Artists

Yukon, Canada

Aimée Dawn Robinson

I bring wild spaces, the conceptual, and the feminine to embodied performance practices. I’m a dancer. I’m also a visual artist, writer, performer, researcher, musician, theatre-maker, teacher, producer, curator.

I have 29 years of Canadian and international performance experience, focused on improvised dance, in collaboration with others, solo, and with Nature. Recently, I played a role in the award-winning dystopic full-length feature film, Polaris, written and directed by KC Carthew, coming soon to Crave.

I’ve lived in the Yukon for 11 years, mostly in rural, bush, and off-grid cabins on horse ranches, trapline homebases, and in old river valleys. I’m very grateful to live and work on the lands of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council, and Carcross/Tagish First Nation.

Last year I started my PhD with IMPR remotely from the Yukon, and now continue in-person in Guelph!

I’m delighted to be able to participate in IF 2023.

Guelph

Audiopollination Guelph Performances (Rebroadcast)

For IF 2023, Audiopollination Guelph will be providing rebroadcasts of some of their excellent improvisational jam events, featuring performances by:

• Riley Claire Sato, Piers Oolvai, and Connor Kurtz (February 3, 2023)
• Nico, Lucas Dvorsky, and Nick Zubeck (September 13, 2023)
• Doomsday Glitter Posse (February 3, 2023)

Ontario, Canada

Ben Finley

Ben Finley is a performer-composer specializing in the bass. He performs in various creative ensembles and composes music that engages with co-creation, improvisation and environmental connections. He is the Creative Director of Westben’s Performer-Composer Residency and is undertaking a PhD in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph.

Beverly Glenn-Copeland & Jeremy Dutcher w/ Errol Nazareth, In Conversation (Rebroadcast)

This conversation between composition legend Beverly Glenn-Copeland, 2018 Polaris Prize winner Jeremy Dutcher, and CBC’s Errol Nazareth was originally broadcast by Wavelength Festival in April 2022. Thank you to Wavelength for allowing us to rebroadcast this special conversation as part of our IF 2023 overnight programming, broadcast via CFRU 93.3 FM.

Singapore

CHOPPA Experimental Electronic Music Festival Performers

For IF 2023, LASALLE College of the Arts is showcasing a variety of performances from their CHOPPA Experimental Electronic Music Festival, which took place in September, 2023. Performers include:

Gyoza

Gyoza fill time and space with a myriad of timbres and textures with the manipulation of live instruments and synthesizers through the use of effects. Applying free improvisational techniques, this trio creates moments in time that are only specific to each performance.

George Chua

George Chua is a multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore, active since the late nineties. As an explorer of the other worldly potential of sound, he has no interest in developing a singular style or genre of music. Apart from his solo work and performances, his collaborative interests include live improvisation with sound, unconventional strategies for soundtracks and sound design for film and theatre. He has created music for the film/video works of Kent Tan, Robert Zhao And Ho Tzu Nyen among many others luminaries in the art scene. He has been using the modular synth since 2014 and in 2016 He performed in Tokyo Festival of Modular. Ujikaji Records releases his latest album Smokescreen on vinyl in 2020.

Dad Bots Collective

The DadBots Collective is a group dedicated to exploring the boundaries between installation performance, video art and modular synthesis. Consisting of former musicians, artists, and filmmakers, they have been responsible for the nonsensical series of shows known as Patchwerk. Apart from running shows and pretending to be arty, the core trio of the collective have also come together as a video/sound unit to explore what it means to play in an analog band armed with energizer tech bunnies.

Dirk Johan Stromberg / Brian O’Reilly / Yong Yandsen

Dirk Johan Stromberg is a production professional and performance researcher. His work focuses on the intersection of design, technology, and improvisation. His vertical integration approach to production has led to innovative Virtual Reality telematic spaces, large-scale installation works, and new instruments which have been used in performance in shows throughout Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia.

Brian O’Reilly works within the fields of electro-acoustic composition, sound installations, moving images and noise music. Also, he is a contrabassist focusing on uncovering his instrument’s inaudible textures and hidden acoustic microsounds through the integration of electronic treatments and extended playing techniques.

