Recording: Dialectica

Artist: Dialectica

Song: The Provider [composer: Shannon Graham]

Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (Intersection – Day 3), September 2, 2017.

Dialectica - The Provider

In recent years, the Intersection Festival would normally consist of a paid concert, usually the night before the day-long extravaganza in Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, however, under the continued guidance of Burn Down The Capital's Tad Michalak the festival expanded to four events, including a pair of concerts at The Jam Factory. The day-long marathon in the concrete canyon of commerce remains at the festival's heart, though, exploring the frissons of experiencing strange and occasionally abrasive sounds competing with the city's mersh heartbeat.

This classical-meets-jazz sax quartet (consisting of Shannon Graham, Chelsea McBride, Olivia Shortt, and Samantha Etchegary) was a user-friendly way to ease the passers-by into the day's proceedings, with philosophical inquiries cloaked in tunes and mambos mixing with the scream of passing sirens.

Recording: Dialectica

Artist: Dialectica

Song: The Puppet Master

Recorded at The Music Gallery (X Avant XI – Night 3), October 15, 2016.

Dialectica - The Puppet Master

A full house out to see Sarah Neufeld's negotiations of chamber music and pop got a different approach to a similar inquiry with Shannon Graham's new Dialectica project. A quartet combining jazz and classically trained saxophonists, this offered compositions from Graham (who has also been exploring these intersections in her work with Spectrum Music) and Chelsea McBride, along with some verve, bringing a little glitter to what could be contained as mere "formal" music. (There were also a couple of pieces from from Javier Vazquez who added some percussion to the closing mambo, which speaks to the group's urge to groove a little bit.)

Recording: Spectrum

Artist: Spectrum Music [Homzy/Kesler Duo feat. Felicity Williams and Alex Samaras]

Song: The Seafarers [excerpt] (Composer: Shannon Graham)

Recorded at The Annex Theatre ("Atlas of Imaginary Places"), January 24, 2014.

Spectrum Music - The Seafarers [excerpt]

Full review to follow. Rather than just throwing some pieces together and calling it a concert, Spectrum does an admirable job of shaping their events around thoughtful concepts, and then composing new pieces to bring them to life. Their "Atlas of Imaginary Places" began as an opportunity to give violist Aline Homzy and pianist Andrew Kesler a chance to debut their expansive "Dragon Suite" (thirty minutes, played without sheet music!) and from there the Spectrum composers crafted some new pieces for the duo to play. They were joined throughout the evening by Felicity Williams and Alex Samaras, two of the most amazing voices in town.

This piece by Shannon Graham is inspired by the board game Settlers of Catan, and standing on the balconies above the room, the vocalists act as the capricious Fates manipulating the efforts of those in the world below. Like a lot of Graham's compositions, it evinces a guardedly cautious sort of optimism, hopeful (but never quite convinced) that we will be able to complete our journeys.

It should be added that the Annex Theatre (where I'd never been before) was a definite selling point here — a large space, yet close in enough to be rather cozy, it felt like the ballroom of a haunted mansion, from the ornate stairways behind the stage to the giant chandeliers to the occasional mysterious creaking noise in the background. You can check it out for yourself on April 17th, when Spectrum wraps up its season with Early Expressions, which promises "contemporary musical interpretations of early human art".

Recording: Shannon Graham and The Storytellers

Artist: Shannon Graham and The Storytellers

Songs: Samsara + You Are the Answer/Claustrophobia

Recorded at Gallery 345, April 17, 2013.

Shannon Graham and The Storytellers - Samsara

Shannon Graham and The Storytellers - You Are the Answer/Claustrophobia

Full review to follow. Celebrating the release of her first album with the eight-piece Storytellers band, Shannon Graham is up to something interesting, using pop ebullience to synthesize both the swing of a jazzy rhythm section and the sweep of orchestral strings. The genres at play here could point to a sort of stuffy, "technical" sort of vibe, but beyond the music's playful energy, the cheap beers and Spice Girls mixtape between sets show this is very much not the intention. And while this music hints at Graham's rigourous skills as a composer (she's recently had pieces played by Spectrum ensemble, where she's co-artistic director, and other local New Music presenters) this is also something that can be appreciated by people who dig the orch-pop end of the indie-rock continuum — folks into, say, Kite Hill, L CON, The Meek, etc. should definitely check this out.