Cozy up with the Winter 2022/23 issue while chilling out to dream-inspiring sounds. Turntablist SlowPitchSound cues up the experiences that have informed his exploratory, multidisciplinary works. Acclaimed oud and guitar player Gordon Grdina navigates his sprawling soundworld with an array of players. Venture inside the healing, visionary works of Oglála Lakȟóta multiarts creator and scholar Suzanne Kite, Calgary jazz punk-rock outsider Jarius Sharif, and Nova Scotia instrument-maker Seth A Smith. Trace the evolution of Toronto’s beloved improv series Audiopollination; visit the inaugural FutureStops pipe-organ festival; and get a recap of our inaugural Musicworks Live event, Archive Activation, featuring world premieres of graphic scores published in our earliest issues! Also inside: recording reviews and an extended book-review section!

ON THE COVER: Jessica Moss discusses the influence of ancient klezmer and modern drone on her music, a transcription project with conductor Isak Goldschneider and chamber ensemble, and the resurrection of her avant-klezmer band Black Ox Orkestar. INSIDE: “Resequencing Resonances” reveals how two Toronto venues (the Tranzac Club and the Canadian Music Centre) navigate the discussion and action around musical repatriation. Since his 1982 cassette release Midnite News, Ohama has become a prolific producer and sound-art composer, as well as a community advocate for Calgary’s most marginalized people. Chloe Alexandra Thompson’s exploration of the physical properties of sound has guided her path as an artist and her understanding of electronic sound is, and what it means to transmit it. Jordan Dykstra discusses improvisation, Alvin Lucier, and composing music for chamber ensembles and the screen. As DenMother, Sabarah Pilon creates emotional landscapes with drones and post-industrial beats, threaded with passionate vocals. Mariana Vieira The Unexpected Encounter with Diversity was the first-place winner of our 2021 Electronic Music  Composition Contest.

ON THE COVER: Gayle Young’s collected vocal works (1978–2021) require versatility, stamina, focus, and curiosity to interpret and perform, as Montreal-based singer Sarah Albu discusses in a feature essay about working with Young on a new recording. INSIDE: Recently knighted Dutch violist Ig Henneman has paved a singular path as a classically trained musician, rock songwriter, improviser, composer, bandleader, and organizer, as violist Jennifer Thiessen reveals. In advance of the Canadian premiere of her 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel’s Bone, soundworld creator Du Yun gives saxophonist Olivia Shortt an inside look at her evolving practice. Music interventionist Jenny Moore’s creative work practice is about listening, interacting, and imagining a future with others. Mark Ellestad gave up composing in the 1990s and now finds his work being (re)discovered thanks to U.K. label Another Timbre. Pierre Kwenders channels love and life experiences into his new album José Louis and the Paradox of Love. Yaz Lancaster’s genre-fluid solo and collaborative music offers liberatory modes for exploration.

Alanna Stuart is constantly evolving—in her dancehall-infused electronic duo Bonjay and solo projects she explores her connections to Jamaica while building her own soundworld. Saxophonist Yves Charuest has been performing for 40 years, developing a distinct identity in free jazz and improvised music. Composer and ceramicist Roxanne Nesbitt creates at the intersection of composition, instrument-building, and design. Experimental doom-metal duo New Age Doom invited Lee “Scratch” Perry to perform vocals on their latest album, which marked the Jamaican dub legend’s final full-length project. Beny Esguerra is building bridges between North and South, ancient flutes and modern turntables, Indigenous peoples and settlers, and cumbia and hip-hop. Jessica McMann’s expanding musical vision combines her classical flute training with her experience and perspective as an Indigenous artist. Juro Kim Feliz makes beautifully unique compositional structures in the space between Filipino and the Canadian contemporary classical-music landscapes. East-Coast experimentation and collaboration find a path forward at Backward Music. 

Understory is a new improvised-music recording series that responds to the unique combination of physical isolation and technological fluency during pandemic times; the first edition of Understory features 42 artists, including Lan Tung, Gabriel Dharmoo, and SlowPitchSound. In “Reclaiming Chinatown,” Parker Mah (Montreal) and respectfulchild (Saskatoon) discuss creative expression as form of counterpoint to the dominant culture of the Canadian cities where they live and work. Known for his beautifully beguiling works, British composer Frank Denyer (b. 1943) discusses the early years of his music education, and his evolution as a composer, ensemble leader, and scholar. Taylor Brook’s studies have taken him to Montreal, Brussels, India, New York City and, most recently, to Victoria. The winners of Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest are announced. Argentine composer Rocío Cano Valiño’s  “Okno” won first place as well as the Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronic Music, a new prize for female-identifying and non-binary composers. The exploratory, collectivist ethos of the U.K. live-coding scene laid the groundwork for Xylem Records, an experimental electronic music netlabel founded by composer and computer scientist Dr. Norah Lorway.