Yong Yandsen is a free jazz and improvised saxophonist from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Yandsen has released albums through XingWu and Herbal Records in Malaysia, Utech Records (USA), Dream Sheep (Italy), and his solo debut on vinyl through Doubtful Sound (France). He has played at allEars Improvised Music Festival (Norway), Asian Meeting Festival (Japan), Mosaic Music Festival (Singapore), amongst others.

Kenny and Patrick

ANTIWIRA

ANTIWIRA, an experimental trio forged and led by Eswandy Sarip, Azman Salim and Raihan Sapari since 2018. Serving intense dynamics by merging influences and genres ranging from Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Shaeffer, Autechre to Earth and Sunn O))). First debuted in mid 2018 as a band with session musicians followed by a performance with contemporary dancer, Ruby Jayaseelan in early 2019 and an invitational show at Kissing Dragonflies in Koh Pha-ngan, Thailand.

ORRA

Join ORRA on their sonic odyssey as they weave a tapestry of raw, unfiltered emotions through the boundless possibilities of noise music. This four-piece ensemble delves deep into the human psyche, harnessing the power of technology and the depths of creativity to craft aural experiences that will be sure to resonate with their audience.

mingzxc x PandaMachine

Having known each other since their days as LASALLE students, mingzxc and PandaMachine return yet again for a brand new collaborative and improvised effort for CHOPPA 2023. Since graduating, both individuals have worked together on multiple projects (CHOPPA 2019, video game music, curating electronic music gigs) and thoroughly explored their identities as Electronic Musicians.

The theme of their upcoming set is ‘JUNGLE’ — where mingzxc will be using his background as a drummer to perform electronic beats live, while PandaMachine puts together a modular synthesis patch based on synthesized instruments and creative looping.

Andy Chia / Natalie Alexandra Tse / Christoven Tan

Andy Chia is a leading flutist/wind player, talented artist, renowned producer, and innovative artistic director. He has dedicated his career to exploring the intersection of humans, nature, and technology, seeking a harmonious, unified existence between the three on our planet. He is the co-founder(along with Natalie) and resident artist of SAtheCollective Ltd.

Dr. Natalie Alexandra Tse is a performer, educator, researcher whose practice as an experimental improviser has led her towards researching into babies’ sonic play through her doctoral studies and motherhood. As a guzheng (Chinese zither) performer, she has been experimenting with sonic experiences through extended techniques, creating different textures, ambience and emotions evoked through her instrument.

Christoven Tan, is a contemporary artist with a passion for constant redefinition of viola performance and the artist, himself. Christoven researches contemporary performance practice alongside a visual arts practice.

Ontario, Canada

Dancetheatre David Earle  

David Earle is a Canadian trailblazer, a master choreographer and teacher, and a cultural icon. He is driven by a desire to create enduring repertoire and preserve his now unique dance language.  

Since 2001, Dancetheatre David Earle has been creating space for dance artists within Guelph’s vibrant arts community, delivering workshops, classes, and creating dance works to be performed across the country and around the world. 

This IF 2023 ensemble will feature the following the following performers: Michael English, Evadne Kelly, Sarah McQueston, Jenna Oxley, and Georgia Simms.

Daniel Lanois, Elaquent, and Nels Cline Singers (Rebroadcast)

Thank you to Hillside and UC Programming for contributing “Now & Then: Colossal Jam IV,” featuring Daniel Lanois, Elaquent, and Nels Cline Singers, from Hillside Festival 2015 for rebroadcast as part of the IF 2023 overnight programming, available via CFRU 93.3 FM!

Minnesota, USA

Douglas R. Ewart

The polymathic Douglas R. Ewart has been honored for his work as a composer, improvising multi-instrumentalist, conceptual artist, sculptor, mask and instrument designer, builder and more.  As an educator, Ewart bridges his kaleidoscopic activities with a vision that opposes today’s divided world by culture-fusing works that aim to restore the wholeness of communities and their members, and to emphasize the reality of the world’s interdependence. 

From Kingston, Jamaica, Ewart immigrated to Chicago in 1963. There he studied with the master musicians of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians—an organization he later served as chairman, at different intervals from1979-1987 and into the millennium. He also studied music at VanderCook College of Music, and electronic music at Governors State University. 

