Features

In my previous WholeNote story, I wrote about the three-day Keyed-Up Festival, produced by Soundstreams, which ran from April 18-20. I was fortunate to attend two of the three concerts, both of which featured captivating displays of multiple keyboards on stage. The April 20 concert was particularly striking, with six grand pianos all lined up to perform works by composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley and André Ristic. One performer who navigated with remarkable ease amongst the black and white keys was pianist, music director and concert programmer Gregory Oh.

Beginning in the early 1970s I began a series of nature sound-walks, field expeditions, interspecies sonic meditations, explorations and mediated threshold music performances. They eventually coalesced under the banner “Frog Bog.”  Its novelty attracted media attention back then. I took musicians on Frog Bog sound fieldwalks, and played my field recordings in concert halls in music and modern dance settings. Excerpts found their way onto albums, like the 1981 Jon Hassell and Brian Eno track These Times.

“Calypso is the most important music in the world,”

...says musician Jesse Ryan of the music originating in the twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. We talk via screens as I interview him for this article.

The sound of trumpets bookended a wonderful Koerner Hall May 23 evening that balanced solemnity, joyful retrospect, and reflections on a professional life well lived. The occasion: the retirement of Dr. Peter Simon following an extraordinary career as President & CEO of The Royal Conservatory of Music.

Anderson, April 5

On April 5th, Koerner Hall and the 21C Music Festival welcomed back Laurie Anderson, a return visit that skillfully wove together pieces spanning the many decades of her career, while offering a glimpse into future possibilities that AI technology offers. The evening began with From the Air, a track from her 1982 album Big Science, with Anderson's evocative voice delivering instructions as an airplane pilot guiding passengers through a crash landing. This piece set a tone: we were in for a ride with wild bumps along the way. Early on, Anderson shared an anecdote about Yoko Ono's response to Donald Trump's election in 2016, a tweet of a long, extended scream. She invited everyone to join her in a ten-second collective scream for whatever issues weighed on our minds: wars, genocides, climate collapse. Another reminder of life’s fragilities and contradictions came with her performance of one of my favourites: O Superman, also from the Big Science album. The piece contrasts being held in a mother’s arms with other types of arms—military and petrochemical arms, performed while multi-shaped hand silhouettes flashed on the screen.