SOUND SYMPOSIUM 2024 LINEUP
The lineup for SS XXI is here!
Andrew Gosse, Newfoundland
On a path of self discovery. New music, shared experiences
Installation in MUN Tunnels: “Order Comforts Disorder acoustic installation listeners put on headphones attached to their phone or an mp3 player and walk along a designated path inside. Signs posted along the path would tell the listener which track to be listening to. These recordings would be a mix of different newly composed music, leading listener on a journey through some of my experiences with OCD. To complement this experience is a zine of poetry and visual art that would be read concurrently with the experience or afterwards as a reflection on the experience.
https://www.andrewgossecomposer.com/
Ava Koohbor, USA/CAN
Memory in muscle memory, color, taste, image, …all evidence of moving in tunnel of time
UNCHAINED -audio and visual performance interacting with” chains” transforming sound through Eurorack Modular Synthesizer. Memory is not just in our mind. We recall experiences through our five senses, our muscle memory as movements, through fragrance, color, taste, an image, they are all evidence of passing time. Our life experiences are nothing but alloyed fusion of chained coincidences moving us forward through the tunnel of time. A chain around the neck is a symbol of imprisonment and punishment and an ornament such as a necklace indicating social status and social class. The audio and visual are interwoven together to create an atmosphere of love, anger, frustration, good times, as well as human’s suffering. There are two steel plates placed on microphones. The performance starts with dropping strong magnets on these plates, then throwing chains with different lengths and gauge. It continues with pulling the chains, throwing them back and the end rolling two plates against each other like a grinder while using chains as the handle.
Brandon Auger, Nova Scotia
Radio transmissions… Shortwave, And improv/ maybe a trumpet or clarinet.
“Project – mono radius
Sounds of rouge radio transmissions, guard interference and stationary static from various sources such as crank radios, half-duplex devices, shortwave radio, and marine traffic bands. The material was recorded to 1/4″” reel to reel then to VHS cassette then manipulated by use of the VCR’s tracking control and stored digitally. The resulting audio is laced with phase-cancellation, frequency dropouts, spectrum overloads, hiss and pops. This is an electro-acoustic study. The body of sound for each presentation is designed the natural acoustics of the venue. The ideal space would be a gallery or in non-traditional venues…malls, lobbies, underground parking lots, or science labs. It could involve a couple of local trumpet or clarinet improvisers. I’m an avid improviser and think that this would be a great small venue ideal as well.
Brandon Auger (b.1978)– artist, improviser and structural builder based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Working with sound as a medium, his minimalist approach promotes the amplification and diffusion of electronic idiosyncrasies and vibrational nuances in both acoustic and synthetic environments.
Under the moniker of pnl(a), his long standing project focuses on radio arts and sound collage. This body of work has been realized through multiple physical releases on various labels which mainly documents his exploration of isolated government radio towers, and AM/FM guardband interference in his native Nova Scotia.
Auger’s latest series os:is (outer sounds:inner structures ) is the amalgamation of garbage and motors in a real-time chance operation setting. This work has been recently documented on @Tool_Use Imprint label out of Vancouver.
His publications, installations, live performances and collaborative projects have spanned across Canada, the U.S and Europe.
os:is – https://tooluse.bandcamp.com/album/os-is
mono radius – https://archiveofficielle.bandcamp.com/album/mono-radius
compulsion fabric – https://buriedinslaganddebris.bandcamp.com/album/compulsion-fabric
https://www.understorysound.ca/artists/brandon-auger
Carmen Braden and Mark Adam, Northwest Territories and Nova Scotia
Night Music, Songs that grew from seeds and workshop
Carmen Braden, Northwest Territories
Award-winning contemporary composer and singer/songwriter Carmen Braden is a dynamic force in the world of new music, hailing proudly from Yellowknife NWT. Carmen is a “multi-talented artist” (BK on the Scene) recognized as an “acoustic ambassador of the Canadian Subarctic” (Musicworks). She has played intimate theatres and main stage folk festivals, and smoothly jumps between genres of songwriting and composing. Her contemporary classical compositions are nationally recognized, with commissions and performances by world class ensembles and performers including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, James Ehnes and the Elektra Women’s Choir. Carmen’s three albums explore both the compositional and songwriting worlds, and her upcoming fourth album (2024) will dive fully into the song craft world (all albums made with producer/collaborator Mark Adam). Her material has focused on the Canadian sub-Arctic environment, and more recently into ideas of parenthood, play, and “seed” song ideas that develop into multi-genre realizations. www.carmenbraden.com
Mark Adam, Nova Scotia
Mark Adam is a drummer and percussionist who performs, produces/records, composes and teaches from his home base in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He is an Associate Professor of Improvisation, Percussion and Contemporary Music at Acadia University where he has taught since 2004 and enjoys a wide and varied career in music. As a performer Mark has shared the stage and studio with many of Canada’s leading artists and is fluent across a wide range of musical styles. Mark Adam’s work as a music producer out of his studio, The Woods has established him as a collaborator who fears no stylistic bounds.
