Unlike previoussolo appearances at TCB, Tom Richards eschewed electronic experimentation in favour of some deep digging on trombone, his primary instrument. The theme was transformation — like catepillar to butterfly — and Naomi McCarroll-Butler (who would be playing in the subsequent set) assisted here in cocooning Richards in aluminum foil, all the better to add some buzzy, rattling resonances to the horn sounds.
You can check out the full set over on youtube:
[Track Could Bend will be back at Wenona on Tuesday (September 2nd) with sets from Brian Abbott and Allison Cameron.]
Track Could Bend will be having its tenth anniversary in April — although given how time got weird for a while there and the series took fourteen months off, it seems like a slightly ambiguous mark for celebration. This big round number, however, felt like the right opportunity to mark a special occasion. In the beforetimes, TCB marked its anniversaries with special events, gathering the folks who had played over the previous year and drawing names from a hat to construct some spontaneous new combos. I had the notion to scale that up and duly invited back everyone who had ever played the series — over three hundred performers! — for an afternoon and evening of fun.
As fate would have it, the long-planned-for day came with a monumental snowstorm, so the inability to get around kept some folks at home. And yet, this event still saw twenty-one performers take the stage, duly selected from the hat and sorted into seven trios. As is often the case, these instant bands made some gorgeous sounds, showing off the ability of TCB's community to adapt, co-operate and thrive. A fun time was had by many — a fitting launch to the next ten years.
Cool dynamics here, with Ian McPhedran's (MFS#3, 20) prepared guitar grounding horn sounds from the peripatetic James Bailey (MFS#12, 78, Bata Shoe Museum) and the piano-stabbing Tom Richards (MFS#29, Bata Shoe Museum, 92).
You can check out the full set over on youtube:
[Track Could Bend will be back at Wenona Lodge, its usual home, on April 1st in a special co-presentation with Ministry of Phonic Services presenting sets from Mira Martin-Gray & Sierra Weston and Wilderness Adventure Ride.]
Tom Richards was most recently spotted at TCB last fall, playing trombone as part of the excitement at the Bata Shoe Museum. But in the longer view, this was more of a piece with some drones Richards made at TCB back in 2017. Seizing the opportunity to make a TCB set a true tightrope walk, this featured some experimentally-deployed noisification pedals warping synth sounds, as well as field recordings, resulting both in pleasing drift and what-happens-when-I-turn-this-knob revelations.
You can check out some the full set over on youtube:
[Track Could bend is back at Wenona on July 2nd, with sets from Kristina Warren & Karen Ng and Without a Single Green Feather.]
I'm still not entirely sure what I did to deserve such an honour, but somehow I ended up curating a night of this year's X Avant Festival. And not just any ol' night as we were invited to conspire a musical takeover of the Bata Shoe Museum. Thanks to the amazing powers and positive energy of Artistic Director Sanjeet Takhar, we were able to fill the building with creativity, bringing a grouping of nine musicians to first enfold some sounds in the museum's galleries, then gather them all together for a collaborative improvisation. Best of all, though it was on a grander scale than I'd usually allow myself to imagine, it really felt like it was all done in the spirit of Track Could Bend. And were there shoes? Oh yes, there were shoes.
After spreading the musicians out in the galleries, the conclusion gave everyone a chance to find ways to work together in a large ensemble. The featured performers here were electronic musicians Laura Dickens (a.k.a. Leucrocuta) & Hex-A-Deximal, who were processing incoming sounds from the mics and from Tegan Dietsch's tap board. Around that centre, horn players and percussionists had a chance to wander some more — one of the most delightful moments was when trumpeter Lina Allemano and trombonist Tom Richards headed up the stairs and out of sight, only to pop out of the elevator behind the audience a few minutes later! With everyone putting, ah, their best foot forward this was a satitisfying way to gather all the threads shoelaces together.
For the record, the full ensemble was:
Tegan Dietsch (tap)
Lina Allemano (trumpet)
Tom Richards (trombone)
Why Be Normal [%%30%30 & James Bailey] (found percussion)
Annie Elgie (voice)
Yang Chen (percussion/processing)
LD & Hex-A-Deximal (electronics)
You can check out the full set over on youtube:
[The Bata's new exhibition Dressed to Impress: Footwear and Consumerism in the 1980's is now open. Track Could Bend will be back in its regular first-Tuesday-of-the-month incarnation at Wenona Lodge on December 5th, with sets from kat estacio and Alma.]
