Sound Symposium XXII Artist Bios
SSXXII Artist Bios!
*Note: to get directions to the workshop events press the name of space (eg. (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)
Alejandro Franco Briones – Toronto
WORKSHOP: Introduction to Live Coding with Sarah Imrisek (Cymatiste): Live coding is the practice of writing code as a performative act: often the output of this coding act takes the form of music, audio explorations, sound art, visuals, choreography, or story telling. In this workshop we will explore coding as a musical performance using Estuary (https://estuary.mcmaster.ca/), a networked software that makes it possible for new practitioners to start making music in a zero-installation environment that favours collaboration. NOTE: Pre-registration is recommended for this event. *July 18, 2026 @ 10am (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)*
Alejandro Franco Briones is a sound artist, media arts scholar, composer, and live coder from Mexico City, currently residing in Dish with One Spoon territory (Hamilton, Canada). Alejandro is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Communications Studies and Media Arts at McMaster University. His research entails the development of infrastructure, interfaces, and protocols for online live-coded music and sound art creation. His research is related to the fields of sound studies, time studies, and internet studies with a perspective mediated by de- colonial ism, anti-fascism, Marxism, and feminism. Alejandro teaches digital audio and sound design at both McMaster University and Brock University, as well as leading various community-based arts workshops.
An Laurence 安媛 – Montréal
WORKSHOP: Writing dreams & sounds: An Laurence 安媛, a Montreal-based musician and performer, will host “Writing dreams & sounds” where she will give a short overview of her practice relating to narratives and sounds, then invite the participants to create and improvise music and/or words drawing inspiration from dreams. July 21, 2026 @ 1:30pm (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)*
An Laurence 安媛 is a Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal-based musician active in the contemporary/experimental music scene, performance/multimedia artist and a curator. Her work has been presented in music and media arts festivals, arts galleries and by various show producers in Canada, Europe (Portugal, Greece, France) and Asia (Japan, China).
Her eclectic debut album “Almost Touching” (2022), distributed by people | places | records, has been described as displaying “a graceful vulnerability that transforms [the] compositions into a powerful suite of emotive manifestations” (Foxy Digitalis), “a demanding listen … never less than engaging” (The Whole Note), where An Laurence “displays her willingness to dive headfirst along each pathway she chooses to explore” (Musicworks magazine). A daring performer, An Laurence collaborates with artists from a variety of disciplines and thrives in contexts that reimagine traditional musical performance. Her work has been presented by the Quartier des spectacles, Accès Asie, Théâtre La Chapelle, Groupe Le Vivier, the Music Gallery, Phenomena, No Hay Banda, Oh! my ears, Lucky Penny Opera/re:Naissance opera, Chinatown Biennial, Montreal’s maison de la culture, Athens Digital Arts, Tranås at the Fringe, Codes d’accès, among others.
Anju Singh & The Nausea – British Columbia
WORKSHOP: Induced Resonance – Responsive Composition Session: This workshop invites players to be part of an ensemble to create and record a sound art composition as part of Anju Singh’s Induced Resonance recording series. Using found objects, self-made instruments, and/or extended techniques on traditional instruments, the ensemble will be guided through spontaneous compositions with a focus on sonic response and listening for resonance. Note: the session will be recorded by the artist, lightly edited, mixed, and released with all participants credited for their contributions alongside their instrumentation. Participants are asked to bring found objects, self-made instruments, or an instrument you play. Microphones will be provided to amplify items that you may bring to the session or you may bring your own microphone if you have a preference. If you do not have an object or instrument, we can supply one. **PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED** July 18, 2026 @ 1:30pm ( (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)*
Anju Singh is a media artist, composer, musician and sound artist with an interdisciplinary practice that infuses her composing and music work into video art, installation, sound sculpture, theatre, and film forms. She experiments with texture, dynamics, contrast, and articulation in her practice as a multi-instrumentalist, performer, visual artist, illustrator, sculptor, and instrument builder. Anju deconstructs and reanimates materials and plays with dynamics and boundary-stressing elements in her work.
She has toured, and presented her work across Canada, in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and the United States and has been commissioned/presented by Two Rivers Gallery, NAISA (New Adventures in Sound Art), VIVO Media Arts Centre, New Music Concerts Toronto, New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA), Vancouver New Music, Canadian League of Composers, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Bard on the Beach, CEM in Saguenay QC, Suoni per il Popolo Festival, Le Vivier, and Continuum Ensemble. Anju plays in a number of bands and has an experimental violin project called The Nausea. Anju also works as a curator and is the Director of independently organized festival Vancouver Noise Fest (12 editions).
Brendan Fitzpatrick Quartet – Newfoundland and Labrador
Brendan Fitzpatrick is a guitarist, composer, educator and freelance musician based in St. John’s, NL. With a background studying jazz at St. Francis Xavier University, and years of experience performing with singer/songwriter’s across Atlantic Canada’s vibrant music scene, his style reflects a deep engagement with improvisation and genre fluidity. As of late, his work has lead to recording with Heidi Burns on Ian Foster’s ‘Wintering’ project, a performing at the 2025 Antigonish Jazz Festival and his 2nd year serving as faculty of the St. FX University Summer Music Camp.