Cassia Streb and Tim Feeney, United States
OUTDOOR INSTALLATION – A site- and situation-specific “hybrid” in an outdoor grounds. A sounding “hybrid” consists of ten or more sounding objects assembled by placing bluetooth speakers inside cigar boxes prepared with vellum and small LEDs. These objects cycle through pitched and noisy sonic material spread at distance in a configuration so as to surround an event’s participants, and whose activity leads them to explore its siting location. Sounds and placement are selected in collaboration with a presenter, dealing with the geometry, acoustics, and history of an event’s location. Within this field of recorded sound, Streb and Feeney introduce similar sounding material, whether bowing metal instruments, viola, and small percussion, or rattling collections of small particles: broken bits of flowerpot, old keys, bottlecaps, lava rocks, and small pebbles. This installation includes a large group of soundmakers spread over a cemetery.
Canadian experimental artist Cassia Streb lives and works in Los Angeles, California, making music for specific situations and for special places, using viola, small percussion instruments, and found objects. Some of her recent projects include Sound House, a modular, interactive sound and puppet piece, and co-founding Music for Your Inbox, a digital concert platform that presents the work of experimental visual and sound artists.
Tim Feeney performs, composes, improvises, and builds environments in and for forests and grain silos, concerned with unstable sound and duration. He appears in bookstores and basements with Sarah Hennies and Greg Stuart; in galleries and libraries with Vic Rawlings and Annie Lewandowski; in colleges and museums with Andrew Raffo Dewar, Holland Hopson, and Jane Cassidy; on recordings for Full Spectrum, Sedimental, and Marginal Frequency; and in the occasional festival or concert hall with Anthony Braxton and Ingrid Laubrock.
Christina Petrowska Quilico, Ontario
World premiere of work for piano by Frank Horvat.
As humans, we are oblivious to this minimalism, but with every stream of water that flows through our precious rivers, the river as we know it, the life within it and around it, changes so imperceptibly. Erosion, nutrients and oxygen that surges through every woosh of water has a huge impact that alters the landscape around it and our ability to sustain life on this planet. What is so wonderful about music is that it’s always in flux too. Interpretations change and new perspectives of familiar themes can become an exciting adventure in sound. This is why I look forward to working with composer Frank Horvat on a new 45-minute set of solo piano pieces called “More Rivers”. We are creating an ode to Ann Southam’s work, our struggling environment and the ever-changing landscape of contemporary composition for which myself as a performer relishes my unique role.
I believe that “Rivers” is Ann Southam’s masterpiece, written in her prime and showcasing her mastery. I love performing these pieces more than any other of her works. This joy in performance, and the critical and public success of “Rivers” makes me excited to create “More Rivers” with a next generation of composer, Frank Horvat, who’s from my hometown of Ottawa. Southam (b.1937) and Horvat (b.1974) were born 37 years apart, which means “More Rivers” will have a new language, a new perspective, speak to new generations. One of my projects with Ann resulted in an album where proceeds went to David Suzuki Foundation (“…music has a way of cutting through barriers to penetrate straight to our heart” -David Suzuki). Frank’s career has followed this same lineage, his 2nd album’s proceeds went to World Wildlife Fund. That album included his hour-long piece, Earth Hour, released back in 2010, the year Ann passed away. There’s a passing of the torch here that I’m honoured to witness and interpret. Today we must focus on nature before we lose it all. Water in its many forms is crucial for life and music can help us realize the power of rivers on our planet.
