Much of my recent work deals with the issue of reappropriation. Where do we get our ideas? What do we owe, if anything, to our sources of inspiration? Historically, composers have stolen ideas from each other regularly, reworking these into…
Much of my recent work deals with the issue of reappropriation. Where do we get our ideas? What do we owe, if anything, to our sources of inspiration? Historically, composers have stolen ideas from each other regularly, reworking these into…
Love in the Time of Connectivity is a collage. In fact, even the title is a collage: I took the title of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, and combined it with a reference to the…
Only a small part of music is actually about sound. The majority of music-making has to do with social interactions more than anything else. Music fulfills certain functions (usually pre-determined) within certain social situations, or serves as a replacement for…
Jackhammer Lullaby is an arrangement of Community-Normed, which was commissioned by the Continuum Ensemble in Toronto in 2008. I’ve become increasingly interested in presenting pieces in multiple versions and combinations. Jackhammer Lullaby, with a few changes, is also the middle…
This piece is based on the sound of the word shit in twelve different languages. It travels from west to east geographically across the world. The languages were chosen either because I speak them, or because I could find a…
Culture no.3 is the last in a series of pieces that deals with the ways that modern popular culture can inform Western art music. More specifically, Culture no.3 is involved in exploring the interrelation between the visceral elements of popular…
Why call a piece Nothing? Well, in a word, curiosity—most of my music has as its theme the question, “What happens if…?” At the time I was writing Nothing (winter 2004), I was bothered by the almost total reliance on…
The title of the piece is in reference to an argument between two of the composer’s friends, regarding the meaning of form in new music. The piece explores this question musically: is it in ternary form or not?