Yannis Kyriakides “Why don’t you come by my place and I can sell you the CDs you’re seeking,” said the voice on the phone. It was the spring of 2005, I was in Amsterdam and looking for recordings from the Dutch label Unsounds. The voice on the other end of the line was that of Dutch-[...] Read more

Featured Article Jason van Eyk Issue 106

What's Inside Musicworks 141? The Winter 2021/22 issue explores the creative ideas of seven artists who are engaged in beautiful, daring musical acts of innovation, celebration, and resistance . . . artists that audiences and listeners like YOU will be discovering in 2022.   Flute enthusiasts, please note that[...] Read more

Featured Article Issue 141

Linda Catlin Smith Lets In the Light   It’s 2004. I am taking my first composition course at Mount Allison University. I have recently become enamoured of new music and am catching up on a long list of listening in the basement of the Alfred Whitehead Memorial Music Library. I come across Memory Forms (2001), a[...] Read more

Featured Article Monica Pearce Issue 133

Backward Music What function do record labels fulfill in an era of streaming and algorithmic music discovery? What do labels offer artists and listeners when the means of music access and distribution are changing at a rapid clip?   Kyle Cunjak, who is a musician and the owner-operator of[...] Read more

Label Profile Brennan McCracken Issue 141

The Ondes Martenot is Making New Waves No one knows exactly how many functioning ondes Martenot are in use around the world today, but an informed, conservative estimate puts their number at sixty. In the course of half a century, Maurice Martenot, the creator of this most sensitive electronic musical instrument, was able to[...] Read more

Featured Article Caroline Martel Issue 117

Kristen Roos FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY.   Every musician in the world produces invisible waves when making music—such is the nature of sound. Relatively few musicians, however, are concerned with those waves once they are absorbed and processed by the auditory system of[...] Read more

Profile David Dacks Issue 106

Anoush Moazzeni Weaves a New Narrative In Anoush Moazzeni’s The drops of the rain become one with me, small mechanisms move inside and above an open grand piano. Wooden structures glide across the piano strings of their own accord, hammering and pressing the instrument with mallets, while microphones pick up sounds that are[...] Read more

Featured Article Sara Constant Issue 138

STEIM FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY     Maybe someone would have been able to guess what I was getting myself into when I left for STEIM in The Netherlands. After all, there was a pretty clear sign. All passengers had boarded the plane, and we all were eager to get to our[...] Read more

Featured Article Glen Hall Issue 109

Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber Wolf Edwards’ various stories are so interesting and so curiously entwined that it’s hard to know where to start. Working in the fish-packing plants of Ucluelet, B.C., the ugly-duckling sibling of Tofino’s trendy swan? Playing guitar on the stage of some black-hole dive[...] Read more

Profile Alexander Varty Issue 120

Nadah El Shazly’s Music from Invented Places You wouldn’t think ’80s punk rock, traditional vocal jazz, electronica, early-twentieth-century Egyptian pop, Ornette Coleman free jazz, and contemporary experimental music could have much in common or mix well with each other in a song. But they all live together quite amicably[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 134

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

Featured Article Lawrence Joseph Issue 121