https://christinapetrowskaquilico.com
Corpo Terra, Newfoundland
There is a direct relationship between our bodies and the environment around us. The entire biosphere shapes the human body to adapt and behave a certain way. For immigrants this relationship with the natural elements is even more noticeable as postures, breathing times, life rhythms and more are altered by the change in landscape, weather, seasons, etc. Corpo Terra (from the Brazilian translation of Body Earth) is a collaboration between Brazilian artists living in St John’s, NL exploring this relationship. This project is culturally specific to the land (Brazil) and people they once were and they are now. they weave together sound, dance and textile art in a meaningful narrative that honours the people and their relationships to the land, plants, water and spirit and its relationship with and impact on one’s body. Through processes and research, movement and sounds repeated throughout one’s life, ancestral transmissions are passed through embodied experiences, and over time becomes a deep knowing of place, collectivity, and relational belonging within it. The ancestral praxis of being in inter-existence with water, land, community, and spirit is achieved through the exploration of sounds, movement and making land-based cultural heritage textiles.
David Buley, Newfoundland
“Still Too Sweet for Sleep” … will be an immersive sound experience in darkness while awaiting the rising sun to appear. Individual performers would move through the space – around, below and above the audience so that all sound does not erupt from one source. One static instrument though will be the organ, but even that instrument has a variety of sources in terms of height. Possibly electronics/loops with the organ! Early (4:30 am ro sunrise 5:30) in Anglican Cathedral local musicians- classical music
Dimitri Georgaras & Matt Rogalsky, Ontario.
Tudor in the 21st – 25 minute performance of work by David Tudor (“Microphone” (1970) or “Rainforest” (1968) David Tudor is legendary as an originator of unique electronic music works which invite interpretation and improvisation in their realization. Tudor was a close colleague of John Cage and Merce Cunningham and created many musical works for Cunningham dances. Among those is “Rainforest”, which we propose to perform in its original concert version for dance (1968), with eight transduced object-loudspeakers. Pieces played with an 8 channel audio system for projection of the sounds spatially.
Duane Andrews and Friends, Newfoundland
Folk music for Folk Night at the Ship During Sound Symposium
Erin Donovan/ Hear Here Productions Nova Scotia
Creation and production of a new work of music and dance, CAPE SPEAR 24, to be performed at Cape Spear on the last evening of Sound Symposium 2024
Erin Donovan is a percussionist, composer, and the Artistic Director of Hear Here Productions. Hear Here has been creating interdisciplinary outdoor and indoor performances for 25 years including 2023’s This Tree Listens for Kitchener, ON’s Open Ears Festival, Trail Reports for Sound Symposium in the MUN Botanical Gardens in St. John’s Nfld, and co-productions with the Banff Centre, Parks Canada, Mocean Dance and tiger princess dance projects. Working in abandoned mines, glacier lakes, public parks and theatre spaces, Hear Here strives to create inclusive experiences that invite audiences of all ages to listen more deeply. Collaborative works with Susanne Chui (Mocean Dance) include Burnwater, a series of outdoor films called Woodlight (with poet Alice Burdick), and interdisciplinary trio Becoming Old Growth (with poet Basma Kavanagh). As a percussionist she has performed with the Canadian Opera Company, the Calgary Philharmonic, Symphony Nova Scotia, Alkali Collective and her trio Saltwater Percussion (with Rob Power and Bill Brennan). She is a former student of Sound Symposium’s founder, Don Wherry and his spirit continues to influence her work.
Susanne Chui (Hear Here Productions) Nova Scotia
Creation and production of a new work of music and dance to be performed at Cape Spear on the last evening of Sound Symposium 2024
Susanne Chui is a mother of two, an award-winning dance artist and Co-Artistic Director of Mocean Dance http://www.moceandance.com/.
As a performer for 22 years, Susanne has worked with over 25 choreographers from across the country, and her dancing in Mocean’s Canvas 5 x 5, choreographed by Tedd Robinson, earned her the 2016 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia’s Masterworks Award. A passionate improvisor, Susanne collaborates across disciplines and is a faculty member of the Creative Music Workshop. Her choreographic work has been presented by Kinetic Studio, the TD Halifax Jazz Festival, and Mocean Dance and her most recent project is Becoming Old Growth, a collective with Erin Donovan and Basma Kavanagh.