Ewart is the founder of Arawak Records, is the leader of ensembles such as the Nyahbingi Drum Choir, Quasar, Clarinet Choir, and Douglas R. Ewart & Inventions. He is a designer and creator of instruments and kinetic sonic sculptures that have been exhibited in venues such as Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago. “Crepuscule,” his vast periodic conceptual work, is collectively actualized by scores of musicians, dancers, visual artists, poets, capoeira, puppeteers, martial artists, activists, the honoring of elders and more. Ewart’s honors include a U.S. Japan Creative Arts Fellowship, a Bush Artists Fellowship, and an Outstanding Artist Award granted by a former Chicago Mayor, Harold Washington. He is a Professor Emeritus at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. 

Michigan, USA

Ed Sarath

Ed Sarath is Professor of Music in Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan. Active as performer, composer, author, and educational innovator, he is also Director of U-M’s Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies and President of the International Society for Improvised Music. His CD New Beginnings features the London Jazz Orchestra performing his large ensemble compositions; most recent compositional work includes His Day is Done for symphony orchestra, choir and soloists, performed in South Africa and Brazil in 2022–23. Most recent book is Music Studies and its Moment of Truth (Routledge, 2023).  

Guelph

Guelph Comedy Festival Performers

For IF 2023, the Guelph Comedy Festival is providing a fabulous romp of audio comedy during our overnight programming (2am–7am ET), available via CFRU!

This “Show within a Show,” Hosted by Kate Ethier, will featuring a selection of audio comedy pieces, including works by:

• Jackie Pirico
• Emily Vance, as read by Kate Ethier
• Renee and Charissa (excerpt of Worst Responders on CFRU 93.3)
• Rob Lewin (of Comedy Sketch Town)

Be sure to learn more about the wonderful Guelph Comedy Festival on their website!

California, USA

Hafez Modirzadeh

Hafez Modirzadeh’s work is global in scope and highly collaborative in nature. As a Pi Recordings artist and Professor of Creative Music at SF State University, over the past three decades, the influence of his original concepts – such as chromodality, aural archetypes, compost music, and convergence liberation – has galvanized innovative performance practices that extend beyond any one discipline, genre or generation. Most recently, Modirzadeh’s acclaimed “Facets” (PI 87) has taken explorations in resonance towards “an entirely new mode of expression” (Chicago Reader), with “a feeling of rich uncertainty” (New York Times) that serves as a “blueprint for pancultural parity” (Downbeat).

Ontario, Canada

jashen edwards

jashen’s research centers around students’ sonic lifeworlds—sound currents streaming at home, school, on the streets and cyberspace—examining how sonic encounters may be a conduit and catalyst for creative critical consciousness. Drawing upon the fields of archaeoacoustics, sound studies, and sensuous scholarship, his work seeks to draw connections between music education and social justice arts education through the phenomenon of sound.

He has worked in PK-12 schools, colleges and universities, juvenile detention centers and homeless shelters in San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, Berlin, Deutschland and London, ON. jashen has published and presented his research internationally and is co-founder of Sound, Meaning, Education (SME).  Presently, jashen is a in post-doctoral fellow at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI). He has earned a Ph.D. in music education from Western University, an MA in music education from Northwestern and a BA in music (composition) from the University of California, Berkeley.

jashen is co-organizing the Sound, Meaning, Education conference that is taking place in conjunction with IF 2023 at the University of Guelph (Oct. 20–22). To learn more and to register for the conference, visit their website.

Mexico

Jerónimo Naranjo & Milo Tamez

Batería Suspendida

The “Suspended Drum Set” is a sound installation that reinterprets one of the most emblematic instruments of the last 100 years: the drum set. Conceived by artist and composer Jerónimo Naranjo, with the intention of generating a collaboration with percussionist Milo Tamez, this work transcends conventional barriers of music and art, offering an unprecedented exploration of the inherent sonic and sensorial richness of its components.

Jerónimo Naranjo is a Mexican composer, inventor of instruments, and sound installations. He began his piano studies at the age of 9 at the Faculty of Music of the UNAM, where he later studied composition with various teachers such as Julio Estrada and Ulises Ramírez. He has composed chamber music, electroacoustic music, music for film, dance, and theater, collaborating with various performing artists such as Yuko Kaseki, Carmina Escobar, Dorian Wood, Kozue Mtsumoto, and Andrea Hackl, among others.

