FEATURE ARTICLES

Barry Truaxby Jerry Pergolesi

Article Summary:In this interview with Barry Truax he discusses the role that gay sexuality plays in his music. For Truax, the process of integrating his sexual identity into his work was as gradual as his own coming out at thirty years old. By using homoerotic texts in vocal and drama-based musical forms, he has been able to bring lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and queer identities into his work. He likens the process of incorporating his sexual identity into his work to the process of using real-world sound and working with the listener's relationship to that sound-a process he uses in soundscape composition.

Urbanvessel and Juliet Palmerby Jonny Dovercourt

Article Summary:Toronto-based interdisciplinary group Urbanvessel creates performance works rooted in the sounds and spaces of the urban environment. The personnel of the collective often changes with each production, only composer Juliet Palmer remaining constant. Their works often explore socio-political themes. Slip, a piece staged in a public swimming pool known locally as a refuge for homeless men, commented on personal hygiene. And Stitch, their Dora Award-nominated production, revolved around the dehumanizing nature of the garment industry. But can culture effect social change? Despite urban trends that indicate it cannot, Urbanvessel continues to create and produce performance works rooted in the sounds and spaces of the urban environment. Their latest work, Voice-Box, which premiered November 2010 in Toronto at Harbourfront Centre's World Stage, is a full-on face-off between a cappella music and physical movement set in the world of women's boxing.

Swedish Sound Artby Julian Cowley

Article Summary:The recent resurgence of the sound art and electroacoustic music scene in Sweden has been characterized by an expansiveness that accommodates diverse approaches and various techniques and visions. Nadine Byrne, Mattias Petersson, and Henrik Rylander are three artists who come from disparate backgrounds, have differing kinds of technical know-how, and differing aesthetic concerns and priorities. Byrne has trained in fine art and Petersson in formal musical composition, while Rylander's background is in alternative rock, noise, and photography. The breadth represented by their creative work is an indication of the vitality of the current Swedish scene, its openness and inclusive nature. Digital technology has been a crucial enabling factor in recent developments, but so has an elastic definition of sound art, which is stimulating imaginative work that might be stifled by the imposition of some more rigorous aesthetic taxonomy.

PROFILE

Kyle Brendersby Stuart Broomer

Stuart Broomer traces saxophonist-composer Kyle Brenders' musical development, with comments by the musician, from his first experiences in traditional dance bands through studies with increasingly experimental musicians who introduced him to free improvisation and contemporary compositional practices. The Toronto-based musician expresses his preference for music that lies between genres, subverting genre and mutating as it develops. He emphasizes the input of performers into the compositional process and discusses both the variety of inspirations and the number of approaches evident in his current work.

SOUND NOTES

Sonic Geography: Musician and Musicworks editor Micheline Roi takes readers on a sonic journey inside Toronto's G20 protests.

COMMENTARY: Gayle Young, writer and musician, challenges readers to listen to music and sound outside their comfort zones.

SOUND BITE: Writer Jason van Eyk profiles Amsterdam-based Canadian composer Graham Flett.

IN THE WORKS: Israeli-born electroacoustic composer, Eldad Tsabary, talks to musician Nick Storring about the making of his work Tikkun Nefesh and his desire to bring people, religion, and musical genres together.

VISIONS OF SOUND features Paul Steenhuisen's and dECOi Architects' interactive kinetic display, Hyposurface.

DIY: Our resident techie, Rob Cruickshank teaches us how to build a tone generator-the building block of every synthesizer for under $10!