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The upcoming celebration of Steve Reich’s music at Koerner Hall on October 6 feels epic–  the return to Toronto of a master who has been visiting the city since 1976. At that time, I was an undergraduate composition student at the University of Toronto, and we were treated to a master class with Reich that I will never forget – mesmerized as I listened to him talk about a different way of approaching music, about slowing down one’s perception of the musical changes that were taking place.  

He gave the example of a Bach fugue: things happen so quickly that it can be difficult to hear everything in the midst of the complexity unfolding, especially with just one listen. Reich was exploring another way of composing: using processes such as what he called “phasing” to allow musical changes to evolve gradually over time. The result was a different way of listening and of becoming aware. Those are my words, but that’s how I understood what he was saying, and it has stayed with me ever since. As has the memory of the spontaneous eruption of applause and cheers after the performance of Drumming during that 1976 concert, everyone rising en masse to their feet. The excitement was palpable.  

The 1970s were a heady time of exploration, laying the groundwork for much of what we experience as normal in today’s contemporary music scene. 

I wrote more about that first encounter with Reich’s music, and the influence he has had on Toronto’s music scene in The WholeNote, Vol. 21, No. 7, April 2016. The story was called “In Step with Time” and he was here at Soundstreams’s invitation on the occasion of his 80th birthday. 

And here he is back again continuing his lifetime of composing, performing, and influencing generations of musicians. There is something extraordinary for me in that 50-year arc: from sitting as a young composition student listening to Reich describe a radically different way of hearing music, to being present half a century later as Toronto celebrates a lifetime of music that grew from that spirit of exploration. 

So yes, I can’t wait to mark this moment in time by getting to hear his mesmerizing music again.

Oct 6 7:30: Soundstreams/Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Celebrating Steve Reich at 90. Steve Reich: In All Your Ways for 14 instruments (North American premiere); Music for 18 Musicians; Clapping Music (special presentation featuring Russell Hartenberger). Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. W. 

For Rebecca Hass, land, story, song, and a blanket are the key ingredients in The Song Blanket, which came to the University of Western Ontario on September 25, and University of Toronto on September 29. As the culmination of years-long journey to retrace her Métis heritage, Hass’s self-dubbed “theatrical gathering” challenges the expectations of the traditional recital format, blurring the lines between performer and audience to ask the question: what does it mean to live on this land, and how is that relationship expressed through music and objects?

Following workshops and performances in Mexico City, Ithaca (NY), and New York City, Hass’ shows in London and Toronto were a homecoming of sorts, with her Métis roots being in Georgian Bay. The show’s traversing journey across the continent mirrors Hass’ life and career; after spending her formative years in Ontario, she has performed at almost every major opera company in Canada and currently focuses on her roles as a storyteller, curator, coach, and Director of Engagement and New Work at Pacific Opera Victoria. 

Justin Gray’s achievements are globally recognized and lauded. In February of this year, the Canadian musician and producer won a Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album for his record Immersed, an epic work that features 38 artists from around the world.  Justin composed the music and recorded, mixed and produced the album in Dolby Atmos, which offers listeners a heightened experience, placing them at the heart of a 360-degree orchestra. 

As a mix engineer, mastering engineer and producer, he’s worked on the albums of a multitude of artists in a wide range of musical styles, and inspires a future generation through teaching audio production, performance and composition at Humber College. In 2022 he won a JUNO for Group Jazz Album of the Year with the band Avataar, where he performed as the group’s bassist and worked as the producer and mastering engineer of the album.

His award-winning status notwithstanding, he continues to be the level-headed and even-tempered individual that I worked with in the Graduate Program in Music at York University, generously sharing throughout his interview, with great depth and reflective detail, lessons he has learned along the way. It never ceases to amaze me how the blossoming of even highly complex creativity can be anchored to a few simple yet profound truths: preparation, taking one thing at a time, and letting go. Or in the recurring language of these interviews – Calming the Mind, Organizing Thoughts and the State of Flow.  

"The basic idea of a nanosonata is a form in which different elements come together as they do in a sonata, but do not develop. Instead of developing, they are left hanging, something like the characters that frequently appear in Tolstoy, who are described in a few words in a way that makes it clear that a whole book could be written about them, but isn’t." — Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021)

The story so far: From promising mainstage opera to theatrical minefield: Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek’s operatic adaptation of Thomas King’s novel Indians on Vacation was caught in the cultural crossfire when King’s assertion of Cherokee lineage was confirmed to be false in November 2025.