I'm still not entirely sure what I did to deserve such an honour, but somehow I ended up curating a night of this year's X Avant Festival. And not just any ol' night as we were invited to conspire a musical takeover of the Bata Shoe Museum. Thanks to the amazing powers and positive energy of Artistic Director Sanjeet Takhar, we were able to fill the building with creativity, bringing a grouping of nine musicians to first enfold some sounds in the museum's galleries, then gather them all together for a collaborative improvisation. Best of all, though it was on a grander scale than I'd usually allow myself to imagine, it really felt like it was all done in the spirit of Track Could Bend. And were there shoes? Oh yes, there were shoes.
When I saw the "In Bloom" exhibit on the first site visit to the museum I made a mental note that it would be a perfect spot for vocalist Annie Elgie. And indeed, in between a couple benches at the far end of the room she settled right in between flowers and footwear to conjure up some spirits. This section, from the end of the event's first half up in the galleries, was one of my favourite parts of the whole night — you can hear horn players Lina Allemano and Tom Richards circling around like the sampled seagulls that are calling out.
You can check out another segment of this performance, with tap dancer Tegan Dietsch joining in (and much more!) over on youtube:
[The Bata's new exhibition Dressed to Impress: Footwear and Consumerism in the 1980's is now open. Track Could Bend will be back in its regular first-Tuesday-of-the-month incarnation at Wenona Lodge on December 5th, with sets from kat estacio and Alma.]
I'm still not entirely sure what I did to deserve such an honour, but somehow I ended up curating a night of this year's X Avant Festival. And not just any ol' night as we were invited to conspire a musical takeover of the Bata Shoe Museum. Thanks to the amazing powers and positive energy of Artistic Director Sanjeet Takhar, we were able to fill the building with creativity, bringing a grouping of nine musicians to first enfold some sounds in the museum's galleries, then gather them all together for a collaborative improvisation. Best of all, though it was on a grander scale than I'd usually allow myself to imagine, it really felt like it was all done in the spirit of Track Could Bend. And were there shoes? Oh yes, there were shoes.
The phrase "shoe horns" was one of the first things on the idea board when brainstorming for this show began, and I had this vivid mental image of a horn player using a shoe as a mute. No surprise then that the first person I thought of in that scenario was trumpeter Lina Allemano, who tends to bring a variety of ad hoc resonators to use as mutes. Trombonist Tom Richards is equally imaginative in expanding the possibilities of his instrument, and the pair had a tremendous time riffing off each other in the "Obsessed" exhibit — plus, of course, using their mobility to find chances to interact with the other performers.
You can check them out in their "home" gallery and visiting some others over on youtube:
[The Bata's new exhibition Dressed to Impress: Footwear and Consumerism in the 1980's is now open. Track Could Bend will be back in its regular first-Tuesday-of-the-month incarnation at Wenona Lodge on December 5th, with sets from kat estacio and Alma.]
With Long Winter taking over The Tranzac for the night, the regular Southern Cross programming was crammed together in the early part of the night before giving over to the all-ages spectacle. Hopefully that meant the early-arrivers got a chance to hear some excellent improvised music... plus this band full of excellent improvisers singing pop tunes with hearts wide open. Co-fronted by Rebecca Hennessy and Julia Hambleton, this combo offered plenty accordion/ukulele/clarinet, putting it in the zone of "quirky" folk bands like Ed's Redeeming Qualities — albeit with songs assembled by accomplished composers. Playing their album from top to bottom, there were hints of McGarrigle-esque harmonies and plenty pop smarts — give this song (with an ace guest turn from Tom Richards on trombone) a "rock" arrangement and it could easily pass for something from the jauntier edge of The Go-Betweens' songbook.
[Sweet Pea will be formally launching their CD with a celebration at The Tranzac on Friday, May 25th.]
Building on the tradition established with last year's saxophone quartet, the Somewhere There Festival once more showed its commitment to new music with a call for compositions — this time for trombone quartet. And once more the ensemble — consisting of Tom Richards, Heather Saumer, Doug Tielli and Nebyu Yohannes — preceded a concert of the commissioned works with an open rehearsal, giving non-players a window into the process of how a group and composer navigate the mutual discovery of how a new piece "works".