Geordie Haley, Nova Scotia
THERENODIES A solo guitar performance. Prepared solo guitar and improvisations
Gregory Oh,
Lesson in Failure is a show that is 70% playing, 30% talking, about the most influential and spectacular failures in my career. From orchestral auditions to pedagogical relationships, alternately bittersweet and light-hearted, this show aims to shine a light on the many twists and turns in the life of an
Hilarious Comedy with great performance of classical music.
India Gailey, cellist. Nova Scotia
India Gailey’s latest solo effort, Problematica (People Places Records, 2024), is a gathering of specially commissioned works that dissolve notions of genre into a psychedelic pool of sound. Layers of cello, voice, and electronics range from delicate and ethereal to distorted interlocking swells. The collection incorporates new music by composers Fjóla Evans, Nicole Lizée, Julia Mermelstein, Andrew Noseworthy, Sarah Rossy Joseph Glaser, and Thanya Iyer.
James Hurley/John Kameel Farrah with Duncan Major on visuals. Ontario, Germany
Quiet Music in open Spaces & Music for Organ and Synthesizers. James Hurley (Piano) and John Kameel Farah in the Anglican Cathedral. James Hurley starts with an improvised set on piano –the meditative side called Quiet Music in Open Spaces. During James’s music, Duncan Major improvises artwork which is projected on the cathedral ceiling.
John plays a set of his music using organs and electronics, which focuses on the more vibrant side of the sonic spectrum. Following, James and John improvise together, melding their two worlds. John’s portion of the concert is called Music for Organ and Synthesizers
Jamie Bradbury and The Falling Company. Newfoundland, British Columbia
This project is a collaboration between sound composer Jamie Bradbury, performer and choreographer, Marissa Wong, and filmmaker Jared Davis. A multidisciplinary installation combines live performance, movement, sound, and filmmaking. Choreographed movement between two performers, one performer will be dancing the entire time with a handheld camera, will be supported by the third improvising a sound score. The footage from the camera will be projected onto a screen behind the artists and will offer the audience an intimate view of the relationship between the performers. Additionally, Jamie will mix a live sound score using a microphone connected to a mixer, in addition to digital instruments that can transpose the captured sounds. He will use the sounds in the performance environment to inspire a structured improvised composition.
Marissa’s movement background of ballet, contemporary dance, aerial silks, and contact improvisation compliments that of Jared’s which includes Parkour, breaking, house dance, and hustle. Rather than conventional cinematography where the camera is a means to record performance, Jared’s active camera manipulation will offer an interactive video component. This allows the audience a first-person perspective that is not generally seen in dance performance and film. This piece plays with the power dynamic between the dancer, music and camera, offering the audience an additional perspective into the performer’s experience. By following the intimate and live relationship dynamics between the three artists, the audience may observe the proximity, facial expressions, and movement details from their seats. In addition to the live performance, footage from the handheld camera will be available online for those who cannot attend in person. The online component will dissolve barriers that may prevent an audience
Jeff Reilly Blackwood, Peter-Anthony Togni, India Gailey Bass clarinet, drums, cello.
Contemplative evening of Sanctuary repertoire performed in a local Cathedral or church with great acoustics and a good organ. A Sanctuary concert is a happening – an event where people can lie down in the pews, fall asleep or bliss out to contemporary improvisations on Gregorian Chant.
Jenn Mong, Quebec
Classical piano performance with electronic sampling in real time using a DJ controller. Starting from the murmuring of the crowd before the show, I fade in my own sample of a crowd and slowly build the level of noise until a single sine wave emerges, serving as the start of my piano performance. Using both field recordings and previously recorded materials, I interweave these samples throughout the piano performance, with electronic and acoustic materials interacting together to structure a formal narrative. Combining my previous classical training and my work with electronics, my project involves both traditional piano performance alongside the use of DJ equipment to cut and sample materials in real time.