Cathar Perfect – Newfoundland and Labrador
Dark Ambient / Noise moniker of Christopher A. G. Scott based in St. John’s, Nfld..
ChromaDuo – Toronto & Newfoundland and Labrador
One of North America’s leading guitar ensembles, ChromaDuo shares uncommonly beautiful music with audiences throughout the world. For the past fifteen years, Tracy Anne Smith and Rob MacDonald have concertized across Canada and throughout the United States, as well as in Mexico, England, and Germany. Passionate advocates for their art form, their deep creative connection allows audiences to immerse themselves fully into the music. The Iserlohner Zeitung observed, “As ChromaDuo sounded the first harmonies, you could hear a pin drop in the house of worship. Smith and MacDonald immediately captivated the audience.”
They are the dedicatees of works by top composers, including Roland Dyens, Stephen Goss, Dale Kavanagh, and Dušan Bogdanović. In the 2022/23 season they commissioned and premiered works by legendary Leo Brouwer, uncanny Canadian Amy Brandon, and iconic Brazilian Sergio Assad. As Naxos recording artists, their music can be heard on all major streaming platforms. They are also active international educators; Rob MacDonald teaches at the University of Toronto and Tracy Anne Smith is Assistant Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Cymatiste – Toronto
WORKSHOP: Introduction to Live Coding with Alejandro Franco Briones: Live coding is the practice of writing code as a performative act: often the output of this coding act takes the form of music, audio explorations, sound art, visuals, choreography, or story telling. In this workshop we will explore coding as a musical performance using Estuary (https://estuary.mcmaster.ca/), a networked software that makes it possible for new practitioners to start making music in a zero-installation environment that favours collaboration. NOTE: Pre-registration is recommended for this event. *July 18, 2026 @ 10am (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)*
Sarah Imrisek (cymatiste) is an independent media artist in Tkaronto/Toronto. She live-codes visuals, creates interactive art installations, projection art, and murals. Her recent public art installations have been showcased at Nuit Blanche Toronto, Nuit Blanche East Danforth, Hamilton Arts Week, the International Conference for Live Coding (ICLC), and Vector Festival. “Cymatiste” is derived from “cymatics,” the study of sound vibrations on a physical medium. Live coding in Hydra, P5, shaders, and custom tooling, Sarah explores the dimensions of sound with visualizations that respond to a range of audio features, blending field recordings with algorithmic animations and video feedback. Informed by avant-garde art, liberation movements, and the healing power of nature, her practice explores the potential for creative play to bring us together and assist us in imagining new possibilities for ourselves, our communities, and our relationship with the lan
David Bobier & VibraFusionLab- Ontario
PROJECT: VibraFusionLab from July 16, 18, and 21st from 11am-3pm at Harbourside Park, downtown St. Johns, NL.
David Bobier is a hard of hearing and disabled media artist whose creative practice is exploring multi-modal means of art making. His work focuses on developing accessible vibrotactile technology as an artistic and experiential medium that lead to the establishment in 2012 of VibraFusionLab. The Lab is a multi-sensory creative research centre now situated in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada that has an international reputation as a leader in accessibility for the D/deaf and Disability Arts movement.
His career includes nearly 30 solo and two-person exhibitions and over 30 group exhibitions in Canada and internationally.
Bobier has served in advisory roles in developing D/deaf and Disability Arts Equity programs for both Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, was an invited participant in the Canada Council for the Arts – The Arts in a Digital World Summit and a presenter at the Global Disability Summit in London, UK. He has also been an invited juror for both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council and in 2024 was nominated by the Canada Council for the Arts for a Governor General’s Innovation Award.
Duane Andrews– Newfoundland and Labrador
Duane Andrews casts a wide net in the musical ocean. He discovered Sound Symposium while growing up in Carbonear and making occasional visits to St. John’s where Harbour Symphonies and throwing pianos off cliffs seemed normal at the time. He is most active these days with The Hot Club Of Conception Bay.
Ensemble Meduse – Newfoundland and Labrador
WORKSHOP: All the Little Ships Children’s Workshop: In this 60-minute workshop, audience members will both create, and help choose, images and sounds that will be used to augment key moments in “All the Little Ships,” a story about Operation Dynamo (from WWII), told from the point of view of a seagull named Winston. Together, the ensemble and audience will explore how text, visuals and sound can work together to bring a story to life from the page to the stage. All ages are welcome in this 60-minute workshop, which is geared to children 7-12 years old. July 19, 2026 @ 10am (MUN Choral Room)
Newfoundland’s own Ensemble Meduse is a multi-media ensemble based in St. Johns. First formed in 2004, Meduse’s first performance was at Sound Symposium. Its members are: Kate Read – viola and sound design, Maria Gacesa – writer, clarinettist, and producer, and Yesim Tosuner – video design and graphic arts.