Of the three pieces chosen, Logan Mills' "Fork" was the most conventionally scored, although there was a lot of mathematically-intricate trickiness in a piece based on harmonic interrelationships he had been musing upon while working as a piano tuner. Susanna Hood's "Mobile", on the other hand, offered a procedurally-intricate text-based score that had the players spacialized (and spinning around) like the parts of a wind-tossed mobile. Scott Thomson's "4 for 8" was even more open ended with two sets of variables on a numbered line leading to a "rehearsal" that was as more of a negotiation over how to interpret the piece than a musical struggle. (Thomson, who was present, saw no need to impose any authorial wisdom on the players, who ultimately decided to play the piece following two separate rule-sets, leading to two rather different results.) The concert was closed out by this untitled miniature from Doug Tielli, which sounded not unlike street-corner Salavation Army band lullaby.
Tom Richards' Shore Line is modestly described as "drones... intended to be used by musicians for practicing intonation and refining tone-quality" but it's been one of my favourite summer albums. I invited Richards to come and makes some sounds in that style, and he obliged, with monotron/phone/tablet/pedals/mixer combining for some glides and sputter-bursts that were less meditative than their album counterparts, but had that excellent quality of feeling like something being kept barely under control. Indeed, under the tiki hut, Richards looked a bit like a mad scientist, hunched over his implements, mysteriously wringing out his sounds.
[Track Could Bend returns on Tuesday (September 5th) with some excellent voices and other sounds featuring MAMALIA, Lash Pandiculations (Tova G. Kardonne, Heather Saumer, Ali Berkok) and jiggy jiggy jiggy (Christopher Willes, Thom Gill, Phil Melanson). Riverrun, Richards' chamber/space ensemble, will be playing at The Emmet Ray on Monday, September 11th.]
More than just a blast-it-out-by-the-numbers New Orleans jazz band, Rebecca Hennessy's FOG manages to bring together several strands, mixing slow'n'low N.O. flow with pieces that more directly show off her composerly skills, and all filtered through her love of nature (especially fishing). This evening was a celebration of the release of the band's new Two Calls album, with the whole crew offering some righteous simmering grooves.
Tova Kardonne's big band was back in effect, with seven players offering sophisticated and lushly-arranged jazz pop settings for her songs. The set included excursions back to her Lanka Suite and beyond, all bursting with vibrant energy.
This set closing out this year's edition of the 416 Festival also turned out to be a bit a chapter-closer for ensemble leader Kyle Brenders as well. On the eve of move out west to take up the position of Program Manager for Performing Arts at the Banff Centre, Brenders pulled together material from a few of his diverse projects to explore with this all-star big band.1 From ambulatory drift to sections of Brenders-esque lockgroove repetition there were a lot of tasty moments here. The meditative flow of Bry Webb's "Rivers of Gold" was previously essayed by the Massey Hall Band under Brenders' leadership and features his sax playing the main melodic line, with some lovely work on the vibes from Davison as well. I'm sure Brenders won't be a stranger to the city, but the questing curiosity of his projects will be missed.
1 So far as I could make out, the ensemble on this night consisted of the following:
This second release spectacular from All-Set! Editions added three new albums to their catalogue, and all three of the recombinant groupings played to celebrate. The highlight of the night was seeing the tunes from Mike Smith's new album presented by what was, by his own admission, "a large band".1 That added to a history of Smith treating his compositions with a certain malleability — besides its "fixed" iteration as a recording, I've seen the album's title track take on a few differentmanifestations. These large group arrangements were quite lovely, going as often to smaller, quieter shadings with different subsets of instruments as veering into full-on big band wallops.
[A less-expanded version of the Mike Smith Company will be playing at the Music Gallery's Moondog 100 concert this Saturday (December 3rd), playing songs from their own book as well as some new arrangements of Moondog's pieces.]
1 If my notes are correct, the ensemble at this show was:
The X Avant Festival concluded with this extra-special event, bringing the legendary Roscoe Mitchell to town at the head of a nineteen-piece orchestra made up of top names from the Montréal and Toronto scenes.1 The pieces that they played were derived from Mitchell's improvisations, primarily from his Conversations I + Conversations II albums — boiling down dense and compact abstractions to their essence and then blowing them up to widescreen size for the large ensemble. After a while, getting attuned to the method you could sometimes "hear" the original gestures behind the sweeping orchestrations. This was complex stuff that pushed the musicians, but it was quite often rather beautiful as well. There were a few places that lead into full-on big band free-honking, but just as striking were the moments that pulled back, including a quartet arrangement of "Nonaah" (performed by Nicolas Caloia, Yves Charuest, Lori Freedman, and Craig Pedersen) as well as a solo segment from Mitchell that opened the second set — an intense piece that spiralled outward from a drone into pure exploration that put a full lifetime's experience and technique on display. After presenting this music live in Montréal and Toronto, the ensemble also headed into the studio on the day after this show, so we can expect some formal documentation of this grand sommet to emerge in time.
