Featured Articles
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
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
First-place Winner, Musicworks 2017 Sonic Geography Writing Contest Childhood has no single place, no secret garden, no single carousel to ride on, nor tree branch to fall from: just hours, that slip away, so similar to music, which has no place either, just passing time it tries to keep up with[...] Read more
Dálava explores the landscape of song On a summer evening, outside this art gallery-cum-coffeehouse somewhere on the Gulf Islands, silver-green alders, not yet dry and summer-drab, sway, as deer graze in a meadow beyond, and small birds sing. Inside, a young couple performs. Julia Ulehla has spurned the venue’s microphone[...] Read more
Charlie Morrow, Sonic Nomad “My work is what it is and I move in many worlds. I would have nothing except for being carried on the shoulders of friendship and shared interest.” Intrepid sonic investigator Charlie Morrow’s early-’90s Lower East Side event, Urban[...] Read more
The Sound Future of Virtual Reality I HEAR A PERCUSSIVE THUD. SOMETHING IS HITTING THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF ME REPEATEDLY. It’s reverberating (I’m in a large room, I guess) and the rhythm is punctuated by frenzied bursts of high-pitched squeaks nearby. In the distance, I hear shuffling and the murmur of voices[...] 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
Joëlle Léandre For Joëlle Léandre it all begins and ends with the double bass. After playing the often unwieldy bull fiddle from the age of nine and carefully studying its intricacies, she creates with it sounds so personal that defining them as free music, new music. or anything else, is[...] Read more
What's Inside Musicworks 137? The Fall 2020 issue comes preloaded with guitars. Hollow, heavy, bowed, cracked, pedalled, flung. Trusty companions. Feedback demons. Easy to pick up, hard to put down . . . just like every issue of Musicworks! BUY THE FALL 2020 ISSUE FROM OUR SHOP OR SAVE 50% OFF THE COVER PRICE WITH A[...] 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
Los Arroyos in Stereo A springtime hike through the hills of the Sierra Nevada, Andalucía, Spain. I follow my guide, Neftali, scrabbling up switchbacks, sweat from the raw sun cooling in the alpine breeze swishing my neck. The hike has been filled with talk. Neftali pointing out species[...] Read more
Wadada Leo Smith and the Possibilities of Dreaming Think of this as a sketch. We’re not going to get into a complete report on the doings of Wadada Leo Smith here, his more than fifty recordings, his dozens of collaborations with luminaries from all over the globe, his long engagement with creative music. No, we’re merely[...] Read more
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