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

Jay Crocker Navigates the Music of Obstacles "THEY WERE EXPECTING TO HAVE A swinging kind of jazz party, but we were doing nothing of the sort that night.” Percussionist Chris Dadge is recalling a particularly memorable gig at the Beat Niq Jazz & Social Club—a trad jazz club in downtown Calgary—during[...] Read more

Featured Article Andrew Patterson Issue 122

Emilie LeBel’s Field Notes For many composers, a work in progress comes with strings attached—no pun intended. There are arts councils and concert presenters to satisfy, musicians to liaise with, premiere dates that draw ever closer. Deadlines, of course, can get the juices flowing, and creative constraints ([...] Read more

In the Works Jennie Punter Issue 120

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

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

Featured Article Amy Brandon Issue 137

The Evolution of The Muted Note The Muted Note is a marriage of music, dance, and poetry—specifically, the poetry of the late Canadian writer P. K. Page. Her work was the unexpected catalyst for the first creative collaboration between Scott Thomson and Susanna Hood, both of whom were long-time linchpins of Toronto[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 120

Cold Wave A sad-looking polar bear drifts on a shrinking ice sheet in a vast, deep-blue sea under a bright, blue sky. Scenes like this have long been used to illustrate climate change, and they are more than symbolic. Polar regions are warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world. The[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 139

Micachu & The Shapes FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY    Growing up on the outskirts of London, kids are drawn to the city by any number of attractions, from shops to sport matches, from galleries to gangsta posing. For Mica Levi, it was classical-music concerts. Growing up in an intensely[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 114

A message from the Musicworks Board of Directors The Board of Directors of Musicworks acknowledges that the new and experimental music scenes covered in the magazine are built on a foundation of systemic racism, and that through our content we have facilitated and upheld that system. Musicworks is a long-standing publication dedicated to[...] Read more

Sound Notes The Musicworks Board of Directors Issue 137

DEBBY FRIDAY’S ENERGY POTENTIAL Across the first few minutes of Bare Bones, the short-film debut by Vancouver artist Debby Friday, a growing, skittering sound unsettles an otherwise pastoral scene. In the film, Friday, a splash of presence in a white tulle dress, kneels riverside amid a verdant landscape. This moment might[...] Read more

Featured Article Brennan McCracken Issue 138

Lina Allemano is Splitting Time If Toronto’s avant-jazz and free-improv community has a living room, it’s the Southern Cross Lounge, the front room of the Tranzac Club—a cluttered bandstand with an ancient upright, a friendly bar in the back corner, a familiar audience—where drummer Nick Fraser[...] Read more

Profile Stuart Broomer Issue 132