Featured Articles
Kaïa Kater and the Creative Power of Letting Go Kaïa Kater is a gifted storyteller. Drawn to history, the Montreal-based musician and composer strings together tales that marry the elusive past with an ever-shifting present. From a young age, Kater, who studied cello and piano as a child, found refuge in songwriting. “I didn[...] Read more
Sarah Peeble`s Audio Bee Booth FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY Pollination Wunder Station is a wunderkammer—cabinet of curiosities—full of fascinating living things. The piece is part habitat interpretation, part bio art, part sound installation, and part sculpture. It is one in a[...] Read more
Manuella Blackburn’s Home Truths U.K. composer Manuella Blackburn’s composition Home Truths won the Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronic Music in the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition (EMC) Contest. This donor-supported annual prize awards $300 to a self-identified female or non-binary composer with[...] Read more
Buffy Sainte-Marie reflects on Illuminations “God is alive / Magic is afoot / Alive is afoot / Magic never died.” Those words, written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie, open a doorway into the mystical world of Illuminations—one of the most musically beguiling, technologically[...] Read more
Gong Punks and Culture Bombs Gentle and intense, soothing and exhilarating, traditional Filipino kulintang music provides the kind of richly immersive experience that makes an hour go by in what seems like a minute. The intertwining, hypnotic rhythms of its gongs and drums rise and fall as the players change tempos and[...] Read more
Rachael Wadham: Installing A Quiet Sound-World FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY The work of Vancouver-based sound artist, improviser, and composer Rachael Wadham often hinges upon a certain pack-rat sensibility, with sounds scavenged from mundane, remote, or even derelict sources, squirrelled away with humble[...] Read more
The Passion and Curiosity of Barbara Hannigan “An absolute stroke of luck for opera” is just one of the countless accolades Canadian-born, Amsterdam-based soprano Barbara Hannigan has received for her performances of both classical and contemporary music. Composers and musicians she has worked with are unanimous in their[...] Read more
St. John’s, Newfoundland It’s July 2001 in St. John’s, Newfoundland—the one-hundredth anniversary of Marconi’s successful reception of transatlantic wireless transmissions on Signal Hill. In town on a visit, I decide to pay homage to the event by hiking up the Harbour Trail to Signal Hill.[...] Read more
Carmen Vanderveken is full of surprises Quebec-born composer Carmen Vanderveken was commissioned by the Dutch annual festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek to write a piece for a quartet featuring Dutch bass clarinetist Fie Schouten. An earlier piece sheds light on the shape and sound of the music Carmen Vanderveken is[...] Read more
John Wynne FULL TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY A chill-blue image of ocean waves projects across the join of two white walls. At first the image appears still, but then you notice the waves undulating gently. On a table in front of the image, and housed in a small casket with[...] Read more
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