Drummer/composer Milo Tamez has been a leading voice in the advancement of creative drumming expression for decades in México. He adapts a wide background in percussive languages and artistic perspective to find his own place within the American Drumming paradigm. Tamez’s percussive thinking transcends the limits of linear rhythm thinking. Milo ́s work is musicological. He works as a practicing musical historian, tracing rhythm dialects through the cultural migrational paths that shaped their evolution. His solo works are an authentic historical review of 20th Century percussion music within a deep orientation to diasporic drumming intertwining diverse forms ranging from free style drumming to intricate timelines abundant in polymetric and micro rhythmic compositional cadences.

Ontario, Canada

Jesse Stewart

Jesse Stewart is an award-winning composer, percussionist, artist, educator, and community arts worker dedicated to reimagining the spaces between artistic and academic disciplines, and to fostering healthy communities through the arts. In 2012, he was honoured with the “Instrumental Album of the Year” Juno award for his work with genre-defying trio Stretch Orchestra. In 2014, he was named to the Order of Ottawa. 

In addition to his performance with Douglas R. Ewart, Jesse Stewart will be presenting and performing with an interactive sound installation titled Going Going Gong, which will be in the ImprovLab lobby.

You are invited to engage with the work by moving within the field of view of the iPad, which is running the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) software developed by the AUMI-Consortium of which Stewart is a member. The software detects motion and converts it into electrical impulses (known as MIDI signals) that are sent to mechanical strikers that play gongs in response to your movements. Please note that there is no need to touch the installation. All you need to do is move.

You can play with Going Going Gong anytime throughout IF 2023. Jesse Stewart will be performing the installation at 8:45pm on Friday, Oct. 20, and at 8:30am on Saturday, Oct. 21.

Ontario, Canada

Judith Thompson

Judith Clare Thompson is a Canadian playwright and theatre-maker who lives in Toronto, Ontario. She has twice been awarded the Governor General’s Award for drama. As well, she received the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for a female playwright writing in English and is proud to have won the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. She is the Artistic Director of Rare Theatre, a company dedicated to creating theatre with under-represented communities.

N. Ireland

Kevin Murphy

Cork musician Kevin Murphy is a member of Irish band Interference and his own cello based instrumental project with Thomas Haugh, Seti The First. Their debut album “Flower of There or Thereabouts” was released in 2011. Kevin was a founding member of Dublin based band Igloo in the late 1990s and has also worked with Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode), Andrew Phillpott (Depeche Mode and The Broad Bean Band), Nine Wassies from Bainne, Adrian Crowley, Valerie Francis and Norah Belle among others.

This pre-recorded IF 2023 performance is presented by the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC).

Odanak First Nation

Mali Obomsawin

MALI OBOMSAWIN (they/she) is an award winning bassist, songwriter and composer from Abenaki First Nation at Odanak. With an expansive background in American roots, rock, and jazz, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. Mali’s debut album Sweet Tooth has received international acclaim since its release (Out of Your Head Records 2022), including rave reviews and “best of 2022” placement in The Guardian, JazzTimes, and NPR. A Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist, they spent the years 2014-2021 touring internationally with beloved folk-rock band Lula Wiles. An in-demand bassist in the folk and jazz circuits, Mali appears often as an accompanist with contemporaries like Jake Blount and Lizzie No, and has performed at premier festivals like Newport and Philly Folk Fest. She can also be found in galleries and creative music spaces with the likes of Peter Apfelbaum, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble. In addition to their artistic work, Obomsawin is a community organizer dedicated to land justice and tribal sovereignty. 

Mali received the 2022 International Folk Music Association’s “Rising Tide Award,” which honours young artists who embody the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice. They also received the New England Foundation of the Arts’ “New Work New England” award in 2022. Mali is a member of The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band and Indigenous Performance Productions’ Welcome To Indian Country. As a composer-arranger, they scored the upcoming film “We Are The Warriors,” collaborated with Red Sky Performance and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Palaver Strings. Beyond the stage Mali is a community organizer and advocate for Indigenous rights, environmental justice and landback. She works as a writer and educator with the Wabanaki-led Sunlight Media Collective to document and promote stories at the intersection of environmental justice and Tribal sovereignty. Her journalism has been published recently in Smithsonian, National Performance Network, and the Boston Globe. In 2020, Mali co-founded Bomazeen Land Trust, the first ever Wabanaki land trust, where she currently serves as executive director. 

