Yaz Lancaster’s Liberatory Modes There’s a rare kind of malleability to the music of transdisciplinary artist Yaz Lancaster. Best known as a composer, violinist, and poet, Lancaster holds degrees both in classical violin and in poetry from New York University (NYU), and has had compositions performed by ensembles such[...] Read more

Sound Bite Sara Constant Issue 142

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

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

Anna Pidgorna's Invented Folk Songs With its balance of bold colour palettes, strong melodic profiles, and unexpected performative elements, composer Anna Pidgorna’s work has been catching eyes and ears of late. Her chamber opera On the Eve of Ivan Kupalo recieved a 2013 SOCAN Foundation Award, and Light-Play through[...] Read more

In the Works Nick Storring Issue 123

Ana Sokolović wants you to enjoy her imagination “Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms / Inside your head, and people in them, acting.”   These lines from “The Old Fools,” English postwar poet Philip Larkin’s fearsome ode to aging, sparked Montreal composer Ana Sokolović’s full-[...] Read more

Featured Article Holly Harris Issue 134

Tate Carson's Before, I wandered as a diversion Tate Carson is a composer and upright bassist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Before, I wandered as a diversion (2016), for clarinet and live electronics, won second prize in Musicworks’ 2016 electronic music composition contest. Listen to the full piece, streaming on this page.[...] Read more

Sound Notes

Leah Reid’s Reverie Leah Reid’s electronic music compositions explore and reveal the possibilities that exist between the abstract spaces in which she structures her compositions and the everyday timbres outside her window. Reid attended high school at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts[...] Read more

Sound Notes Jennie Punter Issue 145

What's Inside Musicworks 152? ON THE COVER Lisa Conway Lisa Conway's music bridges sound installation, improvisation, experimental composition, and song. In conversation with Sara Constant, Conway traces her creative journey across the genre and disciplinary lines of Canada's experimental music scene. She studied[...] Read more

Featured Article STAFF Issue 152

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

Erin Sexton Erin Sexton is in awe of the universe. By situating her creative practice in relation to the stars and the planets, the Montreal sound artist seeks to engage in conversations with the cosmos. Her work is grounded in the hard materials we know as nature, electricity, and the elements. She[...] Read more

Featured Article Deanna Radford Issue 119