Malcolm Cecil and the History of TONTO THE FOLLOWING STORY WAS PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE SUMMER / FALL 2017 FEATURE "INSIDE THE NATIONAL MUSIC CENTRE."  Malcolm Cecil’s interest in electronics began at age nine, when he became the youngest member of a ham radio club in England. His mother was an accomplished[...] Read more

Featured Article Jesse Locke Issue 128

Victoria Composers Cultivate a Place to Listen Why has a vibrant community of emerging composers chosen British Columbia’s cozy, scenic capital over more bustling contemporary-music hubs? THERE'S A DEEP HUSH in the church where I am sitting and nervously listening to an especially slow and fragile performance of[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 129

Bagpipes Blew My Mind My partner Emily and I moved to Glasgow from Toronto a year ago. The first TV shows we saw included a pipe-band championship and a shepherding competition. Both were brilliant to listen to. We thought that’s what TV was going to be here. It isn’t. And aside from the guys on[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Josh Thorpe Issue 132

Sarah Neufeld: Solo Violin, Guerrilla-Style “I COULDN'T EVEN PLAY A NOTE. If you even breathe, your breath becomes this crazy, feathery freight train of echo.”   Sarah Neufeld recalls her first visit to Devil’s Mountain with a mixture of fear and delight. The site of an abandoned array of[...] Read more

Profile Jonathan Bunce Issue 117

Meet the Winners of the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest TORONTO, CANADA, April 22, 2024:   San Francisco-based composer Ningxin Zhang has won first prize for her composition Kagemusha: for Pipa and Electronics.   “I am deeply honoured to have received the first prize in the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music[...] Read more

Featured Article

Buffalo New Music FULL TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY    Buffalo has long held an aura of adventure for me. The first time I visited the city, I was intrigued by the impressive collection of modernist work at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where I returned often in the 1970s, driving[...] Read more

Featured Article Gayle Young Issue 116

Bennett Jenisch In addition to having recently won the Musicworks Electronic Music Contest with his first ever acousmatic piece, Buried Gesture, Bennett Jenisch also writes and performs with his live electronic band Moth Vegas. “I would say that probably about half of what I produce is stuff like the[...] Read more

Sound Bite Vincent Pollard Issue 115

The Blessed Riders of Streetcars in Vienna Streetcars in Vienna are blessedly quiet. The machines—brand new, high-tech plastic platforms—announce themselves on approach with only a slight electric hum. I now react to their high pitch with the same short sprints I used to make to catch the lumbering College streetcar in[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Caitlin Smith Issue 118

Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand Ignites the Rhythm of the People Blackfoot Confederacy member Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand is the founder and executive artistic director of Indigenous Resilience in Music (IRIM), a collective that supports Indigenous musicians and youth in their learning, performing, recording, and collaborating. The group’s[...] Read more

Sound Notes Kyra Kordoski Issue 136

The Mystical Instruments of Walter Smetak In March 2014, I found myself facing the late Walter Smetak’s Pindorama, a seven-foot-two-inch-tall instrument installation comprising seven calabash gourds arranged in a diamond-like formation and resting on a bamboo pedestal. Dozens of clear plastic tubes with flute mouthpieces fixed[...] Read more

Featured Article Neil Leonard Issue 121

Bug Incision: Calgary’s Cross-Pollination Buzz The world of free improvisation is like a parallel universe, a global underground community of nonidiomatic soundmakers, recording with each other in every imaginable permutation, connected via a proliferation of text- and link-heavy Web 1.0 sites, DIY venues, and CD-R labels, with a[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 131