For the IF 2023 performance, the Mali Obomsawin quartet will feature Mali Obomsawin, Magdalena Abrego, Allison Burik, and Mili Hong.

Quebec, Canada

Marianne Trudel & John Hollenbeck

A piano, a drum set, a thousand ideas. The happy and highly creative encounter of pianist and composer Marianne Trudel with world renowned drummer and composer John Hollenbeck. An electrifying, fascinating, enveloping duo! 

Dédé Java Espiritu project plunges the listener into an infinite panorama of colours and grooves inspired by nature. This concert celebrates beauty, the ephemeral, intuition, mystery, and life. Marianne Trudel offers up a whole new cycle of compositions that are both pared down and refined, mysterious and enticing . . . where catchy grooves, enchanting melodies, surprising sonorities, and joyous spontaneity go hand in hand. Fabulous!

Marianne Trudel is a multi-talented pianist, composer, improvisor, and arranger. A generous and engaging artist, a veritable powerhouse in Quebec and Canada’s instrumental music scene, Marianne Trudel has presented multiple artistic projects that not only bring her considerable skills to the fore but also her keen sense of creativity. At once energetic and passionate, her music cross-cuts a wide swath of musical interests. Her moving, spellbinding music is not easily labelled, one of its many strengths. At once sophisticated and catchy, authentic and unique. As a performer, she pursues an active career in a variety of settings ranging from solo performance to: Trudel-Young, Trifolia, Marianne Trudel 4 + Ingrid Jensen, Trudel-Hollenbeck, septet, and large ensembles. She has presented her music in various countries: Canada, United States, Mexico, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Italy, Hungary, Lituania, and China. She has published 9 recordings as a leader, all having garnered rave reviews and numerous nominations and awards.

John Hollenbeck is a drummer and percussionist possessed of a playful versatility and a virtuosic wit. Most of all, a musical thinker – whether putting pen to paper or conjuring spontaneous sound allergic to repetition, forever seeking to surprise himself and his audiences. Hollenbeck’s awards and honors include five GRAMMY nominations; the 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the 2010 ASCAP Jazz Vanguard Award and a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2015, he joined the faculty of McGill University’s Schulich School of Music (Montreal, Canada). “…there’s nothing quite like hearing the terrific array of colors and contrasts he has crafted over the course of 11 CDs as a leader of both large and small ensembles.” Downbeat (2012). 

California, USA

Marshall Trammell

Marshall Ryan Trammell is a self-styled Music Research Strategist working in the areas of  community informatics, digital archives curation praxelogies, and critical Creative Music. 

He performs with White People Killed Them (SIGE), In Defense of Memory, Western Ghats (Branch Dravidian), Black Fighting Formations, Tremble Trove (Artifact Records) and more.  

N. Ireland

Matilde Meireles

Matilde Meireles is a sound artist who makes use of field recordings to compose site-oriented projects. She investigates the potential of listening across spectrums as ways to encounter and articulate a plural experience of the world—human and otherwise. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Oxford in the project Sonorous Cities: Towards a Sonic Urbanism.

This pre-recorded IF 2023 performance is presented by the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC).

Ontario, Canada

Matthew Endahl

I’m a pianist, composer and educator, currently based in Guelph, ON. From 2013 to 2022 I lived in Nashville, TN where I played in groups led by Jeff Coffin, Joel Frahm, Chester Thompson, Dara Tucker, Rahsaan Barber, Marcus Finnie, and many others. I’ve shared the stage with legendary figures like Jimmy Heath, Henry Grimes, David Liebman, Duffy Jackson, Jane Ira Bloom, Arthur Blythe, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Marcus Belgrave, Roger Humphries, Dave Douglas, Nicolas Bearde, and Karrin Allyson.

From 2003-2013, I lived and worked in Ann Arbor, MI where I was a student of Geri Allen, Ellen Rowe and Stephen Rush at the University of Michigan. I played with many groups, including the James Hughes/Jimmy Smith Quintet, Liquid Street, the Legendary Wings, and Balkan-jazz band Ornamatik. I led my own group, Symbology (2006-2008) and was the leader of Canterbury House band Quartex (2009-2013).