The Spring/Summer issue contains a special 30-page section that explores climate emergency through the stories of sound and music artists, whose creative work expands our understanding of ecological loss and its environmental and emotional impact. Raven Chacon explores listening as a form of sense-making, where sound and language become pathways for reflecting on and analyzing challenging circumstances. Lou Sheppard investigates sound as a means of interpreting crisis and loss, and has been questioning whether the processes embedded in music-making might lead to new forms of ecological understanding. Matthew Burtner uses field recordings and sonification of glaciers to create beautiful ecoacoustic-music works. Paul Walde creates multidisciplinary pieces responding to the changing environment. Jana Winderen drops hydrophones beneath sea ice to reveal the biological soundscapes of undersea life. Terje Isungset uses ice as a musical instrument to commune with nature through his ice music. We check in with Ashley Au (Winnipeg), James Goddard (Montreal), and David Psutka (Toronto)—music artists who also connect  in their communities, creating innovative programming and contexts for experimental music artists to present their works and ideas. Scrap Arts Music makes instruments with industrial scrap. Silent Season is a nature-facing electronic-music label.

DEBBY FRIDAY (on the cover) is one of the most restless, exciting artists working in experimental music; she describes her work as synthesis of divergent theories and sounds. Anna Höstman’s works for notable large and small ensembles and solo performers are of a decidedly original and personal origin. Araz Salek has devoted much of his practice to exploring the Iranian classical repertoire, but he’s no traditionalist. Saxophonist, composer, and arts administrator Olivia Shortt is devoted to creating freewheeling, safe, collaborative spaces. Suddenly Listen is a Halifax-based presenter of exploratory, improvised, multidisciplinary chamber music. Performer, composer, and researcher Anoush Moazzeni uses digital processing, visuals, and mechanical systems to reimagine the piano. Spotlights on Matthew Cardinal and Morgan-Paige Melbourne; choreographer Kevin A. Ormsby and composer David Bontemps discuss a new work for National Ballet of Canada. Also: a profile of the label Telephone Explosion: explorations with Hum, a new Toronto soundwalk zine; Any Night of The Week: a D.I.Y. History of Toronto Music 1957–2001 book review; and lots of recording reviews!

Musicworks 137

This issue comes fully loaded with guitars! Casey Koyczan is a Tlicho Dene interdisciplinary artist from Yellowknife, now based in Winnipeg, who connects culture, technology, and nature in his visual art, and performs live-looping guitar as NÀHGĄ. Guitarist/composer Amy Brandon explores how early electronic music studios influenced Canadian guitar composition in the 1970s, and follows the progression from then to now. Susan Alcorn is a widely admired experimental pedal steel guitarist who moved from country-music to improvisation, and pushes boundaries in solo and collaborations. Aidan Baker is a Berlin-based Canadian electric guitarist, composer, genre agnostic, and prolific creator, with numerous releases of his solo and ensemble music. Eliza Kavtion is Mohawk experimental guitarist from Oka. C. Diab is Vancouver-based guitarist making ambient music. Markus Lake is a Montreal DIY-scene stalwart who releases synthetic audio work as Markus Floats. Catherine Debard is a Montreal artist who releases lo-fi solo and collaborative as YlangYlang. Cloud Chamber is the working title of a collaborative project between four performer-composers to create pieces for Arkora. The companion CD comes with eleven tracks of music from artists in the issue. Find it at our shop: https://musicworksmag.myshopify.com

Top story: Philippines-raised, Toronto-based pianist / composer Juro Kim Feliz (the Nomadic Sound Worlds podcasts) talks to Toronto-based artists April Aliermo and Lieke van der Voort about their experiences as music / sound creators who move through places, spaces, and modes in their evolving artistic practices.

Featured artists:
Anthony Pateras is a an Australian composer, pianist and electro-acoustic musician whose music spans exploratory concert works, multi-channel electronic performance, instrumental improvisation, experimental song form, and audio-visual collaboration.

