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Episode One (November 2020) New Music Edmonton has been hard at work over the last months planning new ways of presenting the latest in innovative music and sonic art, and we’re excited to offer a season full of new work and new ways of experiencing that work. We have a lot of great things planned, and an amazing roster of artists creating new projects. The old “normal” is gone, and there is no new normal: bring on the no normal! Among our biggest projects of the season is a new commissioning program, New Music For the No Normal. With the generous sponsorship of The Edmonton Arts Council, New Music Edmonton is commissioning a dozen local artists to create new classical, audio and audio-visual works. We’ll be previewing them on the podcast over the first three episodes, and they will be available for further listening on our SoundCloud and VIMEO pages. For our first episode, we will meet and listen to five of those new creations, with Rio Houle, Raylene Campbell, George Andrix, Bhuyash Neupane and Caitlin Sian Richards. We’ll also have a feature interview with one of Edmonton’s major figures in new music, Allison Balcetis, who just happens to be the outgoing New Music Edmonton President.
Episode Two (December 2020) Winter is coming on in the northern hemisphere.The No Normal, Episode Two is here, with lots of conversation and new music. We have new releases by The Giovanni, bracing/ light pirate and Diana Tayler from our Edmonton Arts Council-sponsored New Music for the No Normal Project. Also – don’t miss our first NME Commissions Redux, as we listen to The Break, composed by Jane Berry for UltraViolet in 2019. This episode includes those works, and interviews with each of the artists by Ian Crutchley and our new interview team members, Caitlin Sian Richard and Ainsley Hillyard.
Episode Three (December 2020) This special episode of The No Normal presents new works by three spoken word and sound duos. New Music Edmonton commissioned these recordings as part of its 2020-21 No Normal season. We hope you will enjoy these extraordinary creations by Brandon Wint and Adam Saikaley, Nisha Patel and Ru Manyonga, and Dwennimmen and Mustaf Rafiq.
Episode Four (January 2021) Our first episode of 2021 features some great discussions and music. At the top of the show, Ian Crutchley, New Music Edmonton Artistic Director, discusses a wide range of topics with the incoming Artistic Directors of New Works Calgary, Rbecca Bruton and Lesley Hinger. They have also shared some of their own music with us. In the second part of this episode we have an interview between artist Sydney Lancaster, and audio-visual artist Gary James Joynes. This includes a sneak peak of some forthcoming work, and discussion of his new piece, Sonic Suns: Genesis, commissioned by New Music Edmonton, and available on our VIMEO page at vimeo.com/newmusicedmonton/sonicsunsgenesis.
Episode Five (February 2021) Cris Derksen and Shumaila Hemani are the featured artists for this episode, which will include their newly commissioned works and interviews. Nice and Clean, composed by Cris Derkesen, features the composer on ‘cello, and pianist Darren Creech. The interviewer for this segment is musician Matthew Cardinal, known to many for his work as a soloist, composer and member of nêhiyawak. Shumaila Hemani’s Once Upon A Time In Kobé, Japan, is an acousmatic composition, and she is interviewed here by journalist and DJ, Piyush Patel.
