Terri Hron joins the flock The slight, bright-eyed woman comfortably seated in her sunny Montreal studio is known as a musical beast. Hard to imagine. But the epithet is just one of several that contemporary recorder player and composer Terri Hron has earned—not on the expected grounds of virtuosity, but rather[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jason van Eyk Issue 110

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

Sound Notes René van Peer Issue 131

Jenny Moore Tears Things Up The first intimation that Jenny Moore has arrived at the music room at The Victoria, a historic pub in East London, is when the crowd slowly starts to part. The six members of her ensemble Mystic Business are doing a slow stomp, each hitting a pair of Boomwhacker tubes against each other to[...] Read more

Featured Article Louise Gray Issue 142

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

Shannon McKee's "The Copy Room" As I step into the undersized side room of the middle-school office, I want to remove my high heels. I want to kneel on the thin, brown carpet and touch my forehead to the ugly floor. I want to offer up a soft song. Because when I—a teacher’s assistant for twenty-five twelve-year[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Shannon McKee Issue 121

Pheeroan akLaff Pheeroan akLaff believes in drums first, rather than last. He can drive an ensemble forward with the machine-gun attack of his snare and the rolling thunder of his bass and toms, compounding and enriching the music with dense polyrhythms, or using the metallic shimmer of his cymbals to surmount[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 114

Alanna Stuart Embraces the Bombast Multidimensional artist and music producer Alanna Stuart is constantly evolving. She regards categories not as borders but as things to be transcended. In her acclaimed duo Bonjay, with Ian “Pho” Swain, as well as her collaborative projects and her solo songwriting, she is[...] Read more

Featured Article Gloria Blizzard Issue 141

music, interrupted A barrage of media releases announcing the cancellation or postponement of concerts and festivals—in my hometown of Toronto, in music hubs across Canada and beyond—began hitting my inbox with increasing intensity the second week of March. Like many who actively follow, attend,[...] Read more

Editorial Jennie Punter Issue 136

Louis Andriessen brings the noise Louis Andriessen arrived on the international scene with a bang. In 1976 he unleashed De Staat (The Republic) on unsuspecting audiences. The political charge of the composition came from texts of Plato sung by four soprano voices hovering like ethereal apparitions over pounding, iron-fisted[...] Read more

Featured Article René van Peer Issue 119

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

Craig Aalders’ el8dEra 3m Ice cracking and melting; a forest by the coast; a dream; breath lingering in the cold air—these are some of the images that come to mind when listening to Vancouver composer Craig Aalders’ el8dEra 3m, the first-prize-winning composition in Musicworks’ 2016 annual[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 127