Joshua Le Gallienne, United Kingdom
Gallery installation: balloons with glass bells attached
Action Without Action (2022) is an interactive installation focused on the relationships between sound, space and invisible natural forces. It provides an alternative model of sound diffusion where acoustic sources are able to disperse and reorganize themselves within a three-dimensional field – achieving this without the use of loudspeakers, electronics, or digital technologies. Its interactivity is purely analogue; reliant on a complex combination of meticulously-calibrated materials reactive to infinitesimal changes in environmental conditions. The work consists of a number of bespoke glass bells, each suspended in mid-air by a helium-filled latex balloon. Like traditional wind chimes, these tubular glass bells produce sound when activated by the movement of air. However, unlike traditional wind chimes, these bells are granted autonomy of movement from the buoyancy of the helium balloons. This autonomy allows the bells to travel freely around the space, sounding in response to environmental changes. In addition to gravity, the balloons are sensitive to variations in air pressure, air currents, temperature, humidity, vibration, and electromagnetic radiation. These factors influence the behaviour of the balloons, determining their speed and position in the space. As the balloons gracefully dance and reposition themselves throughout the gallery, the location of each sound source does too. Action Without Action relies on the scientific principle of neutral buoyancy; a state of equilibrium that exists when the force of gravity is in perfect opposition to the force of lift. Through precise calibration, each balloon is perfectly weighted, floating in mid-air and neither sinking to the ground nor rising to the ceiling. Over time, the work offers subtle perceptive differences as the bells occupy different spatial positions in a continually evolving structure. It is a work where visitors can contribute to the ongoing reconfiguration of the work simply by being present in the space.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Le_Gallienne
Kasey Pocius Quebec
New work for solo sopranino T-Stick and fixed media, with real-time visuals. This new work will explore the combinations of spaces through recordings of Montreal, Newfoundland and other parts of Eastern Canada, which will be woven together through my practice of traditional montage as well as AI assisted work, and re-manipulated in real-time through gestural controllers such as the T-Stick. Examples of these techniques can be found in the support materials. As multichannel presentation in Quad. The artist will provide a sound card and laptop.
The T-Stick sends control messages to a computer via WiFi, which requires a router to connect the devices. The artist I has been involved in the development of the Media Processing Unit (MPU) at McGill, which provides WiFi as well as basic sound & video synthesis capabilities. An MPU would be used if they are available from McGill at the time of the Sound Symposium.
Kathy Kennedy, Quebec
Here and Now , a sonic cellphone meditation sound walk; Cellphones are synonymous with tuning out and being disassociated from the present. This sonic meditation allows participants to improvise vocally while exploring an outdoor space with others. It is an opportunity to walk while singing, observing the constantly changing sounds of other singers and phones. It is also an opportunity to listen to the effects of physical space on certain sounds as well as the evolving responses of other singers. It invites focal listening (to one’s own cellphone) as well as global listening (to the other voices, other cellphones and surrounding sounds.
The cellphone, using a free app (echoes.xyz) plays a series of GPS triggered sounds as participants walk through each zone. Instructions are given (sonically) at the beginning of the walk, inviting singers to either sing in unison or on any other note anytime in response to the sonic prompts they receive from their phone. I would offer this as a participatory piece, but workshop it in advance with 4 singing volunteers that would lead the activity for others. The effect of the piece is reminiscent of a sonic meditation by Pauline Oliveros (an important mentor, who I met incidentally at Sound Symposium in 1991). The decision of where to place this piece is an important one to made in tandem with Sound Symposium locals. Geolocative programming is fairly easily made in advance of performance.
Lithops Quartet, Liam Ryan, Liam Wight, Bert Power, Josh Norman, Newfoundland
Lithops is a harsh noise/experimental music project hailing from St. John’s, Newfoundland. Employing analog electronics in tandem with sampling from vinyl and cassette sources, Lithops crafts an unsettling auditory ambience that spans the spectrum from ambient melodies to commanding power electronics. Throughout this sonic journey, the project endeavours to elicit a unique experience, setting it apart from any other musical experience. Embarking on a novel musical expedition, Lithops has expanded into a quartet format, driven by the aspiration to seamlessly merge improvised free jazz with the realm of harsh noise. This evolution sees the inclusion of additional talents, with Bert Power on drums, Liam Wight on bass, and Josh Norman on saxophone.
los Beatnik AKA Rick Bailey, Newfoundland
A very special workshop. For this Sound Symposium I’d like to explore randomly generative computer music and how to improvise with it using electronic and acoustic instruments and techniques. Generative music, a term coined by Eno and which has evolved over the last two decades, has seen a surge in popularity in recent years, whether it’s through coding or software, modular systems or other randomized electronics or processes. I believe the ever-changing nature of this form and the “set it and forget it” method of creating new and ultimately surprising compositions are certainly a fresher take on improvised music, and something for artists to fine-tune and truly own in an emerging age of AI.
