is hosting a special edition of the Audiopollination series, which is[...] Read more

Profile Joe Strutt Issue 135

Arkora’s Cloud Chamber Arkora, a Toronto-based electric, vocal, chamber consort, includes an eight-voice choir and an accompanying ensemble, with irresistible composer bait—the Lumiphone. A giant, three-octave, thirty-one-tone, equal-tempered (31-TET) glass marimba, the Lumiphone was designed and constructed[...] Read more

Visions of sound Tova Kardonne Issue 137

Daniel Blinkhorn's frostbYte—wildflower [ONLINE EXCLUSIVE] Daniel Blinkhorn is an Australian composer and sound and new-media artist currently residing in Sydney. He has worked in a variety of creative, academic, research, and teaching contexts. An ardent location field recordist, he has embarked on many recording expeditions; his sonic travels[...] Read more

Sound Notes

Backward Music What function do record labels fulfill in an era of streaming and algorithmic music discovery? What do labels offer artists and listeners when the means of music access and distribution are changing at a rapid clip?   Kyle Cunjak, who is a musician and the owner-operator of[...] Read more

Label Profile Brennan McCracken Issue 141

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

The Tao of Gayle Last year in mid October, while scrolling down Facebook, I came across a densely expressive and evocatively written post from Montreal singer Sarah Albu, who was “surfacing momentarily,” she wrote, from a recording project “revisiting, revising, and recording” the[...] Read more

Editorial Jennie Punter Issue 142

Paris, France On June 21, 1982, the French Ministry of Culture introduced the first Fête de la Musique (meaning celebration/feast of music, and a homophone of Faites-musique—make music), a large street party where musicians reignite ancient pagan solstice rituals in spontaneous concerts[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Paul Steenhuisen Issue 113

Winners of Musicworks' 2019 Electronic Music Composition Contest Announced . . . at Last! After a month delay due to challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic, Musicworks is thrilled to announce the winners of its 2019 Electronic Music Composition Contest. We thank composer entrants for their patience.   Brazilian composer Alex Buck, who is currently based[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

Julie Andreyev and Simon Lysander Overstall’s Biophilia November, some might say, is not the ideal time to visit the wild West Coast. The days are short, the leaves are down. In any normal year, monsoon season will have kicked in, producing alternating bands of drizzle and downpour, both equally grey and almost equally wet. But when the[...] Read more

Visions of sound Alexander Varty Issue 129

Maria de Alvear, Rebel By Nature Contradiction is a huge theme in contemporary experimental music. Today’s most potent works situate the listener at hitherto unimaginable thresholds between seemingly irreconcilable points. While many artists use paradoxical scenarios as compositional devices, Spanish-German composer[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 131