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Episode 2.1 (January 2022) Welcome (or, welcome back!) to The No Normal, New Music Edmonton’s podcast featuring interviews and sonic art from some of the most innovative artists around. We were back briefly in the autumn, with a beautiful music-only episode, curated by Matthew Cardinal. Now we’re ready to move on with regular episodes, and so happy to be in our second season! This episode will include an interview of Mustafa Rafiq, by Suzette Chan, a local arts writer, and a great friend of all in the arts. In the interview, Mustafa and Suzette talk about Mustafa’s background and a range of musical projects in which Mustafa has been involved lately, including a recent Pseudo Laboratories release, If I Were A Dance, (featuring Dwennimmen and Bhuyash Neupane), plus their co-operative ensemble sextet, Takleef. The second part of the show will feature a conversation between Mile Zero Dance Artistic Director Gerry Morita and New Music Edmonton Artistic Director Ian Crutchley. Their discussion focuses on how Gerry Morita became involved in contemporary dance and music practices, her work at Mile Zero Dance, and some of the interesting intersections and influences relating her practice to ideas and artists also found in the contemporary sound and music worlds. We’ll also listen to Day of Creation, from the album Mosàfer, by recent Morita collaborators, the duo of Farhad Khosravi and Daniel Stadnicki.
Episode 2.2 (March 2022) In this episode of The No Normal, we feature local artist Parker Thiessen. A central figure in our experimental scene, Parker Thiessen has recorded and performed as a soloist and as a member of numerous duos and ensembles, including Soft Ions, Private Investigators, Zebra Pulse, and more. Parker Thiessen, along with his Private Investigators partner, Ian Rowley, runs the experimental label Pseudo Laboratories. Now nearing its 50th release, Pseudo Laboratories has, since 2014, produced cassettes and digital versions of work by dozens of artists. Ian Crutchley, New Music Edmonton Artistic Director, interviewed Parker Thiessen for this episode. They discuss the Pseudo Laboratories label, as well as the creative work of Parker Thiessen himself.
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.
Episode 2.4 (June 2022) In this episode of The No Normal, we welcome Shawn Pinchbeck. Internationally active as a composer, performer and sound artist, Shawn Pinchbeck has, since the mid 1980s, been a key part of the experimental sonic arts scene in Edmonton. With a toolkit that includes analog and digital machinery, expertise in field recording, and wide-ranging performance experience, Shawn has worked with a striking array of artists from sound and music, dance, video, the visual arts and more! Ian Crutchley’s interview with Shawn Pinchbeck covers the artist’s story from his earliest to latest work, his first electronic gadgets, early local collaborators, mentors, and… bees!
Episode 2.5 (August 2022) Our city is teeming with emerging artists of all kinds, many of them classical composers. This episode of The No Normal focuses on one such artist, Mary Alice Conrad. Over the last few years, her name has appeared with increasing frequency in concert programming, workshops and commissioned works lists across the country. In this interview, you’ll get to know about this compelling artist’s background and we dig into some of her recent works, with lots of great information on the genesis of Mary Alice Conrad’s diverse and prolific compositions.