Meduse’s mission is to create and perform collaborative, inter-disciplinary projects that broaden the audience’s experience of live music, while at the same time allowing the artists to step out of their usual roles. Commissioning over 10 new works they often followed the theme of migration, water and change. Following the inaugural performance in St John’s they went on to perform at Bristol University; UK, Toronto Music Gallery, Festival of the Sound; Parry Sound and McGill University; Montreal. In recent times the ensemble has moved towards creating all aspects of the works themselves, performing “Pray for Rain” at the Montreal Fringe Festival, written and performed by Maria, with live sound design by Kate, and video/lighting by Yesim.
Former Eraser – Newfoundland and Labrador
From St. John’s, Former Eraser is an experimental electronic group, which thrives on improvised compositions and created sounds through the use of synths and live drums combined with added effects. Comprised of long-standing improvisers Rick Bailey, Craig Squires and Dan Smith since 2024, the kinetic trio embodies various styles, including ambient, noise and free jazz, with emphasis on unfolding and surprising works that are singularly played.
Former Eraser have performed for previous local events hosted by Sound Symposium and Lawnya Vawnya, and have made several recent recordings available through Bandcamp. For Sound Symposium XXII, Former Eraser will perform with a selection of silent movies from the public domain, visually mixed using MAX/MSP.
friends& – Newfoundland and Labrador & Ontario
“Here is what it feels like to listen to [friends&]. An absolutely disorienting experience, one that makes you feel like you are being dropped into a swirling ocean of sound–tones and noises, familiar and unfamiliar, rocket from one channel to another, coming back in various distorted and undistorted forms, melodies coalesce and dissipate–a totalizing, sensorily all-encompassing feeling. But one that is never not friendly and inviting! Because, thing is, [friends&] is more than anything else a dance-pop [band]–there are hooks for years… hummable melodies and shining, beautiful tones, and propulsive, electrifying rhythms. Sometimes it feels like overcomplex noise, but other times something so pure and melodic and direct will come out that it hits you right between the eyes.” – merton, folx RYM review, February 17, 2026
friends& is a four-piece pop band featuring BC Power, CT Pond [aka Amateur Painter], JC Grame [aka tirestires], and jksims. We plunder and collage glitch pop, folktronica and neo-psychedelia to produce maximalist electronic dance music. Our debut album, folx, was recently released on Dawk26 Records.
For Sound Symposium XXII, friends& will be joined by St. John’s multi-instrumentalist Liam Ryan, who appears as a guitarist on folx and whose band Swimming was remixed by friends& on the rock band: stem fragmentation and syncopation exercises #1-7 w/ supplemental materials.
Gabriel Piller & Sleeping Police – Newfoundland and Labrador
WORKSHOP: Sound Synthesis Basics: DIY Synth Breadboarding: Let’s explore electronics together! In this workshop, we’ll learn the basics of working with analog circuits on a breadboard and explore some fundamental sound synthesis concepts through hands-on building and creation. We’ll also explore ways to improvise with our breadboarded mini-synth. July 16, 2026 @ 10am (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)*
Gabriel Piller has been making noise and experimental music in St. John’s for 25 years. Working under names like Sleeping Police, Blanket Fort, The American W, M. Manifeste, and “Wimbledon F.C.”, he’s released a range of recordings on his label, Knife in the Toaster. His work includes elements of noise, drone, field recordings, and improvisation, often shared through limited-run tapes, CDs, or digital formats. Piller has performed at events like the Sound Symposium and ONSOUND, and more recently at his Ambient Night series.
Since 2001, local artist Gabriel Piller has been using the moniker Sleeping Police to explore the extremes of aural expression, releasing numerous cassettes and CDs on his Knife in the Toaster label.
Gina Burgess – Nova Scotia
From Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia), internationally recognized artist Gina Burgess is a multi-genre violinist, composer, yoga instructor, educator, and musician wellness facilitator. A former member of the Juno nominated Iqaluit-based Arctic rock band “The Jerry Cans”, a four-time ECMA award winner with the Hot Swing group “Gypsophilia”, and collaborator with numerous ensembles, Burgess is sought after!
Burgess’s newest music is improvisational in nature and not confined to a specific ensemble structure. These compositions draw inspiration from the minimalist composers of the 1960s and aim to create large-scale, hypnotic musical experiences through repetition of rhythmic and melodic gestures. Like light, these pieces evolve and transform over time. Burgess’s original compositions have been described as ethereal, genre-defying, and filled with Spirit.
Hans Tammen – New York City
Hans Tammen is just another worker in rhythms, frequencies and intensities. He likes to set sounds in motion, and then sit back to watch the movements unfold. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, his music is continuously shifting, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. This flows like clockwork, “transforming a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off” (Touching Extremes).