I initially thought about performing for a Night Music event with generative music played on a laptop using Max 8 or other software, and improvisation done with processed acoustic elements and electronics. However, it may also be interesting to incorporate some of these ideas along with generative art or visuals, or encourage collaboration in an earlier workshop or combine efforts in a group setting. This is still an in-progress work, and open to further discussion. …Rick Bailey
Louise Moyes, Newfoundland
Comedy of Care. World premiere of new docudance work by Louise with Lois Brown as dramaturge.
Marianne Trudel Quebec
Dede Java Espiritu
A piano, a drum set, a thousand ideas. The happy and highly creative encounter of pianist and composer Marianne Trudel with . An electrifying, fascinating, enveloping duo!
Dédé Java Espiritu project plunges the listener into an infinite panorama of colours and grooves inspired by nature. This concert celebrates beauty, the ephemeral, intuition, mystery, and life. Marianne Trudel offers up a whole new cycle of compositions that are both pared down and refined, mysterious and enticing… Where catchy grooves, enchanting melodies, surprising sonorities, and joyous spontaneity go hand in hand. Fabulous!
Also catch their workshop.
Let’s celebrate the beauty of the ephemeral by making sounds and music that will only happen here and now.
By connecting through sound together, being fully present, listening and playing, we access to a deeper level of our existence and appreciation for one another: we feel fully alive again and content.
Risk taking, trust, imagination, respect, playfullness, patience, concentration, surrender.
This workshop is for everyone who wants to get involved in playing and listening or listening only.
Natasha Blackwood Newfoundland
This group is a 7-piece ensemble performing Natasha Blackwood’s new original compositions. These songs are rooted in folk storytelling, but using the forms from the “Great American Songbook”, (jazz songs of the 1930’s – 1950’s), and instrumentation and arrangements that are reminiscent of pop music of the 1950’s, with dense harmonies, melodic horns, and memorable/singalong choruses. Combined with modern lyrical content and Newfoundland cultural references, this ear-catching recording project is oddly familiar, and new at the same time.
NAVAL CASSIDY/AKA Jonathan Giles United States
Starting with Stackable Thumb in the 1990s, Naval Cassidy has been a familiar presence in the ever-changing landscape of live video performance in New York City. He continues his video investigations with his collection of small objects, (some found, some bought, all carefully curated), sometimes resembling missing pieces in some ridiculously large board game forgotten years ago. In them he finds some reflection of the larger world of human bodies, desires, and power relationships. He has worked solo and with other artists in New York, Canada, Scotland and Berlin to create original visual and audio experiences.
Parisa Sabet Ontario
Visiting composer, offering her Film of composition and dance 8 minutes.
Silent is a multi-media composition for clarinet, cello, piano, soprano, tenor, audio playback, dance, and visuals commissioned by Charsu Quartet. It is inspired by The Wind-up Doll, a poem by an influential Iranian poet, Forough Farokhzad (1934-1967).
Rob MacDonald
Premiere performance of a substantial new work for solo guitar composed by Andrew Staniland, for guitarist Rob MacDonald. This 22 minute work is written in 7 movements and is the outcome of a meaningful collaboration between composer and performer, after having worked together on multiple projects over more than a decade.
From the composer:
‘Mythos’ is influenced by the Bach Lute suites and modelled after a baroque suite, however the relationships to the traditional suite are distant, and sometimes in name only. The work is not as much a variation on the lute suites as it is a new work visited by the ghosts of the past, translated through traditional and AI inspired compositional approaches.
Supported by Arts NL, the creation of this piece will also include a video-recording component, scheduled to take place in the summer of 2024 in St John’s and to be shared online subsequently.
https://www.music.utoronto.ca/mob-our-people.php?fid=163
Robert Humber, Stephen Eckert, Hilary Knee Newfoundland
“to unwind a sea shell‘ will be the in-person premiere of the multidisciplinary collaboration among three Newfoundland-born artists: composer/director Robert Humber (he/him), dancer/choreographer Hilary Knee (she/her), and pianist Stephen Eckert (they/them.)