In 2008 I was selected as a Bösendorfer Montreux Jazz Solo Piano Competition semi-finalist, and from 2008-2013, I was on the music faculty at Hillsdale College. Until 2022, I taught at Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State University, the Nashville Jazz Workshop. I am currently doing doctoral work in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph.

Ontario, Canada

Nick Fraser

Nick Fraser (drums) has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto new jazz and improvised music community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1995. A Juno Award winner, his recorded works include Owls in Daylight (1997), Towns and Villages (2013), Zoning (2018), and If There Were No Opposites (2021). Nick has performed with a veritable “who’s who” of Canadian jazz and improvised music in addition to such international artists as Anthony Braxton, Marilyn Crispell, and William Parker. “Fraser not so much plays the drums as hurls himself whole body and soul against skin and metal . . . truly talented.” -Bill Stunt, CBC Radio.  

Italy

Nicola Fazzini, Federico Pierantonio, Ferdinando Romano, and Francesca Remigi (Rebroadcast)

For their IF 2023 contribution, our friends at nusica.org are sharing a performance from their CREI (Composizione Ricerca e Improvvisazione) artist residency program, featuring:

• Nicola Fazzini
• Federico Pierantonio
• Ferdinando Romano
• Francesca Remigi

This performance was recorded on June 11th, 2023 at Sile Jazz in Quarto D’Altino, Venice, Italy.

Hawai'i, USA

Rhiannon

Rhiannon is a vocal artist with a vision of music as a vehicle for innovation, healing, transformation, and social change. Rhiannon’s book about her life and teaching methods, Vocal River, The Skill and Spirit of Improvisation, was published in 2013.  A vibrant, gifted singer, performance artist, composer, and master teacher, Rhiannon lives and works on her farm on the Big Island of Hawai’i using her singing barn Ha Lau Leo Nani, The Gathering Place as a teaching and performance venue honouring culture and community.    

Róis Connolly & Jamie Bishop

Róis is a South Fermanagh/Border born composer and multi-instrumentalist whose performance explores diverse modes of expression; forging an idiosyncratic blend of folk and Sean-nossong, electronics, jazz harmony and extended vocal techniques. She calls the dead with her haunting sean-nós keening songs as well as her massive thunderous and booming soundscapes. Always changing her set lists for each performance, people describe them as transcendent, healing and sometimes shocking.

N. Ireland

Son Zept and Pinsleep

Pinsleep is an act by an acclaimed violinist, singer, and producer Aga Olek, current PhD researcher at SARC, Queen’s University in Belfast. Through the use of layered violin, guitar effects, voice and electronics. Pinsleep brings together her experience across different genres, crossing the boundaries between pieces, songs, and improvisation.

Belfast-based experimental electronic composer-producer Liam McCartan, aka Son Zept, music is an expansive exploration of sonic possibilities fusing sound art, drone, contemporary classical, traditional music, power-ambient, minimalism, and maximalism. “Northern Ireland’s resident electronic compositional polymath . . . Son Zept re-synthesizes electronic music history into an electrifying machine for transforming the present” –The Quietus

This pre-recorded IF 2023 performance is presented by the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC).

Nova Scotia, Canada

Tom Richards

Tom Richards is a musician with a kaleidoscopic range of work. A low-brass specialist, pianist, composer, conductor, and producer, Tom performs in dozens of active projects, including The Heavyweights Brass Band, The Human Rights, Queen Kong, Avi Granite 6, and King Cardiac. Tom is the composer and producer behind Unfolding River, an 81-piece series of avant-classical music based on the Tao te Ching.

In his 20 year career, Tom has recorded and performed with Roscoe Mitchell, Ron Sexmith, Gregory Stafford, Kevin Breit, Ben Caplan, Bruno Capinan, Friendly Rich, David Braid, The Wooden Sky, The Hidden Cameras, Rheostatics, Spoon, The Massey Hall Band, The Australian Art Orchestra, Theatre Columbus, Soulpepper Theatre, and many others. Tom has a discography of well over 100 albums, and has a busy performance schedule, approaching 300 live dates per year.

This pre-recorded IF 2023 performance is co-presented by Upstream Music Association.