Episode Six (March 2021) Our March 2021 Episode highlights two artists: Xuan Ye and Cole Dorchester. Cole Dorchester is a composer, vocalist, and electronic musician currently pursuing studies in composition at the University of Alberta. Their work runs a wide gamut of styles – focusing on timbre, and delicate interwoven textures. They have studied composition with Scott Smallwood and Nicolás Arnáez, and singing with Lary Benson. Dorchester’s new work, Petrichor was recently commissioned by New Music Edmonton for guitarist Marek Orszulik, and is being presented on this program for the first time. For more information on Cole Dorchester: @user-247397327. Currently based in Toronto, and lauded as “one of Canada’s most exciting voices in textural soma” – Xuan Ye is techno-agnostic and genre eclectic. Their live performances and releases have received critical accolades from Bandcamp, Musicworks and Exclaim!, while their installation works have been featured and exhibited internationally. New Music Edmonton has commissioned their new audio-visual work – entitled XENOYOGA(((TROLL THE SCROLL))) – which will be available on NME’s VIMEO page, while an excerpt from XENOYOGA (I Really Want Some) is included with this episode of The No Normal. For more Information on Xuan Ye: a.pureapparat.us
Episode Seven (May 2021) Our May 2021 Episode, our seventh includes interviews with oboist Catherine Lee and composer Nico Arnaez. Double reeds player Catherine Lee specializes in playing new music, and has recorded or performed dozens of new works for oboe, oboe d’amore and English horn. Raised in amiskwaciy/ Edmonton, Lee currently lives and works in Portland Oregon. Her second album, Remote Together, is being released by Vancouver’s Redshift Records this month and includes Lee’s own composition, Silkys, created in collaboration with Juniana Lanning. Composer Nico Arnáez, originally from Mendoza region of Argentina, has lived in amiskwaciy/ Edmonton for over a decade. As a composer, sound artist, improviser and collaborative artist he has been involved in an amazing array of projects since moving here. New Music Edmonton has commissioned a new work, Duo I, for soprano and computer, with the assistance of The Edmonton Arts Council. Vocalist Jessica Wagner is widely experienced in a range of repertoires, from early music to complex new works for voice and electronics. She is both a teacher and a performer in the amiskwaciy/ Edmonton area, and worked collaboratively with Nico Arnáez during the composition and recording of Duo I.
Episode Eight (June 2021) Episode Eight of The No Normal begins with an interview with Kate Stashko of Good Women Dance Collective. This month, The Good Women Dance Collective is collaborating with New Music Edmonton on a series of new performances, being live-streamed from June 20 through 28 as The Summer Solstice Series. These will later be available on demand. Ian Crutchley spoke to Kate Stashko about that series, and about The Good Women Dance Collective’s history and plans for the next year. Part two of this episode is a conversation with composer Emilie LeBel moved to Edmonton in 2018 and is now teaching at Grant MacEwan University, while also holding the position of Affiliate Composer with The Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Described as “writing music that reflects her intelligence and audaciousness” (Sir Andrew Davis); “restrained and beautifully coherent from beginning to end” (barczablog); and “impressively subtle and sensuous” (ConcertoNet), her work inhabits sonic worlds that are primarily concerned with textural landscapes, resonance, and variances in colour. In addition to the conversation, we also include excerpts from three works by the composer.
Episode Nine (July 2021) In Episode Nine of The No Normal we welcome Suzette Chan, who is joining the interviewing team for the first time, with a focus on Edmonton composer Catherine Bevan. New Music Edmonton commissioned Catherine Bevan through its Edmonton Arts Council-sponsored New Music For The No Normal project. The result is a solo piano work, To the Ends of the Earth. The No Normal includes the premiere performance, recorded by Edmonton’s Sahil Chugh at The Yardbird Suite this spring. Part two of this episode is a conversation between No Normal co-creator, Caitlin Sian Richards, and audio-visual duo Instant Places. Originally from our region, Laura Kavanaugh and Ian Birse featured in our spring festival, and led some incredible online improv workshops. Included are excerpts from their recent work, Steps Six Through Seven of Many Stars.
Episode Ten (August 2021) Episode Ten is our final show for this, our inaugural season. It’s been an exciting new adventure for us, and we’ve enjoyed bringing you the voices of dozens of artists alongside lots of new works. Episode ten opens with a discussion between Ian Crutchley and Abram Hindle, noise artist, and the curator of The Boreal Electroacoustic Music Society’s Edmonton Noisefest, online on August 28, 2021. To close out this episode, and the first No Normal season, we are very pleased to present a conversation between Piyush Patel and sound artist and photographer Matthew Cardinal, in an in-depth discussion of Matthew Cardinal’s prolific creative work.
Calm (October 2021) Listen up / Tendez l’oreille, is the name of this year’s Canadian New Music Network FORUM. Available online, this ten-week celebration of the creative music and sound community features talks, performances and pre-recorded works by dozens of artists. The Canadian New Music Network invited New Music Edmonton to take part by way of a specially-produced episode of The No Normal. Entitled Calm, this episode brings together three newly-created works. They will be presented as a complete, uninterrupted set, with just a few moments of ambient sound separating them. Matthew Cardinal is the curator of these works. A key figure in our region and beyond, Matthew Cardinal is well known for his solo work, myriad collaborative projects, and photography.
