Musicologist Alexa Woloshyn writes, in the prologue to her book, An Orchestra at my Fingertips, “I first heard about the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE) during the first year of my PhD program at the University of Toronto, when I was roommates with founding member David Jaeger’s daughter, Anna. Knowing that I was far from my … Read more
CHAMBER WORKS FOR VIOLA from composer David Jaeger gathers together some of Jaeger’s most defiantly creative compositions and demonstrates the vast possibilities of the viola and the chamber music genre as a whole. Jaeger’s music will surely remind listeners — and perhaps even some other composers — of the rich tonal palate the viola offers. … Read more
Of late, the topic of mentoring has been on my mind. Your Dictionary defines a mentor as “someone who guides another to greater success,” but one of my favourite quotes on this topic comes from flutist and composer, Robert Aitken: “You can only teach a person two things: how to listen, and how to teach … Read more
A significant event in the history of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE) took place during the last week of February, 2020: the nearly 50-year-old ensemble was engaged by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) School of Music for a four-day residency at their Pittsburgh campus. It was one of the most ambitious and impactful tours in the long … Read more
The consequences of a pandemic are, as we have all experienced, incredibly far- reaching. The near complete closing down of life as we had known it has had such a sweeping effect on us all, we barely have any tangible evidence of what we might otherwise have accomplished in the spring of 2020. And of … Read more
Now in its 49th season,Toronto’s New Music Concerts (NMC) remains one of the main presenters of contemporary concert music in Toronto, with a long and diverse legacy of bringing first performances of significant new works to Toronto audiences, covering compositions from a wide range of styles, written by living composers from around the world, including … Read more
On Sunday evening, December 8 at 8:30, pianist, impresario and all-around creative spark plug, Cheryl Duvall, is doing something at the Tranzac Club she’s never done before: launching her first full-length recording as a piano soloist. It’s not that she hasn’t been in the recording studio numerous times, but this time it’s a special project … Read more
On a particularly sunny and warm May day in Belfast – one might even have called it summery – my thoughts turned to the coming season, and to the phenomenon of music performed in the great outdoors, or even deep in the wilderness, if the friends and followers of Murray Schafer are to be emulated. My reverie gradually took me back to a much earlier time when such thinking was a fresh idea.
A film titled Affairs of the Heart: The Music and Life of Marjan Mozetich, produced and directed by Jamie Day Fleck, and in which I make an appearance, was given its premiere showing March 1 at the most recent edition of the Kingston Canadian Film Festival. The title of the film borrows from what is arguably Mozetich’s … Read more
Canadian composer Norma Beecroft (b. 1934) recently released her book, Conversations with Post World War II Pioneers of Electronic Music, containing an insightful and revealing collection of interviews that explore the history of electronic music around the world. The book, originally published as an e-book, contains transcriptions of her interviews with many of the principal … Read more