Hans Tammen’s Third Eye Electric Miles Band – Newfoundland and Labrador & New York City
Hans Tammen’s Third Eye Electric Miles Band plays music from Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew period and later, 1969 to 1986. He indicates the parts to be played using hand signs and flash cards, a practice that actually started at the Sound Symposium in 2004. Members of Bitches Rebrewed are: Hans Tammen, Craig Squires, Ashley Chalmers, Sean Panting, Duane Andrews, Natasha Blackwood.
Ink and Echo – Newfoundland and Labrador & China
Ink & Echo is a groundbreaking intercultural ensemble debuting at Sound Symposium XXII with a multimedia performance that bridges traditional Eastern aesthetics and contemporary sonic exploration. The ensemble features an international cohort of acclaimed virtuosos: award-winning guzheng artist Jing Xia, renowned for her genre-blending approach to the Chinese zither; multi-instrumentalist of Ouroboros and Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra fame Nicole Hand; celebrated soloist, renowned member of the Atlantic String Quartet, and principal violist of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Kate Read; and highly accoladed St. John’s percussionist, composer, and producer Bill Brennan.
This performance premieres a new work by composer Jing Zhou, whose distinct style fuses bold musical ideas with her Chinese heritage. Inspired by ancient poetry and the visual philosophy of Chinese ink painting, the piece explores the interplay of “dots and lines” through structured composition and spontaneous improvisation. Enhancing this immersive experience, AI-generated ink paintings—created in response to classical verse—will be projected as a visual dialogue, guiding the conceptual framework of the music. Ink & Echo invites the audience into a layered space where ancient poetry, modern technology, and cross-cultural expression converge.
Issac Andrews Power – Newfoundland and Labrador
Isaac Andrews Power is a musician and improviser based in St. John’s, NL. They have embarked on a quest to discover the secrets of life through a variety of artistic stylings, focusing primarily on violin performance. Through their Improv X Improv Screech-O-Rama they seek to fuse the world of short form improvised comedy and live noise music, with a little help of from some friends of course.
Jacinte Armstrong– Nova Scotia
Workshop: Jacinte Armstrong: Rock Exoskeletons: Join Jacinte Armstrong for a dance walk on July 17, 2026! Meet at the Terry Fox Mile Zero Memorial Site (2 Water St, St. John’s, NL A1C 0A7) at 10 a.m!
Jacinte Armstrong is an Acadian artist based in K’jipuktuk/Halifax, Canada. Her work explores embodied practice through performance, choreography, collaboration, and curation, communicating the experience of the body in relation to objects, materials, technologies, and people. Her choreography ranges from intimate and imagistic to large-scale collaborations with dancers, architects, visual artists, radio producers, filmmakers, actors and musicians.
Jacinte is Artistic Director and co-founder of SiNS (Sometimes in Nova Scotia) Dance, co-Artistic Director of suddenly LISTEN, and collaborates regularly with Mocean Dance. From 2014-18 she was Artistic Director of Kinetic Studio, presenting an annual season of contemporary dance workshops and performances in Nova Scotia. In 2020 she received her MFA in Performance from NSCAD University and is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York City. Her work has been presented locally and across the country by dance, theatre, and music presenters, festivals, galleries, and in public art events.
John Oliver – British Columbia
John Oliver’s “wonderfully, creative music” (Fanfare) displays “a delicate yet often complex sense of beauty” (Musicworks). Oliver has an international reputation as a composer and electronic musician. He has performed as guitarist and electronic musician with the Vancouver Symphony, and in concerts across Canada and abroad. His music has been heard in performances in Europe, Asia and the Americas and appears on over 40 commercial and independent releases.
His work “El Reposo del Fuego” for DX7 and soundscapes won the Grand Prize at the CBC’s 8th Young Composers’ Competition. Oliver performs on touch-plate and circuit-bending synthesizers, and granular and resynthesis sound processors that allow him to process amplified sounds, creating washes of every-shifting, multi-layered soundscapes. He currently performs solo concerts, as well as in duo with Douglas Schmidt (bandoneon), and in the trio Squid in Chains, which adds François Houle (clarinet & electronics) to the duo.
junctQín – Toronto
WORKSHOP: junctQín keyboard collective: From Graphic to Sound: Join junctQín in exploring graphic scores and creating one: bring your own instrument or a found object (e.g. bubble wrap, bowl and stick, plastic bottle, foil paper) to discover new blends of sounds and participate in creating music with what you have! Participants are welcome to bring instruments and/or found objects! July 20, 2026 @1:30pm (MUN Choral Room)
junctQín (pronounced ‘junction’) consists of pianists Elaine Lau, Joseph Ferretti, and Stephanie Chua. The name of the collective is taken from junctio – the Latin word meaning to join, and from Qín – the Chinese character for keyboard instrument. junctQín’s goal has been to recast the idea of the piano as more than a solo recital instrument. The ensemble has discovered and re-introduced works for multiple hands from the 20th and 21st centuries alongside commissioning new works for piano six-hands, unusual keyboard instruments such as toy pianos, melodicas, and synthesizers, as well as those featuring everyday objects and live-electronics.
