Featured Articles
Susan Alcorn’s Vibrant Deviations Susan Alcorn moves through life in methodical motion, a few beats slower than the usual rapid flow. At the 2020 edition of Toronto’s Women From Space festival, held in mid March, the pedal steel guitarist’s entrancing performance made the Burdock Tavern feel as if clocks had frozen[...] Read more
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
Understory’s Sonic Ecosystem Like many performing musicians, I considered leaving the music business in 2020. The confluence of loss of work due to the pandemic, exhaustion from years of gig-hustling, and the intensity of social, political, and environmental crises left me wanting to help directly (on good days) or hide[...] Read more
Myriam Bleau spins Soft Revolvers In a darkened room, an artist is manipulating four translucent circular objects on a tabletop, moving from one to another. Audience members gather around. The objects emit light. Their spinning motion activates deep tones and beats that crackle and whir, and snippets of voice that drop in[...] Read more
Shifting the Narrative The time for postponing discussions of environmental issues is over. This is the main thrust of two music-and-sound-powered documentary projects, both of which aim to encourage honest conversations about climate change and to explore the many ways our lives intertwine with—and impact[...] Read more
Fuhong Shi Closes the Distance If Canada has any meaning to most Chinese, it is likely through a widely read essay written by the late Chairman Mao in praise of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Montreal doctor who ministered to Mao’s suffering soldiers during the Long March of the late 1930s. Musically,[...] Read more
David Berezan's Tongue Drum Third place in the 2021 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest was awarded to U.K.-based composer David Berezan's Tongue Drum. The piece premiered online in May 2021 at the European Art Science Technology Network for Digital Creativity (EASTN-DC) in Corfu[...] Read more
Audiopollination Seeds Creative Evolution “Two musicians, say, coming together to play a piece of music, I think has to be interesting. Even if the results are not in themselves a great piece of music, the way they find to work with each other says something about music. So you can hear one musician figuring out—you can[...] Read more
Seth A Smith’s Constant Interruption “I’ve always been a fan of silence. So, when I lost the ability to, you know, experience silence, I started looking at noise as a form of quiet in times when I needed some mental clarity,” reflects multidisciplinary artist Seth A Smith via email. Since 2019, he’s been[...] Read more
Jean Derome’s Reflections of Joy Over the past four decades, Jean Derome’s musical interests have spanned everything from standards to skronk. He has composed graphic scores for large ensembles, created multimedia works for string quartets, and devised music for dance, theatre, and cinema works. But what Derome is[...] Read more
BLACKOUT MUSIC Deep black space is speckled with birdcalls and falling water until an ominous boom looms and the drumming of rat-a-tat-tat - insect infestation or insistent rain - is jarring and subsides in the darkness a piano perforates the heavy steely[...] Read more
Musicworks 133 The lively stories in the Spring 2019 issue are sure to spark conversations about the diverse ways that people develop creative ideas and potential. BUY THE ISSUE NOW! ON THE COVER: Montreal’s Dominique Fils-Aimé has moved from the mainstream spotlight to a[...] Read more
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