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Episode 3.1 (December 2022) New Music Edmonton is happy to return with a new series of The No Normal. We have some great interviews with amazing people lined up for the coming months, and we’re looking forward to sharing their work and their words with you! To get things going, we are delighted to present composer Sointu Aalto, in conversation with Suzette Chan. Born in Helsinki, raised in Edmonton, Sointu Aalto is a composer and cellist, who has emerged as one of the most compelling emerging artists, with a formidable output of uncompromising instrumental and audio-visual works. She has studied with many eminent teachers in Edmonton and elsewhere, and has been a competition winner, and participant in festivals across Canada and abroad. In June, 2022, Aalto and her colleagues in The JAMS Quartet performed in the Now Hear This Festival in Edmonton, where they gave a rare, full-length performance of works by Aalto and other composers.
Episode 3.2 (March 2023) This episode of The No Normal features composer and santurist Mehdi Rezania, a prolific and diverse artist, very familiar to audiences in our city. From his early teen years studying santur in Iran, and later compositional studies at York University, and current doctoral studies at The University of Alberta, Mehdi Rezania has developed a unique and compelling approach to creative music making. At home with traditional Persian music, composition, improvisation, and more, he regular performs and records as both a soloist, and as a much sought-after partner for artists from a unique array of practices.
Episode 3.3 (June 2023) We are back with another episode of New Music Edmonton’s The No Normal. Today’s guest is an artist familiar to many people in many places. Composer and violinist Alissa Cheung. Her compositions have been performed often in Edmonton and for several years she was a key part of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s violin section. More recently, Alissa moved to Montréal to take up a position in the mighty Quatuor Bozzini, and since then has continued to build her career as a composer while also taking part in the quartet’s almost constant schedule of performing, recording, and working with emerging artists. It’s always fantastic to chat with Alissa, and we hope you enjoy sitting with us while we do so! And so here we are, in a wide-ranging conversation recorded in early spring, 2023.
Episode 3.4 (August 2023) Welcome back to The No Normal. Please note this important caution: this episode includes discussion of mental health issues experienced by the artists, and including experiences of suicidal ideation and a depressive episode. Listening to this may be triggering for some listeners. This episode is dedicated with thanks to everyone at The Canadian Mental Health Association. Back in February 2023 New Music Edmonton presented an extraordinary event, the premiere of a new composition by Mike McCormick, performed by Edmonton vocalist, and long-time friend of Mike, Jessica Wagner. The work, under: went is a powerful, very personal artistic gesture, a work and performance unlike anything I have ever experienced in a concert hall. We were honoured to have present at the show staff and volunteers from The Canadian Mental Health Association. They led us through a post-performance discussion group focused on the topic of suicide, and of the ideas brought forth by the composition.In the following conversation, we caught up with Mike and Jessica only a few days after the event, and we had a chance then to really get to the heart of the work, and also to get to know a little more about both of their backgrounds.
