Featured Articles
Understory’s Sonic Ecosystem Like many performing musicians, I considered leaving the music business in 2020. The confluence of loss of work due to the pandemic, exhaustion from years of gig-hustling, and the intensity of social, political, and environmental crises left me wanting to help directly (on good days) or hide[...] Read more
Bekah Simms’ Music of Discomfort Bekah Simms likes music that challenges. “I don't want to ever get too comfortable,” she tells me, as we sit down to talk about her work. “I don’t want it ever to be super easy to write a piece, because I feel like then I won’t be a better composer when I[...] Read more
Xylem Records: Building Community for Live Coding The exploratory, collectivist ethos of the U.K. live-coding scene laid the groundwork for Xylem Records, an experimental electronic music netlabel founded by composer and computer scientist Dr. Norah Lorway. Originally from Vancouver, B.C., Lorway moved to the U.K. in 2010 to pursue a Ph.D.[...] Read more
Hans-Joachim Roedelius floats against the current On an unseasonably warm night in October, Toronto’s Monarch Tavern was packed to the rafters for a living legend. German electronic and ambient music pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius—best known as a cofounder of 1970s experimental groups Cluster and Harmonia, renowned for their[...] Read more
The Retro Aesthetic of Le Révélateur THE OCEAN RECEDES INTO THE DISTANCE, awash in thick bands of golden-purple sunset hues. Its surface ripples in loose synchronization with a burbling synthesizer score. Suddenly, a shimmering plane materializes and obliquely bisects the scene; the plane spins and the textures of the two[...] Read more
Scenocosme's Kymapetra FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY The title Kymapetra is a combination of two ancient Greek words, kyma meaning a wave or vibration, and petra, which means stone. Every stone is forged by time—broken, polished, composite, or fossilized—and each has a[...] Read more
An Inexhaustible Source of Wild Music In the 1970s, electronic music studios at the University of Toronto and McGill University sparked exciting ideas in guitar composition. With a focus on the evolution of Canadian works for guitar and electroacoustics, guitarist and composer Amy Brandon tracks key events and works from[...] Read more
Charles Stankievech FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY Some time ago, a friend and I were talking outside a gallery, when suddenly we saw a bright green object sear through the night sky. Assuming it to be a stray firework, we waited for the expected explosion and crackles. We waited and[...] Read more
Ayelet Rose Gottlieb's Open-Heart Tunings There’s a faint but persistent ringing coming from the southwest corner of Ayelet Rose Gottlieb’s Vancouver apartment. We discover one of her young twins picking purposefully at the keys of a brightly coloured toy piano. The other twin comes over, attracted by this large stranger[...] Read more
Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest TORONTO, CANADA, April 20, 2023: Musicworks is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2022 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest. American composer, sound artist, and educator Leah Reid (left) has won first prize with her composition Reverie. “I am[...] Read more
Bekah Simms’ Skinscape and Elliott Lupp’s Hinge Bekah Simms’ Skinscape received an honourable mention from the jury of Musicworks’ 2018 Electronic Music Composition Contest. Skinscape is a work for flute and fixed media inspired by the transformation of something intimately familiar into something processed[...] Read more
Artificiel’s "Three Pieces With Titles" “I had never seen such new things before. I didn’t even know what a new object could be,” the poet and art critic André Salmon wrote, after visiting the studio of Pablo Picasso in the spring of 1914. Of particular interest to Salmon was Guitar, a wall-mounted 3-D[...] Read more
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