New Music

SOUNDING CULTURAL DIALOGUES

One thread running through many of this fall’s new music events is the way artists are engaging with the larger social and historical realities around them. Questions of war and peace, cultural identity, gender, ancestry and whose voices are heard emerge in programs that also cross geographical and artistic boundaries, including the formats they are presented in.

Livestream is one such format – one we became accustomed to during the pandemic, and now becoming entrenched as a way of extending geographic boundaries far beyond the location where the actual production is taking place. A couple of examples of this caught my eye.

Well worth exploring, indoors and out

For this summer stroll, I’ll take you on a reader’s tour of musical events that seem well worth exploring, starting outdoors in Toronto, cycling through several festivals, and returning to Toronto for the Labour Day weekend.

Summer Music in the Garden: I’ll begin with three outdoor performances that caught my eye in Harbourfront’s Summer Music in the Garden series, once again co-curated by Gregory Oh and Rebecca Cuddy. The series runs most Thursdays and Sundays all summer, including several concerts with premieres of works commissioned by HarbourfronT for the series.

Lamentations - War and the music of Anna Pidgorna

May 9 is Soundstreams’ final concert of their season, titled In Terra Pax (Peace on Earth) – described as a powerful and timely reflection on war, loss and resilience, curated by Vancouver-based Ukrainian-Canadian composer, vocalist and multi-media artist, Anna Pidgorna (winner of Soundstreams’ New Voices Curator Mentorship Program).

A MASS FOR THE ENDANGERED LEADS THE WAY

As the concert season shifts toward winter, Toronto’s new music scene is gathering momentum with a rich constellation of performances from four of the city’s core presenters. Among the many offerings, one work stands out for the way it merges spiritual form with ecological urgency: Mass for the Endangered by composer Sarah Kirkland Snider. The piece will be performed on November 22 in a Soundstreams concert that also features works by Andrew Balfour, R. Murray Schafer, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, and Chris Hutchings. I recently spoke with Snider by phone about the piece and her current projects.

New Voices, Intimate Venues - THE ART OF IMPROV AT ANNETTE

Now that the fall season has arrived, it’s a good time to dig into what’s new on the horizon, especially in venues that may be less familiar but offer unique possibilities for creative music-making. One such place in Toronto’s west end is the Annette Studios, which will host The Art of Improv on September 28, a series launched in 2023 by musicians Bill Gilliam and Eugene Martynec.