Cris Derksen enhances her sonic adventure Some musicians fall in love with an instrument at a very young age and never look back; others experiment with many different ones before they find the ideal match for their talents. Cris Derksen is one of the latter. As a child, she first wanted to play flute, then saxophone, then double[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 121

Spool: Music in the Margins CERTAIN LABELS are very much the product of a particular vision and exude cohesion of an almost iconic order—one that even seems to magically weather shifts in taste and approach. ECM’s elegant black and white photography, sans serif typeset, and crisp, reverberant sonic profile[...] Read more

Sound Notes Nick Storring Issue 129

Andrew Staniland accelerates toward the next idea IN 2013, NASA CONFIRMED THAT the  Voyager 1 probe had become the first manmade object to cross the heliopause, leaving the bounds of our solar system and entering interstellar space. In addition to its scientific instruments, Voyager 1 was famously carrying a Golden Record entitled[...] Read more

Profile Jonathan Bunce 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

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

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

Havana, Cuba What does a city sound like whose history spans periods of colonial opulence, Mafia casino decadence, and a dying communist revolution? The habanera, the salsa, and reggaeton. Havana’s storied past has produced a musical culture as varied and deep as the sociopolitical eras that it has[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Richard Simas Issue 112

Linda Bouchard's Murderous Little World FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   Couple Linda Bouchard’s vision and sound with poet Anne Carson’s texts, engage the talents of a host of collaborators, including extraordinary musicians Guy Few, Joseph Petric, and Eric Vaillancourt, give it all several[...] Read more

In the Works Richard Simas Issue 114

Mark Molnar’s alternative trajectories Harrowingly unbridled and unpredictable, yet blatantly meticulous in their construction, Mark Molnar’s compositions frequently emerge as rugged tangles of bowed-string sonorities. Even though their gestural expressivity might suggest that they could’ve been conceived in myriad[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 118