Featured Articles
Jessica McMann Brings the Music Home While some creative people have been struggling to fill their time over the course of the pandemic, Cree dancer and musician Jessica McMann, who is a member of Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan—has been busy. But with powwows and in-person contemporary dance performances on pause[...] Read more
Jairus Sharif and the Expression of Truth Jairus Sharif believes in the transformative power of music. On his debut album, Water & Tools, the thirty-three-year-old multi-instrumentalist constructs dense, impassioned improvisations that fuse the murky beatscapes of underground hip-hop with the scorching intensity of free jazz.[...] Read more
Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest TORONTO, CANADA, April 20, 2023: Musicworks is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2022 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest. American composer, sound artist, and educator Leah Reid (left) has won first prize with her composition Reverie. “I am[...] Read more
The Warp and Weft of Kelly Ruth In the history of musical instruments, the questions asked are pretty standard: Who played it? What did they play? How did it evolve? Kelly Ruth’s instrument, the weaving loom, carries an entirely different kind of history. It brings to mind mythology, solitary artisans, beautiful[...] Read more
Ian Battenfield Headley “Working with John Chowning at MusicAcoustica in Beijing was like touching history,” confesses a reverent Ian Battenfield Headley during our Skype call. “I had this image of him being this serious composer who doesn't take time to speak to underlings, but he’s[...] Read more
Christine Sun Kim Explores the Politics of Sound “Low frequencies just being abstract and shit — High frequencies be like anal and micromanaging for no good reason — Silence oblivious as ever” These words are handwritten in a drawing that was included in an exhibition of new works by[...] Read more
Gregory Oh On the first Sunday in March 2011, at the Betty Oliphant Theatre in Toronto, Gregory Oh performed in a concert featuring the works of British composer Jonathan Harvey. Oh wore a grey-collared shirt and black pants. His Fluevog shoes were shiny black with aqua laces, which even under his[...] Read more
Resonate At first glance, Resonate appears to be a static, glowing, string structure in a dark, drone-filled room. But enter the space and pluck any of the glowing strings and dynamic pools of light suddenly appear, as sound objects form a rhythmic and spatial counterpart to the drones.[...] Read more
Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus The title of Intortus, a recent electronic composition by Rocío Cano Valiño, is a word used for a kind of cirrus cloud with twisted, seemingly entangled filaments. Even casual cloudwatchers know that these painterly wisps are shapeshifting storytellers; they may start out[...] Read more
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
Giorgio Magnanensi in the Sonic Playground Admirers of Giorgio Magnanensi—composer, conductor, teacher, and the artistic director of Vancouver New Music Society—tend to be lavish in their praise of him. “Giorgio is singularly the best conductor of modern music, period,” says composer and Capilano University[...] Read more
All-Set! Editions: Essentially Not Jazz Dapper Toronto imprint All-Set! Editions may be a newcomer to the subterranean ecosystem of experimental music distribution, but it already has a clearer sense of self than other more established labels. It’s spearheaded by a trio of composer-players, multi-instrumentalist Mike Smith,[...] Read more
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