Praised by Musicworks Magazine for their “…unfaltering, polished performance [that] is a testament to years of work as a unit,” the ensemble has commissioned and premiered over forty works by Canadian and international composers and interdisciplinary artists since its inception in 2009. Their performances have been featured at venues and festivals including the Canadian Opera Company’s Four Seasons Centre, Open Ears Festival, NUMUS, and the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium. Recent highlights include the release of the interactive digital platform PLAYrePLAY (playreplay.ca) featuring three new works by Nicole Lizée, Germaine Liu, and Lieke van der Voort; as well as a record release with Quatuor Bozzini.
Lee Su-Feh – Malaysia and Vancouver
Lee Su-Feh (she/they)’s practice sits in the interstices of performance-making, pedagogy, ritual, writing and dialogue facilitation. They split their time between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where they were born and raised, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ Territories, a.k.a. Vancouver, Canada, where they make their home. Over the past 35 years, they have created a provocative body of award-winning trans-disciplinary work that interrogates the contemporary body as a site of intersecting and displaced histories and habits. Alongside this trajectory in performance-making, they have pursued a lifelong study and practice of Chinese martial arts, Qigong and Daoism, all of which inform their approach to dance and movement. Since 2010, Su-Feh has been a student and practitioner of Fitzmaurice Voicework® and is a certified Lead Trainer of the work. Su-Feh’s current preoccupations involve somatic algorithms, performance-making as collective nervous system attunement and imagining societies that dance.
Loopstitch and Tiber Reardon – Newfoundland and Labrador
Thrilled to have a new commission from Nicole Lizee, Loopstitch features violist Kate Read and sound engineer/artist Michelle LaCour, frequent collaborators since their first artistic foray together during Sound Symposium XIX (July 2018). The two have since taken every opportunity to expand upon their creative efforts, exploring a sonic world comprised of amplified viola; looping, reverb, and delay pedals; synthesizers; and found sounds recorded in nature around the province. Loopstitch use many different elements as starting points to their improvisations, a look into detailed minutiae, a favourite chord or sequence, or something spontaneous. Loopstitch has performed at numerous festivals in NL and Ontario, including Electric Eclectics, Hold Fast, Sound Symposium and the CMC. In 2024 they were awarded the Gerry Porter Award for Creative Improvised Music. Their work has recently moved into live sound design for theatre productions.
Tiber is a multi-instrumentalist modular synthesis sound designer based in St John’s NL. He is an active collaborator with many artists in the music and visual arts communities. You will also likely find him on stage, wielding a bass or electric guitar alongside St. John’s finest musicians. At Sound Symposium 2022 Tiber received the Gerry Porter Award for Creative Improvised Music.
Luke Blackmore– Ontario
PROJECT: The Living Room: Living Room is a large-scale interdisciplinary electroacoustic percussion work that explores the familiar titular space as a site of artistic exploration. The work merges contemporary classical music with theatre and dance to explore themes of isolation, identity, and control within the cultural and social context of the living room. In this piece, transducers are attached to furniture, allowing the space itself to come alive with sound and join the performer in examining our connections to our living spaces. Is the living room a space of isolation or connection? How do we express ourselves in these spaces, and how they affect how our identity is shaped outside of them? Do we have agency over our living rooms, or do they control us? Living Room is dedicated to Nikki Huang, who commissioned the piece, and was instrumental in the composition and realisation of the work. Nikki’s enthusiasm for collaboration and willingness to explore has made Living Room real. July 19 & 20, 2026 @ 5:30pm (MUN Instrumental Room)
Luke Blackmore is a Canadian composer, sound artist, and saxophonist based in Toronto.His current artistic practice centers around works that explore acoustic and electronic spaces, and he is interested in exploring the connections and divisions between these two sonic environments. Luke’s work seeks to investigate how these boundaries can be exploited, assured, and otherwise manipulated in order to subvert the collective expectations of audiences. His music explores the tenacious relationship between technological innovation and human performance practice.
Luke holds degrees from the University of Toronto and Memorial University, and has studied under Gary Kulesha, Kotoka Suzuki, Eliot Britton, and Andrew Staniland, among others. He is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Toronto.
Luke is the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, most notably the SSHRC CGS-M grant for his ongoing creative research into computer-controlled instrument systems and two SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Awards. His music has been performed and recorded by multiple performers and ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, the Alkali Collective, Josh Rubin, Ryan Scott, Mark Fewer, and others. Luke’s compositions have been performed from coast-to-coast in Canada and abroad, in venues ranging from dive bars to concert halls.