Ontario, Canada

Truth Is…

As a Black, Queer, mother, warrior, poet, Truth Is… takes a unique approach to talking about the intricacies of life. Their intersectional approach allows for the audience to explore experiences, through an empathetic and compassionate lens, fostering empowerment, community, and resistance from shame. 
 
Truth Is… has been on a dozen national slam teams since 2006. They are current co-artistic director of not-for-profit arts organization Guelph Spoken Word and has also been the past recipient of the 2018 National Poet of Honour distinction, the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Awards and Guelph’s Top 40 under 40  
Currently, Truth Is…  is set to debut their long awaited “A Portrait of Palinoia” project, a celebration of the beauty, distinctiveness, and magic of Black women in 2023. 

New York, USA

Vijay Iyer

Described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway,” VIJAY IYER has carved out a unique path as an influential, prolific, shape-shifting presence in twenty-first-century music. A composer and pianist active across multiple musical communities, Iyer has created a consistently innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last twenty-five years, earning him a place as one of the leading music-makers of his generation.

He received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, the Alpert Award in the Arts, and two German “Echo” awards, and was voted Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times in the last decade. He has been praised by Pitchfork as “one of the best in the world at what he does,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.”

Iyer’s musical language is grounded in the rhythmic traditions of South Asia and West Africa, the African American creative music movement of the 60s and 70s, and the lineage of composer-pianists from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen. He has released twenty-four albums of his music, most recently UnEasy (ECM Records, 2021), a trio session with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh; The Transitory Poems (ECM, 2019), a live duo recording with pianist Craig Taborn; Far From Over (ECM, 2017) with the award-winning Vijay Iyer Sextet; and A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM, 2016) a suite of duets with visionary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith.

Iyer is also an active composer for classical ensembles and soloists. His works have been commissioned and premiered by Brentano Quartet, Imani Winds, Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and virtuosi Matt Haimowitz, Claire Chase, Shai Wosner, and Jennifer Koh, among others. He recently served as composer-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall, music director of the Ojai Music Festival, and artist-in-residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A tireless collaborator, he has written big-band music for Arturo O’Farrill and Darcy James Argue, remixed classic recordings of Talvin Singh and Meredith Monk, joined forces with legendary musicians Henry Threadgill, Reggie Workman, Zakir Hussain, and L. Subramanian, and developed interdisciplinary work with Teju Cole, Carrie Mae Weems, Mike Ladd, Prashant Bhargava, and Karole Armitage.

A longtime New Yorker, Iyer lives in central Harlem with his wife and daughter. He teaches at Harvard University in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies. He is a Steinway artist.

Photograph of Vijay Iyer by Lena Adasheva.

N. Ireland

Xenia Pestova Bennett and Ed Bennett

Described as “a powerhouse of contemporary keyboard repertoire” (Tempo), pianist and composer Xenia Pestova Bennett has earned an international reputation as a leading proponent of uncompromising music. Her work spans a wide range of sound worlds, styles and genres from classical to contemporary art music, free improvisation, experimental electronica and avant-pop. Since receiving the unanimous First Prize at the Xavier Montsalvatge International Piano Competition in Girona, Spain and prizes at the Messiaen International Piano Competition in Paris and the KeriKeri Piano Competition of New Zealand, Xenia has performed in over 20 countries – at international festivals, in concert halls, tropical rainforests, caves, ponds and countless weird and wonderful venues and spaces. She explores classical music boundaries with electronics, toy pianos, synthesizers and the magical and mysterious Magnetic Resonator Piano.

Ed Bennett is an internationally acclaimed Irish composer. His music which has been described in the press as ‘Deeply compelling’ (Sunday Times), ‘stunningly intense’ (the Quietus) and ‘unmistakably distinctive’ (Gramophone) is often characterised by its strong rhythmic energy, extreme contrasts and the combination of acoustic, electronic and multimedia elements; it was described in The Guardian as ‘unclassifiable, raw-nerve music of huge energy and imagination’ and by Sinfini Music as ‘one of the most scintillating voices to emerge of late from Ireland and the British Isles.’ Over the last 25 years he has created a body of work including large-scale orchestral works, ensemble pieces, solo works, electronic music, opera, installations and works for dance and film. In 2019 he was awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Major Individual Artist Award, the highest honour awarded to an artist from the region.

This pre-recorded IF 2023 performance is presented by the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC).