Recording: Continuum Contemporary Music

Artist: Continuum Contemporary Music [Aaron Schwebel + Stephanie Chua]

Songs: La Bernardina + Ile fantasies de Joskin [composer: Josquin des Prez] / Chromatic Fundamentals [composer: Peter Adriaansz]

Recorded at Toronto Reference Library (Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium), March 17, 2014.

Continuum Contemporary Music - La Bernardina + Ile fantasies de Joskin

Continuum Contemporary Music - Chromatic Fundamentals

Continuum used its slot in the "New Music 101" series to present a stripped-down performance of a contemporary piece as well as the "quintessentially Dutch" work of 16th century Netherlandish composer Josquin des Prez. Those acted as a bit of a backgrounder to their upcoming Gaudeamus concerts, which are on tap this week at The Music Gallery, and they come in two intriguing flavours: "Deconstructed" (which links visiting Dutch musicians with an all-star crew of local improvisers, including Nicole Rampersaud, Josh Cole, Rick Sacks and Allison Cameron) and "Reconstructed" (where Continuum's ensemble and The Array Ensemble join forces with the visiting guests to play some music by some award-winning composers at Gaudeamus' Muziekweek festival).

Recording: Jean-Pierre Drouet

Artist: Jean-Pierre Drouet

Song: Toucher [composer: Vinko Globokar]

Recorded at Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library ("New Music 101"), March 3, 2014.

Jean-Pierre Drouet - Toucher

Once again, many of the city's New Music organizations are banding together for some outreach and edutainment under the banner of "New Music 101", a free series Monday nights at the Reference Library. Each instalment sees two groups take some time to give some insight into how they're making music, usually accompanied by a stripped-down performance. There's one more left on March 17th, as well as a bonus remounting of this week's interactive presentation from Soundstreams and Spectrum (on May 28th at Fort York Library Branch).

The first night in this year's series saw junctQín keyboard collective talking about taking their music beyond the piano as well as New Music Concerts presenting avant-garde percussionist and composer Jean-Pierre Drouet. A practitioner of "instrumental theatre" (mixing music with a theatrical flair that featured hints of slight-of-hand trickery) Drouet also showed how fingers playing percussion could evoke the sounds of the human voice in this piece adapted from Brecht's Life of Galileo, with different instrumental sounds slowly taking over for various phonemes.

Recording: Arraymusic + Paul Dutton

Artist: Arraymusic + Paul Dutton

Song: Snare, Kick, Rack and Floor

Recorded at Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library (New Music 101 – Volume 1), April 8, 2013.

Arraymusic + Paul Dutton - Snare, Kick, Rack and Floor

Well, as previewed in this space, this was a most intriguing night, with Arraymusic showing their flexibility in providing two very different musical backdrops to the readings of poets Jill Battson (dustbowl drift) and Paul Dutton (percussive spatter). The second half flipped the script as Eve Egoyan spoke and gave a few brief musical demonstrations. The series continues for three more Monday night sessions at the Reference Library.

Preview: New Music 101

New Music 101

April 8, April 15, April 22, May 6 (all Mondays), from 7:00-8:00pm at Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library

Now in its third year, the Toronto New Music Alliance is reaching out to the community to show that contemporary classical music (and all its offshoots) is accessible to all. Matching performance with discussion, these sessions serve to give context to the wide variety of sounds that get lumped together under "New Music", examining some of the theoretical and practical underpinnings.

Free to attend and centrally located, these are an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to broaden their musical experience a bit. Plus, you'll get to hear performances from some amazing musicians. The series is hosted by John Terauds, who is arguably the hardest-working music writer in the city right now, lifting the lid on the rich layers of the city's art-music culture at musicaltoronto.org. In the past, I've really enjoyed the informal, un-stuffy atmosphere and have found these to be really worth heading out for. This year's series has four instalments, each split between two presenters:

• April 8 – Arraymusic and Eve Egoyan: The first half will focus on the interface between music and poetry — one of the poets on hand is Paul Dutton (of CCMC and much more) who has probably done more things with his voice than you've done with your imagination. The second half will be presented by Eve Egoyan, one of the city's most accomplished pianists, talking about her artistic practice and most likely previewing something from her forthcoming album release show (April 19 at Glenn Gould Studio) of new Ann Southam works.
• April 15 – The Music Gallery and New Adventures in Sound Art: Proof that "new music" goes way deeper than new wine in old classical bottles. Perhaps of the most interest to rock-oriented readers here, the Music Gallery's half focuses on video games as a new venue for music composition with Alaska B of Yamantaka//Sonic Titan. NAISA, meanwhile, presents "an improvisation by the laptop trio extramuros that will translate data into sound art."
• April 22 – The Canadian Electronic Ensemble and New Music Concerts: Another mixture of digital and analogue, NMC presents cellist David Hetherington, "who will perform and discuss solo works by Gilles Tremblay and Luciano Berio."
• May 6 – Toy Piano Composers and junctQín Keyboard Collective: Two of the freshest and most energetic ensembles on the local new music scene wrap up the series, talking about how they're framing the music to appeal to folks like you and me. These are groups that should be on the radar of any open-minded music enthusiast that wants to get a taste of something new and exciting.

For more info, check out the Facebook event here.