Naishi Wang – Toronto
WORKSHOP: SHI: SHI is a somatic and conceptual movement practice inspired by the Chinese aesthetic and martial arts concept of 势 (Shi)—often translated as momentum, potential, or flow—which describes the energetic condition that precedes action and allows movement to emerge naturally. Drawing from traditions of Chinese martial arts, calligraphy, painting, and philosophy, Shi refers not to force or effort, but to an invisible rhythm that organizes form, space, and perception. In this practice, participants work with a fast metronome at 180 BPM in 4/4 time, beginning with soft, repetitive knee bouncing and gentle breathing, entering a continuous 10-minute movement cycle that is repeated several times with short rests. Over time, the micro-bouncing gradually travels through the body—from knees to hips, spine, shoulders, and arms—while maintaining rhythmic continuity, allowing movement to shift organically through weight transfer, subtle balance changes, and internal sensation. Rather than learning steps or choreography, participants are invited to witness how repetition reshapes attention, perception, and embodiment, how momentum arises without conscious decision, and how the body reorganizes itself through listening rather than control. Accessible to both dancers and non-dancers, 180 functions as a form of tested improvisation and embodied meditation, offering a trance-like, physically simple yet perceptually deep experience in which rhythm becomes the driving intelligence, and movement emerges from inner states rather than external form. July 17, 2026 @ 2pm (The Space)
Naishi Wang is a Chinese-born, Toronto-based dance artist whose work explores communication, translation, and the body as a living language. Trained at Jilin College of Art in China and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Wang danced with Toronto Dance Theatre for nine years before beginning his independent career in 2015. His choreography blends Chinese classical forms, qigong, martial arts, ballet, and contemporary dance within a conceptual and somatic framework, infused with the fluid precision of his childhood calligraphy training.
An award-winning artist, Wang investigates how emotion, culture, and identity are embodied, often asking the question: “How do we continue?” His works — Taking Breath (solo), Face To Face (with Lukas Malkowski), and Deciphers (with UK-based dance artist Jean Abreu) — have toured across Canada, UK and Europe, examining the poetics of understanding and misunderstanding in human connection. Through his company, Naishi Dance, Wang continues to forge a distinctive voice within Canada’s dance landscape, balancing tradition and innovation through movement.
Nick Bendzsa– Quebec
PROJECT: Intimate Aquatic: Music for the Public Pool is a sonically and physically immersive sound art installation created for swimming pools. Audience members are invited to float silently while two different narrative ambient soundtracks are being played – one above the surface of the water, and one below. July 17th at 4:00pm or 4:30pm, and July 20th at 4:00pm or 4:30pm (The Mews)
Nick Bendzsa is an artist, songwriter, composer and audio engineer born in St. John’s, Newfoundland and based in Montreal, Quebec. Oscillating between the worlds of emotionally driven pop music, and a familial tradition of sonic experimentation, Bendzsa creates ethereal audible environments, extracting emotive timbres from synthesis, contorted acoustic materials and sampling. Seeking to blend something introverted with something fantastical and ethereal, Bendzsa takes pleasure in the experience of creating something new, and presenting his art in immersive and unique ways.
Night Shift Orchestra – Quebec
PROJECT: Night Shift Orchestra is an immersive installation that presents an original score and audiovisual work by composer and musician Luc Bonin aka Urbain Desbois, performed by a peculiar orchestra that explores the boundary between directed musical composition and natural phenomena. This project features an orchestra of nocturnal butterflies interacting with musical instruments—vibrating strings, percussive surfaces—creating a unique sonic material captured on video and edited to perform the score composed by Luc Bonin. The resulting installation offers an enveloping sensory experience where light, sound, and the movement of living creatures intertwine to form an unprecedented score. The installation is designed around a setup of eight synchronized video screens, each assigned a dedicated sound source, creating an immersive spatialized audio experience. Currently in the composition and editing phase, the work will be ready for presentation in the spring of 2026. Its premiere will take place in May 2026 at the Festival International de Musiques Actuelles de Victoriaville (FIMAV) Daily (July 15-21, 2026) @ Anglican Catherdral of St. John the Baptist
Luc Bonin, also known as Urbain Desbois, is a multi-instrumentalist, director, author, composer, and performer. Since the 1980s, his musical journey has been marked by an exploration of diverse genres, ranging from punk rock to reggae, by way of jazz and experimental music. Although Urbain Desbois is known for his songwriting—and for some fifteen years enjoyed a string of concert tours and album releases—composing has always been central to his life. He has worked in this capacity for theatre, television, radio, and film. His exploratory work in music (in collaboration, as an improviser, or as an accompanist for poets) informs his artistic output.
Nikki Huang – Toronto
Nikki Huang is a Taiwanese percussionist based in Toronto, whose work moves fluidly between contemporary performance, storytelling, and interdisciplinary collaboration. She is drawn to music that explores character and narrative, often working across original compositions, jazz vibraphone, children’s musical theatre, and workshop-based practices. Her artistic approach is shaped by a deep interest in collaboration and performance as a shared, imaginative space.
As an active performer, Huang has collaborated with ensembles and artists including Esprit Orchestra, New Music Concerts, Tapestry Opera, Women From Space, The Happenstancers, Coexisdance, and Ensemble Intercontemporain through the ULYSSES Platform for Young Musicians. She was selected as an artist of HappLab 2025, and has held artist residencies at the Banff Centre and the Westben Centre. Huang holds a master’s degree in Percussion Performance from the University of Toronto, where she also worked as a research assistant in the Technology and Performance Integration Lab.