Robert Humber wrote: “”When I began thinking about ‘to unwind a sea shell,’ I wanted it to depict a journey toward self-blossoming, a gradual growth and discovery of oneself. I imagined myself as a hermit crab that has outgrown my shell, and needs to leave my protection, everything I’ve ever known, in search of a new home. That venture, as a small, vulnerable crab in an unforgiving ocean, would be terrifying, yet unavoidable and necessary to my survival.
Within the process of creating ‘to unwind a sea shell,’ I have found myself in these transitions “between shells,” moving to two new cities, reassessing priorities in my life, getting engaged, thinking about fatherhood and what it means to create life on a rapidly deteriorating planet. I began utilizing the audio from old VHS family videos recorded when I was very young, interweaving it with current-day voice recordings. By using crisp modern recording techniques alongside old footage and degraded cassette tapes, I created a sonic backdrop in which the past, present and future are “sitting in the room together. Meanwhile, the piano traces uneven, trance-like patterns through the electronic track, gradually coaxing us into new places, sometimes looping back on itself as if in search of a new passage, sometimes tumbling forward with a newfound certainty. The piece begins with a great reluctance, a small step into the unknown followed by retraction. It ends peaceful and unhurried, with a final suggestion of the entire cycle beginning again. Growth continues.
https://www.stepheneckertpianist.com
Robyn Love
Jinker is a multidisciplinary project of live performance, audio, video projections, installation, textiles, storytelling and collaboration devoted to expanding and illuminating more complex narratives around women’s* labour and lives. * I use the term women to include everyone who identifies as a woman.
Historically, Jinker is a Newfoundland term for the age-old story blaming a woman for the world’s misery (see Eve, Pandora, et al.). In this project, I become the Jinker. I choose to become the woman to be blamed for the ills of the world but I transform this blame into a source of power. Embracing my identity as an outcast, I express what others fear to say aloud via live performances, videos and installations, as well as with conversation and storytelling. This transmutation of blame, fear and erasure into power is the engine of the project.
As Jinker, I have created performances in fishing communities in Newfoundland. I am taking the project to Iceland and Scotland in 2024. The work takes place in grocery stores, fish processing plants and public streets. I wear elaborate, handmade garments made from materials from the fishery. Whether as part of a parade down the main street or in more private works, the performances are based on the stories, actions, lives, and labour of women in each location. They offer new, fleshed-out narratives: spoken word mixed with the sounds of the workplace and original, handmade instruments. I am proposing to create a site-specific installation based on the documentation of these performances as well as to create a new performance for Sound Symposium.
This will include a live performance with handmade instruments as well as sound and video installations. It also could include time for storytelling and conversation geared toward women who work in the fishery. Jinker uses collaboration as a medium. It began with women in my Newfoundland community and moved outward to Scotland and Iceland, which also have largely unacknowledged histories of women working in the on- and off-shore fisheries. For Sound Symposium, I will create space to listen to and document the multiplicity of their stories as part of the project.”
Sarah Joy Stoker Newfoundland
Stay staying. Premiere: Dance with newly composed music by Elling Lien. The sound is electronically generated and mixed. It was inspired by Elling’s self directed project during the first long Covid lock down where he would produce a new one-minute score with a video every day for a year. We presented a work in progress version in 2022 at Neighbourhood Dance Works’ First Look series and have since received funding form arts NL to expand and fully develop the work.
Repercussions – ripples – rivers – waves – triggered and nuanced by pandemic impressed restrictions, limitations, reactions, and realizations of realities of self and community, this solo lives in the physical rigor, bewildering calm and freeze states that come from extreme loss. In it Stoker travels with her rage and grief over the continuing devastation, exploitation and extraction being done to our world. Witnessing genocide perpetrated by Empire, and an awakening of the world to how our systems are structured and function, still, under such emboldened colonization, oppression, and violence. A solo performed by Stoker to a haunting score by Elling Lien.
Sarah Rossy & Martin D’aigle Quebec
VERNISSAGE VIVANT is an immersive electro-acoustic improvisation playground curated by Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist Sarah Rossy. Sarah sings, plays keyboards, and triggers live electronics and visuals, while Martin D’aigle plays augmented drum kit and percussion. This multi-sensory fully-improvised performance environment draws on the unique influences of each musician, blending jazz, hyper pop, spoken word, and electro-acoustic music. The space is engulfed by evolving audio-responsive visual projections.