Xuan Ye is a Toronto-based artist who creates sound works in modes of improvisation, installation and intervention, vacillating within the spectrum of the habitual, the unusual, the perpetual. 

Jen Kutler is a multidisciplinary artist and performer who modifies found objects that are cultural signifiers of power, gender, queerness and intimacy to create atypical instruments and sculptures

FET.NAT creates a bombastic mix of left-field punk, free jazz, trip-hop, and precise noise. 

Erin Rogers is a saxophonist, composer, and performance artist who crosses genres from theatre to installation to silence.

Backxwash is a queer trans rapper/producer whose music explores on witchcraft, gender identity, and the abuses of patriarchy and religion. 

Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand is an Indigenous multimedia creative producer, musician, and spoken word artist.

Also: We present the winners of Musicworks' 2019 Electronic Music Composition Contest, chosen by jury from more than 140 entries!

The artists in the Winter 2019 issue are connected through the sonic mycelium of Musicworks! Buffy Sainte-Marie unravels the little-known stories behind her groundbreaking 1969 album Illuminations, an innovative sonic elixir of acoustic and electronic sounds; meet experimentalists whose primary tools are period instruments—Pierre-Yves Martel (viola di gamba), Jennifer Thiessen (viola d’amore), and Wesley Shen (harpsichord); cellist Julia Kent traces her creative journey from in-demand collaborator to performer-composer of beautifully dense and atmospheric solo works; improvisor Tim Olive moved from indie rock into more experimental / improvised music and is committed to creating spaces and opportunities for improvising musicians from different background to collaborate and inspire each other; multidisciplinary artist Tosca Terán is collaborating artistically with algae, physarum polycephalum, and mycelium, translating biodata from non-human organisms into music. Also: electroacoustic composer Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi gets busy; saxophonist Bea Labikova expresses the sonic geography of Qikiqtaaluk in words, image, and music; check out Indonesian experimental label Hasana Editions.

The artists in the Fall 2019 issue expand their perspectives through innovative collaborations and combos—they just can’t get enough! Serbian-born Canadian composer Ana Sokolović creates fantastical, imaginary world in operas, chamber music, instrumental, orchestral, and interarts works. If you don’t know madcap transcendentalist, animal-friendly avant-gardist, and earworm composer Charlie Morrow you will after this issue. Prodigiously talented Egyptian singer-producer-instrumentalist Nadah El Shazly’s makes transcendent music from a host of unlikely influences. Prodigious African American New Age legend Laraaji joyfully performs and records around the world. Nova Scotia guitarist Amy Brandon combines composition with other forms of musical invention, drawn from her improvisation and electronics work. Vancouver’s William Kuo, a 2018 Gaudeamus Award nominee, brings limitless sonic and sculptural imagination to his practice. Yellowknife-based electronic music artist Sami Blanco and Ottawa’s Juno-winning Silla and Rise are creating innovative, rhythmic soundscapes. Montreal’s Mystery & Wonder Records delivers handmade, in-your-face music.
On the CD: Fourteen new or previously unreleased tracks from artists in the Fall 2019 issue. To purchase the Musicworks 134 CD, visit https://musicworksmag.myshopify.com

The lively stories in the Spring 2019 issue are sure to spark conversations about the diverse ways people develop creative ideas and potential. Monica Pearce visits Linda Catlin Smith, her former composition teacher, for an intimate conversation about her artistic process and passions; Ian Crutchley tracks the path of sonic experiments taken by Texas-born Scott Smallwood, who brings fresh perspectives to his students; and Alexander Varty dives into “the real stuff” with 77-year-old trumpeter, innovator, collaborator, and educator Wadada Leo Smith. Dominique Fils-Aimé (on the Spring 2019 cover) has moved from the mainstream spotlight to a more intimate creative space where many genres unite. Composer Samuel Andreyev has been guided by intuition through his unusual artistic journey. Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farabakhsh explore their relationship through the installation/performance Pleasure Calls. Meet U.K. Manuella Blackburn—first-place winner of our 2018 Electronic Music Composition Contest! Learn how a community arts space spawned the adventurous HAVN Records.

