Featured Articles

Isaiah Ceccarelli “I know it may sound crazy, but I am interested in making beautiful music—music that sounds good. I’m not saying this just to be different, and it might not be in line with a lot of the reasons that people make music today, but I am actually not very involved with, or[...] Read more

Profile Nick Storring Issue 119

Eliot Britton FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   By his own account, Eliot Britton’s music treads dangerous territory. “I represent huge problems with art music and the whole idea of art music,” he says, and goes on to describe how in his compositions within the[...] Read more

Sound Bite Gloria Lipski Issue 113

BLACKOUT MUSIC Deep black space is speckled with birdcalls and falling water until an ominous boom looms and the drumming of   rat-a-tat-tat - insect infestation or insistent rain - is jarring and subsides in the darkness   a piano perforates the heavy steely[...] Read more

Sound Notes Heather Kelly

The Quiet Waves of Silla and Rise In early 2016 Ottawa-based DJ, producer, and dancer Eric Vani, aka Rise, was hired to create music to be played at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Nature Nocturne—a themed-evening series that Vani describes as a “rave in the middle of dinosaur skeletons.”[...] Read more

Sound Bite Chaka V. Grier Issue 134

Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde GONG PUNKS AND CULTURE BOMBS Traditional Filipino kulintang, a style of orchestral music played on a set of brass gongs, is a mesmerizing and exhilarating mixture of the ancient and the avant-garde. This authentic indigenous music has been played in the southern Philippines for centuries[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

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

Urbanvessel and Juliet Palmer Suit-tail-clad Juliet Palmer sits at the top of a stepladder in the middle of the diamond-shaped ring. Tonight, she’s not wearing her Canadian composer hat. Tonight, she’s a sports announcer.   “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Voice-Box![...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 108

New Stages For New Music Intense purple LED light washes over the Thin Edge New Music Collective (ABOVE PHOTO) as they scramble to soundcheck, seeming to heighten the chaotic mood at Long Winter, Toronto’s monthly interarts festival series during the coldest season. Two different sources of electric guitar[...] Read more

Featured Article David Dacks and Peter Burton Issue 125

Eliza Kavtion’s Call and Response In her spellbinding live show, Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Eliza Kavtion twists threads from documentary films, punk-rock distortion, and hip-hop innovation together with her wailing, virtuosic guitar playing. She and guitar become one: a fury of fuzzy drones, rhythmic sputters, and[...] Read more

Sound Bite Peggy Hogan Issue 137

loK8Tr FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY     They weren’t going to speak with me. Maybe it was just a he or a she, rather than a they. I didn’t know. An e-mail exchange was possible, but I wanted to meet face to face. I tried cajoling the members of the online[...] Read more

Featured Article Matthew Pioro Issue 106

Meet the Winners of the 2024 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest TORONTO, CANADA, May 29, 2025:   Musicworks is pleased to announce that Lyon-based composer Rocío Cano Valiño (photo by © Deni Ríos) has won first prize in the 2024 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest for her stereo electroacoustic[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF

Years Years is a sound installation for modified record player that examines the disparity between the experience of time passing and time as an objective quantity. The piece uses a turntable to “play” a vinyl-Lp-sized cross section of a tree. A camera fitted with a microscopic[...] Read more

Visions of sound Bartholomäus Traubeck Issue 113