Sarah Rossy workshop: Sarah Rossy will present a voice and movement workshop, exploring embodied sound production, intuitive expression and play. Movers and sounders from all backgrounds and experience levels are welcome to join!
https://www.sarahrossy.com/about
Shahriyar Jamshidi Ontario
Enthusiastically in the Circle. A performance of Kurdish music on his kamāncha and a talk on micro-tonal music from Kurdish mountain sounds and vocal modes.
The indigenous Kurdish people resided in the heart of Mesopotamia for thousands of years, vocal and dance are the inseparable elements of their daily life. Due to political issues and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, greater Kurdistan has been divided among four countries Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The colourful musical heritage of Kurdistan is spread inside the main colonizer cultures in the region and mixed with the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic traditions systematically and unintentionally. As a result, hundreds of Kurdish folk songs have been translated into central languages Farsi, Arabic, and Turkish which are now part of the main cultures of those countries. Accordingly, most of the unwritten and not documented musical heritage of the displaced Kurdish people have vanished. As a Kurdish native, he has grown up with the colourful culture surrounding his long-life artistic journey. I am representing the inner view of my root, Kurdish nomad musical identity in my compositions and my Kamāncha recitals on every stage. Since settling in Canada in 2012, I have consistently sought new musical languages, thereby crossing cultures with my Kamāncha recitals. I am honored to continue working as a professional in the Canadian music industry to celebrate diversity and equity in past years.
Shawn Pinchbeck Alberta
Where the Bees Buzz is a 23 min sound installation of fixed media soundscape composition for concert playback.
It is a part of a series of works based on ambisonic field recordings I took at many locations in the Peace Region of northwestern Alberta, Canada. This title refers to the fact that the Peace Region is a primary honey production region in Canada. Where the Bees Buzz is the second work in the series featuring select field recordings from around Beaverlodge, Alberta with electro-acoustic music accompaniments inspired by those recordings.
https://shawnpinchbeck.bandcamp.com/track/transmission
Chel Paterson Ontario
Slow Pitch Sound is 45 minute solo audio/visual performance based on themes of nature and combines live improvised music and cinema. The piece is sample based and will be performed using a turntable, looper and drum machine in front of live visual projections captured by on stage camera. My musical background is in live composition, turntablism and improvisation. Live cinema is the latest addition I’ve been exploring.
https://www.slowpitchsound.com/about.html
PERSIO DOMINGUEZ PIANTINI, Newfoundland/ Domincan Republic
Offering an introductions to music of the Dominican Republic with artists from the Dominical Republic who are now resident in St. John’s
SoHo. Joe Sorbara & François Houle. Ontario, British Columbia
Joe Sorbara (they/ them) and François Houle (he/ him) have been performing together as a duo-that-plays-well-with-others since the fall of 2017 when Sorbara temporarily relocated to Canada’s west coast. They have worked with guitarists Jared Burrows (https://vimeo.com/346428599), David Blake, and Tony Wilson; in the trio Alien Radio with bassist James Meger (https://ovalwindowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/clich-s-vol-i-trio-music; https://afterday.bandcamp.com/album/clich-s-vol-ii-trio-axioms); and in freely improvised settings with pianist Tania Gill, alto saxophonist Naomi McCarroll-Butler, and others. Their debut recording as a duo, Hush, was released on the famed Swiss label, HatHut/ezz-thetics, in April 2023 (https://now-ezz-thetics.bandcamp.com/album/hush).
SoHo is currently involved in further developing a duo music that is highly specific and identifiable while always holding space for a third voice, a “plus one.” This July in St John’s, they will perform as a duo as well as in a number of pop-up sets with other attendees.
ETA is an improvising trio made up of Ambrose Pottie, Andrew Staniland, and Daniel Oore. Formed in the isolation of the pandemic, they make music using Sonobus, embracing the latency and technical challenges that are inherent with vast distances. ETA+ includes special guest Jing Xia.
XIA-3 – Jing Xia, Ritchie Perez, Brian Downton. Newfoundland
Night Music at Sound Symposium
https://www.jing-xia.com/xia-3
Ben Zendel Newfoundland
Sound researcher and psychologist at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
https://www.mun.ca/research/extraordinary-research/research-chairs/dr-benjamin-zendel/
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