Octatonic Decadence Ensemble – Newfoundland and Labrador
From Newfoundland, Octatontic Decadence Ensemble is locally assembled by David Buley, and the group’s membership fluctuates as required according to the voices needed for the wide array of music the group performs. O.D.E.’s repertoire spans thirteen centuries and represents exquisite examples of music for multiple voices by an eclectic array of composers such as R. Murray Schafer, Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Reena Esmail, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Cristóbal Morales, Christine Donkin, Kathleen Allan, Herbert Howells, and Corrinne Pilippon. The group strives for a clear, blended sound with nuance of expression and beauty!
Pirarán (-): Networked Music Ensemble – Toronto
Pirarán is a networked ensemble that combines the sound of analogue and digital synthesizers with live coded soundscapes. The band is influenced by synthesis creation and embodiment, just-intonation research and poly-temporal music creation, Latin-American popular modernism (Pérez Prado, Cumbia chichadélica, and MicoRex), and music genres like vaporwave, hippie synth music, techno, glitch, industrial, ambient and noise. This iteration of the ensemble – Pirarán (-) – is formed by Alejandro Franco, Sarah Imrisek, and Iván López.
Alejandro Franco Briones (Norrbotten, Sweden) – composer, live coder, sound artist, and scholar from Mexico City. Some of his major interests include time-oriented music, network art ecologies, and musical/technological notational systems. Iván López (Morelia, Mexico) – composer and electronic instrumentalist. His work includes acoustic and electroacoustic music. His creative search extends to fields such as improvisation with electronic/digital media and phonography. Sarah Imrisek (cymatiste) is an independent media artist in Tkaronto/Toronto. She live-codes visuals, creates interactive art installations, projection art, and murals. Her recent public art installations have been showcased at Nuit Blanche Toronto, Nuit Blanche East Danforth, Hamilton Arts Week, the International Conference for Live Coding (ICLC), and Vector Festival.
Primitive Isolation Tactics – Montréal
Montreal’s Primitive Isolation Tactics emerged in 2018 and burrows into the subconscious via rusted arteries of industrial noise, fracturing off into constricted microchannels of impacted debris and silt. Sensory vividness through a minimal approach.
Sonic Playground – Newfoundland and Labrador
WORKSHOP: An Introduction to Touchdesigner as a Tool for Intermedia Performance: Learn how you can use 3D graphics to create audio-reactive visuals with extensive real-time hardware control options. In this beginner-friendly workshop you’ll learn what the TouchDesigner software is, see a complete patch constructed in real-time, and leave with all the info you need to dive in deeper! **PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED** July 20, 2026 @ 10am (Mun MEARL)
Sonic Playgrounds is an electroacoustic improv duo consisting of saxophonist Matthew Roome and electronic artist Andrew Gosse. The pair formed Sonic Playgrounds in 2022 while the two were studying at the MUN School of Music. Since then, the duo has performed at many events including the Newfound Music Festival, the MUN School of Music Alumni Showcase, and Memorial’s Café Concert series. After Matthew and Andrew graduated in 2023, the duo went on a two-year hiatus while each of its members completed graduate studies, with Matthew completing a Master of Music in Instrumental Performance at McGill University and Andrew completing a Master of Music in Music Technology and Digital Media at the University of Toronto. In the summer of 2025, the duo reunited in St. John’s and now continues to create and perform music throughout the city.
Temporal Waves – Montréal
WORKSHOP: Shawn Mativetsky: An Introduction to Effects Pedals for Acoustic Instruments or Voice: Are you an instrumentalist or singer looking to get involved with electronics, but don’t know where to start? Interested in guitar pedals? This is the workshop for you! Effects pedals allow us to play with timbre, pitch, time, and space, can open new creative and improvisational paths, and inspiration for endless new musical avenues to explore. Effects pedals are relatively accessible, very hands-on, and easy to use, providing musicians with a wonderful path into the world of electronic music. Why should guitarists have all the fun? July 16, 2026 @ 10am (Lawnya Vawnya HQ)
Temporal Waves is the latest project from renowned Canadian tabla player Shawn Mativetsky, transporting the tabla into a retro-future cinematic sound world. Inspired by sounds of his childhood years growing up with Atari, Nintendo, and early PCs, along with an 80s dystopian sci-fi vision of the future, the music carries a message about the environment, and our need to balance our relationship with nature and technology. Tabla, bathed in the neon glow of analog synthesizers, Temporal Waves is an excursion deep into aural science fiction.
Dynamic performer Shawn Mativetsky is widely regarded as one of Canada’s leading ambassadors of the tabla and a pioneer in bridging Western and Indian classical music traditions. Acclaimed as an exceptional soloist and a leading disciple of the renowned Pandit Sharda Sahai, he is highly sought-after as both performer and educator. Mativetsky is an accomplished practitioner of Indian classical music, and is equally embedded in the contemporary music realm. An avid improviser, he can also be found accompanying countless other artists across and beyond the spectrum between jazz, pop, and global traditions.
