Musicworks

Musicworks is a triannual arts magazine that explores innovative artists, ideas, and events in music and sound art, from a diversity of perspectives and places. Founded in Toronto in 1978 by notable music experimenters, Musicworks has remained a cornerstone of Canada’s creative-music scene while evolving into a genre-fluid magazine that connects artist, programming, educational, and audience communities across Turtle Island and around the world through its publication and outreach activities. 

Read If You Like: James Tenney, Tanya Tagaq, Sam Shalabi, Kris Davis, Sarah Hennies, Anthony Braxton, Maria De Alvear, Levy Lorenzo, Jean Derome, Cassandra Miller, Colin Stetson, Roscoe Mitchell, New Hermitage, Du Yun, John Oswald, Senyawa, Pauline Oliveros, Tim Hecker, Maria Chávez, Jeremy Dutcher, Gayle Young, Eric Chenaux, Debby Friday, Frank Denyer, Pamela Z, Quatuor Bozzini, Lido Pimienta, Gordon Grdina, Sarah Davachi, Geronimo Inutiq, Linda Catlin Smith, SlowPitchSound, Allison Cameron, New Age Doom.

Summer is the time of storm chasing and loop dreams, as you'll discover in Musicworks 151.

Rémy Bélanger de Beauport creates communities of experimental music and soundmakers in Quebec. Lola de la Mata invents instruments and makes experimental music that explore tinnitus. The koto—a plucked, zither-like instrument from Japan—is being liberated from Asian traditions by modern players such as Michiyo Yagi, Sarah Pagé, and Hiroko Nagai .Yoo Doo Right is one of the most formidable post-rock groups in Montreal. Kathryn Patricia Cobbler composes and explores improvisation on the loop-pedal viola. Edzi'u is a Tahltan and Tlingit artist explores stories and sounds of the past with future-forward ideas and technology.

 

We interview Rocío Cano Valiño, whose composition Intortus is the first-place winner of the 2024 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest. We profile the ambitious, artist-forward Nova Scotia new classical label Leaf Music. We review the 2025 Women from Space festival, the book A Year of Deep Listening: 365 Text Scores for Pauline Oliveros, and a bunch of new recordings.