Tag: toca loca

This year is off to a busy start, with two pre­mières in Feb. One is a col­lage piece based on love songs, for the orkest de ereprijs in Hol­land. The other piece, for soprano and speak­ing pianist, is based on spam email texts and is being pre­mièred in Toronto’s SHIFT Fes­ti­val by pianist Greg Oh and soprano Xin Wang.

In addi­tion, I’m work­ing on a piece for Brazilian-Canadian pianist, Luciane Car­dassi, which will involve elec­tron­ics and her voice (in addi­tion to her piano play­ing). I’m also work­ing on a col­lab­o­ra­tive mul­ti­me­dia piece with Amsterdam-based flautist/composer Anne La Berge.

Lastly, after a suc­cess­ful pre­mière in Banff last month, I’m putting together mate­ri­als based on Recy­cled 80s Live, which will be acces­si­ble here once they’re ready. I’m cur­rently in the plan­ning phases for an even­tual tour of the piece; details TBA as they become avail­able.

Instru­men­ta­tion: pno, pno, perc, performers’ speak­ing voices
Dura­tion: Vari­able, 3’00–15’00
Com­mis­sioned by Toca Loca with assis­tance from the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts
mp3 listen to Cul­ture no.2 (or, Shoot Like a Film Star)
Per­form­ers: Toca Loca: Gre­gory Oh – piano, Simon Dock­ing – piano, Aiyun Huang – percussion
Pro­gramme Note

This is the middle piece in my Cul­ture series, which is an explo­ration of the effects that today’s cul­tural con­text has on making our music what it is. The text for the piece is taken from a junk e-mail mes­sage—cer­tainly among the more recent of lit­er­ary genres. It attracted me because it is com­posed entirely of mono­syl­labic words, with no rep­e­ti­tion; a kind of het­ero­ge­neous stream that strikes me as contemporary.

The middle sec­tion of the piece is inde­ter­mi­nate or open: the per­form­ers decide how the musi­cal mate­ri­als will be pre­sented. This is also some­thing that I take from the Cul­ture theme, because the mul­ti­plic­ity of pos­si­bil­i­ties, end­less var­ie­ga­tion, and the impos­si­bil­ity of find­ing “right” answers seem to me impor­tant cul­tural prob­lems today.

16 Mar 2008
Tags: , , ,

Première of a new work written for Toca Loca

8:00pm, Convocation Hall, Arts Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Canada
Admission: $20/$15/$10
www.ualberta.ca/music    
18 Mar 2008
Tags: , , ,

Per­for­mance of a new work writ­ten for Toca Loca.

12:45pm, Eva Clare Hall, Faculty of Music
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Canada
Admission: Free
www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/music    
25 Mar 2008
Tags: , , ,

Performance of a new work written for Toca Loca.

8:00pm, Glenn Gould Studio, CBC Building
250 Front Street West (map)
Toronto, Canada
Tel: 416.205.5555 | Admission: $20/$15
www.glenngouldstudio.cbc.ca/onstage    
26 Mar 2008
Tags: , , ,

Performance of a new work written for Toca Loca.

7:00pm, The Music Room
6181 Lady Hammond Road (map)
Halifax, Canada
Tel: 902.429.9467 | Admission: $15/$10
1 Apr 2008
Tags: , , ,

Performance of a new work written for Toca Loca.

8:00pm, Tanna Schulich Hall
527 Sherbrooke Street West (map)
Montréal, Canada
Admission: $5
www.mcgill.ca/music/events