1 For the record, the members of the orchestra were:
Roscoe Mitchell – woodwinds, composition, direction
Marilyn Lerner – piano
Lori Freedman, Yves Charuest, Kyle Brenders, Jean Derome, Peter Lutek, Jason Sharp – woodwinds
If you look up trumpeter Rebecca Hennessy's FOG, you might come across something that plays up the New Orleans brass band angle. And while that's one stream in the quintet's music — especially in its more ebullient moments with trombonist Tom Richards blasting away — there's a lot more going on here. There's hints of the sophisticated pop that Hennessy played as part of Hobson's Choice, for one thing, as well as some left-turns into abstraction from guitarist Don Scott. Oh, and some fishing references too.
With most of the personnel1 overlapping from Jay Hay's Interstellar Orchestra, the alternate name here seems to be used somewhat interchangeably. There's definitely the same exploration/deconstruction of jazz tropes — like in this Jay Hay original, with its title redolent of beat-era bop lasciviousness, or in Joe Sorbara's composition "The Blues" that takes a rangy ramble through its chosen terrain — all of it intricately arranged but never hermetically sealed.
1 Just for posterity's sake, I should note that the lineup at this show was:
This night's somewhat-counterintuitive title represents a new experiment from Mark Segger to deploy computers for improvisers not for music-making per se but as a communication tool. Plugged into a LAN hub together, each of the musicians has access to a MAX patch that allows them not only to exchange messages, but also to vote on a temporary leader for the ensemble who can send one-way directives to the players. That makes it a little easier for a larger group to stay on the same page, figure out sonic shifts on the fly, and to know when to end. It's an interestingly transparent tool, as how that plays out depends very much on the personalities of the players.
Unlike the night's earlier quintet, after walking along and feeling things out for a couple minutes, this group of players took things into groove territory and settled in there for most of their set. Featuring stereophonic dual trombones, with Tom Richards on the left and Steve Ward on the right.
As the artist designation above implies, this performance was a collaborative affair, put together to present Tova Kardonne's "Lanka Suite", a set of compositions reflecting on her outsider's observations of a trip to Sri Lanka. The music has evolved for a while now (a streamlined version was workshopped a year ago), but this full-on presentation united two of Kardonne's projects, including The Thing is, her the large-format jazz ensemble as well as Alex Samaras' avant-vocal group GREX. The night also included some atmospheric, abstract visuals from Nilan Perera that evoked a sense of travel and elsewhereness. The net effect was to create a form of musical tourism that isn't reliant on mere appropriation — a reflection of Kardonne's experiences without a usurpation of Sri Lankan tropes.
*Thanks to Ali for passing along the title to this one.
Tomorrow Island is already in the past, with Tom Richards' quartet bringing a full set of new compositions to the festival. This one moves a little slower, but gives plenty of room to Peter Lutek's "space clarinet".
[The band's gonna need plenty of material to fill out their next big gig — a twelve-hour marathon at Beit Zatoun on April 25th.]
Given a chance to co-present this evening at Wavelength's Pop Up gallery, I pulled together this little experiment. Created as a fifteenth anniversary tribute to WL, the structure was a series of fifteen timed synth tones (provided here by Jonathan Adjemian) intended to give the musicians something to accompany. The ensemble for this performance included a selection of awesome improvisers: Karen Ng (sax), Paul Newman (sax), Tom Richards (trombone), Josh Cole (double bass), and Stephen Parkinson (wah-wah melodica). With only a brief written "score" to guide them, this crew did an excellent job, creating an immersive sound-field. There were a few moments where things "merely" drifted along, but many more moments of inspired interplay.
[This was a bit of a special occasion and deserves a fuller representation than this extract presented here. As such, I have posted the entire performance over on bandcamp.]