Úna Monaghan – Ireland
From Ireland, Úna Monaghan is a harper, composer, researcher and sound artist working internationally. She collaborates, improvises and performs with poets, visual artists, computers, writers, musicians, and others. Úna also works as a live sound engineer specialising in Irish traditional music, and experimental, electronic and multichannel music. She has released two albums of her compositions, most recently Aonaracht, for solo traditional musicians and electronics. Her recent commissions include pieces for Red Note, Crash Ensemble, Ulster Orchestra and Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble.
Úna performs solo with harp and electronics, and as a member of contemporary music ensembles Stone Drawn Circles and Of Aran. Úna received the inaugural Liam O’Flynn Award from the Arts Council of Ireland and the National Concert Hall Dublin, and held the Rosamund Harding Research Fellowship in Music at Newnham College, University of Cambridge from 2016-2019. She is a lecturer in Sound and Music at Queen’s University Belfast, where her research examines the intersections between Irish traditional music, experimental music practices, improvisation and interactive technologies.
Verdin Brothers – Minnesota & Newfoundland and Labrador
Verdin Brothers is a collaborative project between multi-instrumentalists Peter (St. John’s, NL), Andrew and Mark Verdin (Minneapolis, MN). Building from a foundation of steel-string guitar, upright bass, and percussion they play deranged instrumental folk music that blends elements of American Primitive guitar, traditional string band, musique concrète, and soundscape compositions. With a fascination for the occult and a keen ear for melody and unique instrumentation, their music is an alembic in which the traditional is transmuted into the experimental, where in pursuit of the celestial monochord they track the crooked byroads of folk and linger in its dark pockets and eerie configurations.
Weather Vane – Montréal
WORKSHOP: Weather Vane (Greg Bruce): Working with Improvising Musical Agents: In this hands-on workshop, Weather Vane will demonstrate and facilitate working with musical improvising agents: software trained on small datasets that perform in real-time alongside human improvisers. Rather than being designed for power and adaptability across many genres or artistic outputs, these musical agents, and the communities that design and perform with them, are focused on specific types of improvised music rooted in those communities themselves. In manipulating the small datasets and interacting with the agents, we have been compelled to reflect on our own improvised practice and ask: what exactly are we looking for in an improvising partner? Working with these agents reveals both the promise and the limitations of digital interlocutors as improvisation partners. Even so, we aim to show how machine learning technologies can open a concrete dialogue involving human agency and instrumental technique. NOTE: Attendees will need their instruments! July 19, 2026 @ 3:30pm (MUN Choral Room)
Weather Vane is a Montréal-based collective that produces exciting, novel works featuring state-of-the-art music technology in the hands of master performers. The group’s current lineup features saxophonists Greg Bruce and Tommy Davis, clarinetist Maryse Legault, as well as technologist and composer, Kasey Pocius. Weather Vane seeks to highlight the expressive potential offered by woodwinds that are technologically augmented, extended, and modified. By implicating performer research, improvisation, and instrument design, the collective blurs the lines of creation, fostering a collaborative synergy that harnesses expertise across many disciplines. Notably the group has presented works with eTube, Canadian-made musical software SpireMuse, feedback saxophone, as well as clarinet and fixed media.
XEL – Vancouver
WORKSHOP: Hadis Fard: Modes of Listening: A Feminist Ear: The workshop takes place outdoors, moving through downtown St. John’s and the Harbour. The harbour is a threshold space, a place where sound crosses what sight cannot: water, distance, language, borders. Working from the book, participants are invited to practice listening as a critical and compassionate act, tuning into what is present but unseen, what travels without permission, what the body receives before the mind names it. The question at the centre is not just who is heard, but what we are willing to hear. Practical info: No musical experience required. Wear comfortable clothes and bring a notebook, pens in variety colors, any objects that makes sound and you can carry it (no instruments). July 16, 2026 @ 3:30pm (Harbourside Park)
XEL is a sound and vision composer and sound artist based in Canada, crafting audio-visual and sonic worlds unbound by genre. Through semi-modular synthesis, field recordings, and electroacoustic processes, she weaves complex and conceptual rhythms into expansive ambient and drone soundscapes, work that lives in constant flux between structure and dissolution, the immediate and the infinite.
Her compositions meld organic and synthetic textures, field recordings, analog synthesis, polyrhythmic density, and sub-bass frequencies that viscerally push and pull the audience. Her works shift between dense visceral intensity and intentional, organic minimalism. Of Lur ancestral lineage, her practice is rooted in eco-feminine thought, mythology, decolonization, and interspecies dialogue. She has performed and exhibited at ArsElectronica, MUTEK.JP, Times Square, Vancouver New Music, and Vancouver International Jazz Festival, among others. Her work has been recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts and published in the IEEE journal. She finds community in diversity.