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Promoting Canadian Sonic Art

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2.3: Heather Hindman

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Artist photo Heather Hindman
Heather Hindman Credit Barbara Heinzman

Episode 2.3 (May 2022) Eminent Edmonton composer Heather Hindman is the guest for this episode of The No Normal.

Over her career to date, Heather Hindman has produced a really compelling series of acoustic and electronic works, with a particular interest in the relationships between music, culture and technology. Her compositions have been performed widely throughout Canada and in many other countries. Commissioners of Heather Hindman’s music have included UltraViolet, Xenia Pestova, The East Coast Music Ensemble and many more. She is also a dedicated and innovative pedagogue, teaching piano and composition to students of all ages.

In this interview by Ian Crutchley, Heather Hindman talks about her emergence as a composer, influences on her work, the tools of her trade, collaborating with performers, and about some of the gendered biases, barriers and challenges the new music world puts in the way of composers, especially those following unconventional career paths.

Program:

15:36 – Suite Nation, Performed by East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Etchings Festival, France

30:59 – Two and a Half Miniatures for Solo Piano (#2), Performed by Ian Pace, Leuven, Belgium

37:17 – RRR, Performed by Xenia Pestova, Birmingham, UK

48:13 – Scrap, Violet Collective (cond. by Andriy Talpash), Edmonton, AB

71:36 – All Together Now, performed by Chenoa Anderson and Allison Balcetis, Calgary, AB

Artist Bio:

Heather Hindman (b. 1976) is a Canadian composer based 3 hours from the rocky mountains in Edmonton, Canada.  Her practice focuses on acoustic concert music, works that employ digital technology in subtle ways, and mixed electronic-acoustic works.  She draws inspiration from everyday experiences, subtle contexts and borrowed sound materials, creating works primarily concerned with recontextualizing existing musical material into rich sonic landscapes of unpitched sound and harmonic colour. 

Heather received her Master of Music degree in Composition at McGill University under the guidance of Brian Cherney and Denys Bouliane. Since that time, her works have been performed in Canada, UK, Europe and New Zealand including the ISCM World Music Days (Belgium), the Birmingham Frontiers Festival (UK), the Now Hear This Festival, ACWC 40th anniversary concert amoung many others, and have been broadcasted on CBC and Belgian national radio.  Her work “2 and a Half Miniatures” for solo piano has been performed by multiple pianists in Canada, the US, the UK and New Zealand and her recent work “Don’t Say a Word” was part of the ISCM Canadian Section submission to the 2024 World Music Days in the Faroe Islands, Denmark. The latter work has also been awarded the 2024 Harry Freedman Award via the Canadian Music Centre. Recent projects  (2024) include a commission for percussion and organ for Marnie Giesbrecht and Mark Segger (Alberta Foundation for the Arts), a collaborative project with Chenoa Anderson, Emilie LeBel and Diana Taylor (Canada Council for the Arts) to produce a collection of solo flute music for Chenoa Anderson based on themes of musical wellness, a visiting artist/premiere of her Brass Quintet “Fanfare for a Common Person” at the Prisms festival at Arizona State University, and the official release of “Exhale” (Canada Council for the Arts), a solo piano collection of student-levelled works with written content introducing students and studio teachers to extended piano techniques.

Ms. Hindman’s artistic endeavours have been supported by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, the Canada Council for the Arts, The Alberta and Edmonton Arts Councils, and the Socan Foundation. She is an affiliate member of the Canadian League of Composers, a member of the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers and has served on the board of directors of New Music Edmonton.  

 Active as an educator and mentor, Ms. Hindman currently teaches undergraduate Composition at the University of Alberta and maintains a small private teaching studio of piano and composition students. She has been a clinician and feature composer for the Contemporary showcase festival, has served as a mentor composer for their young composer’s showcase, and continues to work to broaden inclusion of contemporary composition in educational settings.  

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