Founded as a blog about one curmudgeon's love affair with the em dash, Mechanical Forest Sound has grown to become a community-based archive of local musical culture. Assuming that "independent music" isn't just boys with guitars and "culture" isn't just some sort of pageant, MFS is an investigation of a wide range of artists, reflecting on concerts as shared experiences, acts of citizenship and a chance to get down — fuzzy photographs and clear-sounding original live recordings a specialty.
Current manifestations of this project include Track Could Bend, a monthly concert series featuring "improvised music and weird rock offshoots", presented in a casual environment.
At one point I wrote full-on concert reviews, and for longer I thought I would catch up and write about shows in the past. But these days, because of, y'know, life, do not expect much in the way of full show reviews — but live recordings with blurbs will be posted as quickly after the fact as is feasible.
You can also check out full sets uploaded to the Live Music Archive. [not currently active]
N.B.: All recordings should be available & playable. If you come across any broken links, invisible or non-functioning players, etc, please leave a comment and I will tend to it ASAP.
ALSO N.B.: I'm perpetually on the lookout for a new place to stash my MP3's online. If you know of any place that allows a couple gigs of stuff to be openly linked to for streaming, drop me a line!
All MP3's on this blog are audience recordings shared as a reminder of the excitement of seeing live music. If you are an artist who doesn't want their music shared in this way, please contact me and I shall remove it forthwith.
Is your show missing from this list? Submit it via this form!
Jazz Rat Mondays (feat. Patrick Smith/Jen Lo/Mark Godfrey/Jon Catanus) / Dina's Tavern 2026-08-31 (Monday). $pwyc. [more info]
Two Duos: Improvised Music (feat. Double Half Hitch Knot [yasmine & Roshanak] / Debacle Rebuttal [vic & Clay]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-08-31 (Monday). [more info]
Track Could Bend #120 (feat. Dave Grenon's Indistinctive Gait w/ Ayesha Lye / Caution Wet Floor Signs) / Wenona Lodge 2026-09-01 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [FB event]
Drones Over Dufferin (biG kNiFE) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-09-01 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [more info]
The Lina Allemano Four [Lina Allemano/Brodie West/Andrew Downing/Nick Fraser] / Jazz Bistro 2026-09-01+02 (Tuesday+Wednesday). $20. [more info]
Altered States Artist Showcase (feat. Rebecca Hennessy/Michael Herring/Tim Shia) / Water to Wine 2026-09-02 (Wednesday). $pwyc. [more info]
Holy Oak Family Singers present: Madonna (feat. Holy Oak Family Singers & co.) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-09-02 (Wednesday – early). $pwyc. [more info]
the grandson [album release show] [Yoshi Maclear Wall/Ezra Schell/Lee Rosensweet] (Genre Fiction [Ben Culver/Alex McPherson/Miles Cakebread-Kraus/Ali Rashid]) / Burdock Music Hall 2026-09-02 (Wednesday). $10. [more info]
Equinox and Solstice Residency (feat. Ghostlight) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-09-02 (Wednesday). $pwyc, sugg. $15. [FB event]
ESP Free Jazz Thursdays (feat Brent Tanemura/Jake Bikay/Diana Piruzevska/Gloria Ksimuniv) / Water to Wine 2026-09-03 (Thursday). $pwyc. [more info]
Humbucker Music’s Residency (feat. Humbucker Music [Nick Storring/Mira Martin-Gray/Colin Cudmore/Jason Doell] / Brian Ruryk) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-09-04 (Friday). [FB event]
Diane Roblin's Life Force [Diane Roblin/George Koller/Tim Shia/Kevin Turcotte/John Johnson] / La Rev 2026-09-05 (Saturday). $20 (door)/$25.57 (advance). [tickets + more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. Germaine Liu / Fossils / Day of Niagara) / "River" 2026-09-05 (Saturday). $pwyc. [more info]
Adjacent Spheres ["performing original music inspired by and composed by Dean Veneruz"] (feat. Village [Michael Davidson/Joel Bracken/Aline Homzy/Jen Lo/Hiro Tanaka/Mateo Mancuso]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-09-06 (Sunday)
