Julia Mermelstein's "wonted II-III" Toronto-based composer Julia Mermelstein creates music focused on detailed tone, colour, textures, and gestural movement that reveal evocative, immersive, and subtly changing soundscapes. Her work aims to blend acoustic and electronic sound worlds in seamless interactions.[...] Read more

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Music from the New Wilderness What can sound tell us about a place? Listen to British Columbia, and it might sound something like Music from the New Wilderness, a multimedia performance work that conjures B.C.’s past and evolving present by incorporating historical and current field recordings into new compositions[...] Read more

In the Works Nancy Lanthier Issue 118

Musicworks #128: From the Ancient to the Avant-Garde GONG PUNKS AND CULTURE BOMBS Traditional Filipino kulintang, a style of orchestral music played on a set of brass gongs, is a mesmerizing and exhilarating mixture of the ancient and the avant-garde. This authentic indigenous music has been played in the southern Philippines for centuries[...] Read more

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Reclaiming Chinatown In many respects, the year 2020 was a time of reckoning for Asian Americans. Hot on the heels of the landmark Asian ensemble-cast blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made history with Parasite, which took home the first Academy Award for Best Picture ever to be[...] Read more

Featured Article Peggy Hogan Issue 140

Yves Charuest and The Existential Act of Improvisation In the fall of 2016, I attended Montreal rehearsals and concerts and Toronto recording sessions of Roscoe Mitchell and the Toronto-Montreal Art Orchestra for a feature article that was published in Musicworks 127. This complex, largely through-composed music—Mitchell’s[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 141

Burden Unpacks the Piano's Inner Life At the 2016 Winnipeg New Music Festival, the members of Burden and their synecdochical piano are set up in the midst of a noisy, beer-swilling crowd at Union Sound Hall. Without so much as a word of introduction to attract attention, they assume positions on three sides of the piano and[...] Read more

Featured Article Daniel Emberg Issue 125

New Stages For New Music Intense purple LED light washes over the Thin Edge New Music Collective (ABOVE PHOTO) as they scramble to soundcheck, seeming to heighten the chaotic mood at Long Winter, Toronto’s monthly interarts festival series during the coldest season. Two different sources of electric guitar[...] Read more

Featured Article David Dacks and Peter Burton Issue 125

Myk Freedman Makes Room for an Ensemble of One (This article was originally published in Spring 2015.)   Myk Freedman is best known as the lap-steel-wielding leader of the nonet St. Dirt Elementary School, whose idiosyncratically tuneful music (released on Rat Drifting and on Barnyard Records) is nestled in the crevice[...] Read more

In the Works Nick Storring Issue 121

João Pedro Oliveira's "La Mer Émeraude" Third place in Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest was awarded to João Pedro Oliveira's La Mer Émeraude (The Emerald Sea). The composition has also received awards at SIME Competition, Città di Udine Competition, the Destellos Competition[...] Read more

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Rebecca Bruton Lets The World In Rebecca Bruton describes her work as an “understated, Surrealist folk music”—music that’s experimental but also simple, with a sensuousness and a weirdness to it. “Music that makes sense,” she says, “but you’re not sure why.”[...] Read more

In the Works Sara Constant Issue 129

Mariana Vieira’s The Unexpected Encounter with Diversity Electronic music has the potential to free composers and sounds from physical and cultural constraints while also bringing those elements closer together. Composer Mariana Vieira has been exploring ideas in this creative space since her undergraduate studies in composition at Escola Superior[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jennie Punter Issue 143