Friday, September 18, 2026, 7:30 PM St. Mary’s Anglican Church (11203 68 St NW, Edmonton)
New Music Edmonton opens our 2026-27 season with Derwen, featuring Caitlin Siân Richards and Bill Richards, along with special guests S. Patsula & Jared Epp.
Derwen is a durational work of improvised electro-acoustic music for amplified strings and keys. The title is the Welsh word for oak tree, a metaphor for sacredness, family, sustainability, strength, resilience, and creation. Sonic materials and inspirations come from many sources, including modern/post-modern, contemporary, Urban, electro-acoustic, folkloric, and narrative. Ideas undergo sustained development; as phrases unfold, organic forms emerge.
S. Patsula & Jared Epp: A two-person drone improvisation unfolding through the pipe organ at St. Mary’s and an expanded field of electronic and acoustic sound. Jared activates the organ, moving air through its pipes and into the architecture of the church, while Steph introduces additional sonic textures through electronics, cassette, and amplified objects. The performance develops through sustained tones, resonance, accumulation, and subtle shifts in density. Rather than treating the organ as a fixed centre, the two performers listen into the room, allowing sounds to overlap, interfere, recede, and gather within the acoustics of the space.
The Artists
Bill Richards is known for his unique fusions of traditional and contemporary idioms and styles. Bill holds the degrees of BA (Music) and MMus (Composition), University of Saskatchewan, and PhD Music (tonal and post-tonal theory), Western University, and is Associate Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications, MacEwan University. Bill’s compositional oeuvre includes film scores, electronica, and works for jazz group and chamber ensemble.
Caitlin Siân Richards art stems from an intuitive process that uses gesture to communicate ideas of presence. She holds a BFA (Art and Design) from the University of Alberta and an Arts and Cultural Management Certificate from MacEwan University. Drawing from ecologies and observation, she explores papermaking, collage and sound.
Pianist/composer Bill Richards and violist/visual artist Caitlin Siân Richards return to a period in Caitlin’s childhood when they played music together. Playing by ear shaped their musical conversations influenced by traditional folk music, blues and jazz standards.
S. Patsula is an interdisciplinary artist working across sound, performance, and visual media. Their practice explores the relationships between ritual, technology, ecology, and perception through immersive sonic environments and experimental performance. Drawing on improvisation, folklore, and tactile approaches to sound-making, Patsula creates work that investigates presence, intimacy, and human/non-human systems. They hold MFAs from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Alberta, and maintain a studio practice between Chicago and Edmonton.
Jared Epp (he/him) is a musician exploring layers and textures of sound through synth, loops and found sounds. He seeks to create works that are a blend of meditative music, drone, noise and ambient. He is also a curator and show organizer with Bleeding Heart Art Space helping to host and promote experimental music and art in Edmonton.
Accessibility
St. Mary’s Anglican Church – There is ground level access to the sanctuary through an entrance and parking at the back of the building through the alley. There is one gender-neutral washroom on the main floor. The WB #101 bus stops approx 160 m from the venue (stop #1347) and the EB #101 is across the street (stop #1323). There is street parking with limited angle parking in front of the venue.