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. Vampire John Coltrane / Bee Solomon / Cows in Rain) / "Porch" 2026-09-07 (Monday). $pwyc. [more info]
More Noise Please! presents Manic Monday (feat. The Nausea / SEHKTOR8 / Crude Flame / Mountain of Woe / Pursuit Grooves / Writhing Deceiver) / BSMT254 2026-09-07 (Monday). $17.31 or pwyc. [tickets + more info]
Not Dead Yet presents (feat. Otto Benson / Potions) / Monarch Tavern 2026-09-08 (Tuesday). $27.82, 19+. [FB event]
Rondo Projects #4 ["the final part of Ehsan Sadigh’s Septet IV/IX"] (feat. Bea Labikova/Chris Pruden/Dhaivat Jani/Ehsan Sadigh) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-09-08 (Tuesday) [more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. J.Vulgare / Colby Richardson / Fan Wu / Mariana Medellin) / "Mall" 2026-09-09 (Wednesday). $pwyc. [more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. Brian Abbott's Tone Cathedral / Mani Mazinani & Marilyn Yogarajah / Bea Labikova) / "Creek" 2026-09-11 (Friday). $pwyc. [more info]
Audiopollination (feat. Andrew Kobus to go/Xukasia/Janel Jones / flower club/Rohee Uberoi / Noah Campbell/Neal Armstrong/Aisha Sasha John / The Not Michael Lynns) / Array Space 2026-09-11 (Friday). $pwyc/$10 (notaflof). [more info]
William Hunt [solo piano live recording] / Sellers and Newel 2026-09-12 (Saturday). $15 minimum donation. [more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents Back to School Field Trip: Installation Garden ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. various artists) / "Ravine" 2026-09-13 (Sunday). $pwyc. [more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents Back to School Field Trip: BPM (Big Percussion Meeting) ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. Amiel Ang / Brian Ruryk / Raf Wilcot / Victor O / Caleb Clawson) / "Playground" 2026-09-15 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [more info]
Green-House (Masahiro Takahashi) / The Baby G 2026-09-16 (Wednesday). $25.03, 19+. [FB event]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. Brandon Auger / Ben Grossman / Fahmid Nibesh) / "Dome" 2026-09-17 (Thursday). $pwyc. [more info]
Andrew Downing & Dan Pitt / Sellers and Newel 2026-09-17 (Thursday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]
Toronto Makam Music Forum (feat. Naomi McCarroll-Butler & Sam Shalabi / The Folios of Iranian Dastgāh [Sadaf Amini/Ava Rostamian/Soheil Sadeghi/Sasan Salaseli/Araz Salek]) / East End United 2026-09-18 (Friday). $30 general admission, $20 student/arts worker. [FB event]
Rob Clutton/Karen Ng/Chris Pruden/Germaine Liu / Sellers and Newel 2026-09-18 (Friday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]
The Mike Milligan Trio [Mike Milligan/Nick Fraser/Brodie West] / Sellers and Newel 2026-09-19 (Saturday). $25 minimum donation. [more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. HAHAHAHAHAHA / shemona / quivering / Emergency Euphoria) / "Highway" 2026-09-23 (Wednesday). $pwyc. [more info]
Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip ["a festival of outdoor experimental sounds and actions"] (feat. SlowPitchSound / Fleshtone Aura & Sandro Perri / Gayle Young & Reinhard Reitzenstein / tête à tête [Philippe Melanson & Matthew Pencer]) / "UFO" 2026-09-25 (Friday). $pwyc. [more info]
Burn Down The Capital presents (feat. Picastro [Double on Time album release] / Bernice / Granny Smith) / Gloves Up Boxing Gym 2026-09-26 (Saturday). $28.27, all ages. [FB event]
Maggie Keogh/Ryan Driver/Max Donaldson/Blake Howard / Sellers and Newel 2026-09-27 (Sunday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]
Soundstreams Encounters: Nagoya Marimbas [featuring Steve Reich’s "Mallet Quartet" and "Nagoya Marimbas", plus works by Ann Southam and Juri Seo (feat. Kairos Percussion Quartet with Aerin Cho) / Hugh's Room 2026-09-29 (Tuesday). $free with reservation. [more info]
Jane Siberry / Sellers and Newel 2026-09-30 (Wednesday). $35 minimum donation. [more info]