Musicworks 132 is the final issue of our 40th anniversary year. On The Cover: Trauma of My Mouth: jaw harpist chik white shares his pain. Features: Luke Nickel transmits a living score to clarinetist-writer Heather Roche; Composer André Cormier: A Formalist Makes Shapes for Intuitive Play; Trumpeter Lina Allemano is Splitting Time; in memoriam . . . : A New Score Honours the Past. Sound Bites: Bagpipes Blew My Mind; Joseph Shabason; Thanya Iyer; Raven Chacon; Editor’s Note: Who’s Telling the Story. Reviews: New music from Clarence Barlow, Sarah Davachi, Christopher Fox, Kyle Gann, Julius Eastman, Pierre-Yves Martel, Megumi Masaki, Jessica Moss, The Necks, The Oakland Elemetary School Arkestra, and Bekah Simms. Label profile: Akuphone Events: 2018 Guelph Jazz Festival (Ontario); Vancouver New Music Festival: Quartetti—A festival of string quartets (British Columbia) Book: Jazz Worlds/World Jazz. Edited by Philip Bohlman and Goffredo Plastino.

Musicworks 131 is the second issue of our 40th anniversary year, featuring artists who are active in interarts, DIY culture, collaborative composing, and more! ON THE COVER: Peggy Lee and the Joy of Unknowable Notes.  Features: New Twists in Circuit Bending; Un Blonde’s Songs of Ephemera; Maria de Alvear, Rebel By Nature. Sound Bites: Wow & Flutter Makes Breathing Room. Muxubo Mohamed Dares to Represent. Carmen Vanderveken is Full of Surprises. Lea Bertucci Composes Time and Space. wnoondwaamin | we hear them. Editor’s Note: Getting Out More Often.  REVIEWS: Another Timbre; Coppice; Eve Egoyan; Yoko Fujiyama; Jon Hassell; Alanas Obomsawin; Juliet Palmer; Scordatura Ensemble; and Ken Vandermark / Michael Snow. Bug Incision: Calgary’s Cross-Pollination Buzz (Label); Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 34th edition (Quebec); Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound (Kitchener, Ontario); Keith Rowe: The Room Extended by Brian Olewnick.

Musicworks 130 is the first issue of our 40th-anniversary year; the concept of “the journey” is explored through the stories of unique creative artists. ON THE COVER: Guitarist Sam Shalabi, The Evolution of a Global Aesthetic. FEATURES: Percussionist Sarah Hennies: Linguist in the Land of Noises. Listening in the Bernheim Forest: An essay on soundwalking by Andra McCartney | Introduction by Aaron Rosenblum. Pursuit Grooves: Vanese “VJ” Smith is Right On Time. Jeremy Dutcher’s Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa: an essay by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Kelly Ruth’s loom music. SOUND BITES: First-place winner, Musicworks 2017 Electronic Music Composition contest: Erik Ingalls. First-place winner, Musicworks 2017 Sonic Geography Writing contest: Ina Čiumakova. Tomoko Sauvage’s Waterbowls. Redshift Records label profile. REVIEWS: Eric Chenaux, Jean Derome, Magnus Granberg, Keiji Haino / John Butcher, Ursula K. LeGuin / Todd Barton, Magda Mayas / Pierre-Yves Martel / Éric Normand, Melody McKiver, Éliane Radigue, Togetherness!, Scott Wollschleger. EVENTS: Julius Eastman: That Which Is Fundamental (The Kitchen, New York). Listening To Art, Seeing Music (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto).

144 - Winter 2022-2023

143 - Fall 2022

142 - Summer 2022

141 -Winter 2021/2022

140 - Fall 2021

139 - Spring / Summer 2021

138 - Winter 2020/2021

137 - Fall 2020

136 - Spring 2020

135 - Winter 2019

134 - Fall 2019

133 - Spring 2019

132 - Winter 2018/2019

131 - Fall 2018

130 - Spring 2018

Musicworks connects readers with curious ears to the world’s most adventurous music and sound art in a magazine and companion recording (included with print subscription at this time)  — packed with mind-expanding stories, photos, and tracks you won’t find anywhere else. 

Subscribe through musicworks.ca/subscribe to get your copy with the CD.

Download your favorite titles and read them offline, anytime and anywhere

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines and newspapers from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from {{magCount}} best-selling international titles.

Name

Please fill out this form if you need any help regarding publishing your content on Magzter

Since we launched, Magzter has been committed to partnering with global organizations to provide the greatest possible newsstand technology & service to our customers. Whether you are looking to offer magazine subscriptions to your customer database or just want to learn more, Magzter is committed to helping your business grow. To find out more, please fill out the questionnaire below:

Musicworks - 144 - Winter 2022-2023

Get Musicworks along with 8,000+ other magazines & newspapers

Get Musicworks

Magazine Description

In this issue