Project Nowhere × Burn Down The Capital presents (feat. Horse Lords / Common Earth Mineral / Stefana Fratila) / The Garrison 2026-10-01 (Thursday). $32.31, 19+. [FB event]
Steve Reich at 90! (feat. Soindstreams) / Koerner Hall 2026-10-06 (Tuesday). $35-$94.75. [more info]
Soundstreams Encounters: Violins Unbound [works by André Ristic, John Beckwith, Chris Paul Harman, Parisa Sabet, Ana Sokolović] (feat. Judith Fliedl & Roan Ma) / Hugh's Room 2026-11-02 (Monday). $free with reservation. [more info]
Not Dead Yet presents (feat. Weird Nightmare [Hoopla record release shows]) / Osler Records 2026-11-18&19 (Wednesday & Thursday). $24.94, 19+. [tickets + more info]
Mike DeiCont & Dan Fortin / Sellers and Newel 2026-11-25 (Wednesday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]
Marilyn Lerner & Matt Brubeck / Sellers and Newel 2026-11-26 (Thursday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]
Soundstreams Encounters: Orison [a new music theatre work-in-progress featuring the ondes Martenot] (feat. Daniel Áñez & James O’Callaghan) / Hugh's Room 2026-11-30 (Monday). $free with reservation. [more info]
Musica Universalis (feat. C'est la fête Large Ensemble) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-05-08 (Friday)
Ayal Senior & Friends (feat. Ayal Senior & Kurt Newman / JOYSHAPE / Ryan Dugre / Nick Flanagan) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-05-10 (Sunday)
Cosmic Homeostasis XXXII / The Tranzac (Living Room) 2026-05-17 (Sunday)]
Playscape Emporium: Paint, Play (feat. Duo Cichorium/Constant Yen/ Rowan Campbell/Charlee Wielgoz/Fahmid Nibesh/Joe Strutt/Mira Martin-Gray) / Array Space 2026-05-21 (Thursday)
Wenderly Park (Colin Fisher / Isla Craig) / Le Monde 2026-05-22 (Friday)
Ministry of Phonic Services presents (feat. Ben Rempel & Justin Gunter / Not the Wind, Not the Flag / Doug Tielli & Mike Gennaro) / Bickford Park 2026-05-24 (Sunday)
Life Drawing (feat. Cosmic Homeostasis) / Riverdale Park 2026-05-31 (Sunday)
Prepare the Ground Festival (feat. William Basinski) / Trinity-St. Paul's Centre 2026-05-31 (Sunday)
Track Could Bend #117 (feat. saucering / Colin Fisher/William Hunt/Jack Johnson/Cal Adam) / Wenona Lodge 2025-06-02 (Tuesday)
Ayal Senior & Friends (feat. Ayal Senior/Nathan Yell/Marilyn Yogarajah / David Sait / Nick Flanagan / Nathan Yell) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-06-14 (Sunday)
Andre Ethier (Cows in Rain / Eliza Niemi) / Dina's Tavern 2026-07-05 (Sunday)
Track Could Bend #118 (feat. Ubersuck / Mike Gennaro / Wilderness Adventure Ride) / Wenona Lodge 2026-07-07 (Tuesday)
Toronto Improvisers Orchestra / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-07-12 (Sunday)
Ayal Senior and Friends (feat. Country Phasers / Meggie Remy / Nick Flanagan / Heraclitus Akimbo) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-07-12 (Sunday)
Rebecca Hennessy's Singer-Songwriter Circle (feat. Rebecca Hennessy/Michael Herring/Felicity Williams/Patrick O'Reilly) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-07-19 (Sunday)
The Fiver Trois (Isla & The Sorry Brothers) / Dina's Tavern 2025-07-24 (Friday)
Jennifer Castle (Potions) / The Garrison 2025-07-25 (Saturday)
Heraclitus Akimbo (Hoover Party / Del Stephen / Hex-A-Decimal × Leucrocuta) / The Sun Room at 918 Bathurst 2025-07-26 (Sunday)
Kathryn Merriam with Bea Labikova/Raphael Roter/Heather Saumer / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-07-29 (Wednesday)
The Ryan Driver Sextet With Thom Gill As Ryan Driver / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-07-31 (Friday)
Track Could Bend #119: An Evening of Graphic Scores co-presented with Public Library (feat. Public Library with Roa Lee and Alison Melville) / Wenona Lodge 2026-08-04 (Tuesday)
Humbucker Music Residency (feat. Humbucker Music / Sandy Ewen) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-08-07 (Friday)
new works for improvising musicians (feat. Josh Cole/Lina Allemano/John Oswald/Nick Storring/Owen Kurtz) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-08-10 (Monday)
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