These days eldritch Priest is composing impossibly long melodies, long poems, and writing a dissertation on the notion that music is a virus. His works have been performed by ensembles and soloists including: The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Arraymusic, Continuum, The Canadian Composers Orchestra, The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, The Ensemble of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, Studio für Bewegungs Chiffren, neither/nor, The Fernwood Difficult Music Society, Eric km Clark, Roger Admiral, Rebecca Van der Post, and Marc Couroux. eldritch has studied with Gordon Mumma, Christopher Butterfield, Linda Catlin Smith, and Anthony Genge.
Living in Toronto, John Mark Sherlock studied composition at the University of Western Ontario with Jack Behrens, Arsenio Giron and David Myska. His works have been played by many of Canada’s finest performers and ensembles including Arraymusic, the Burdocks, Critical Band, The Ergo Ensemble, Eve Egoyan, Linda Catlin Smith, the NUMUS Ensemble featuring the Penderecki String Quartet, Richard Sacks and Stephen Clarke. Also, he has written original music for dance or had works used for choreography by Marie-Josée Chartier, Heidi Strauss, Darryl Tracy, Allen Kaeja, Sylvain Émard and Gerry Trentham. With composer eldritch Priest, he recently formed the ensemble, neither/nor. John has, at various times, received the kind support of the Toronto Arts Council, Laidlaw Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts , Ontario Arts Council and the Chalmers Foundation.
Marc Couroux has been acclaimed as one of the leading artists of his generation. His work has been centered around the reinvention and renewal of the audience-performer dialectic, challenging the received and seldom questioned notion of the performer’s physical presence within the sociopolitical confines of the public event. He believes that public performance is already an inherently political act from which follows a striking series of works committed to reclaiming a critical function for art in society. His work as a whole is concerned with exploring the potential of art as a motor for social investigation, in which the properties of the work itself, employing the perceptual and cultural prejudices of the viewer as prime material, enables the creation of a productive, creative zone of inquiry. It is designed to empower the viewer to think critically about what he is witnessing, leading him to make imaginative and metaphorical linkages between art and social issues. Indeed, the artwork should function as a generator of ideas, a mirror of the viewer’s own relationship to the world around him, a stimulus for further inquiry. As such, both the media employed in achieving this goal, as well as the stylistic approaches adopted will vary radically, according to the needs of the work. The critical investigation of the binding ties between performer and viewer was first explored in the context of the standard concert ritual.
David Chokroun’s music usually involves creating and exploring strategies for improvisation. He lives in East Vancouver where he often eats in restaurants.
Eric Chenaux experiments with song forms as a guitar player, composer and singer. He plays sweet and warped jazz in The Reveries (who recently performed at Angelica Festival, Bologna, Italy), improvises fried polyphony in The Guayaveras and The Draperies, composes skewed lyrical ballads for and performs with – The Tristanos, a duet with Michelle McAdorey, and a duo with composer Martin Arnold. As a composer Eric has had pieces performed by The Arraymusic Ensemble and Neither/Nor. He is also co-founder of Toronto based recording label, Rat-drifting.
Josh Thorpe is a composer, improviser, artist, writer, and publisher living in Toronto. His work, largely the result of mutating existing musics, has been performed by Arraymusic, Vancouver New Music, Continuum, the Draperies, Drumheller, and many others at Rat-drifting, Music Gallery, the Transac, neither/nor, the Window Series, and other parts of Canada. His first CD, Flocklight, is available on Rat-drifting and upcoming releases are expected on Rat-drifting and Bennifer. He can be seen and heard to play warped songs solo and with The Thorpe (Aimée Dawn Robinson and Colin Clark) or Marcus Quin. For more, please visit his website: www.joshthorpe.com
Rachael Wadham has been heavily involved in the Canadian improv, indie, and noise scene for many years as a pianist and junk collector. She tries hard to enforce her views on recycling through the use of unwanted instruments, tossed junk, and long forgotten songs … wonderful things that people are too lazy to find a use for. Rachael grew up studying classical and jazz piano and eventually completed a bachelor’s degree in composition with Christopher Butterfield and John Celona at the University of Victoria. Rachael has collaborated with artists including Deep Dark United, Picastro, the Fernwood Difficult Music Society, Arraymusic, Ensemble d’Ereprijs, Sound Stories, the Draperies, triPOD Dance, Lee Hutzulak, neither/nor, and many more. Her current projects are Nada, 6785, Attn: DiamondœShoppers, Action Vacuum, Heads over Houses, quaqua, plus frequent throwÑtogethers from theœlarge array of improv musicians in Vancouver and beyond.
Colin Clark is a composer living in Toronto. Having studied interdisciplinary art and cultural theory at York University, his friendships with other composers and artists have been a primary influence on his musical development. Colin’s music draws inspiration from visual and organic structures, and has recently been concerned with unusual intonation and an idiosyncratic approach to time. He has been involved in a number of interdisciplinary collaborations, and is keenly interested in the intersection between composition and other art forms such as experimental film. He is currently a curator with the Loop Collective and a member of the Toronto art-pop ensemble The Thorpe.
Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark is a composer and violinist from Victoria, BC, Canada. Eric has performed new music throughout Canada and the US, most recently at the (failure) Festivette in Toronto; the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida; MASS MoCA in Massachusetts; and RedCat in Los Angeles. He has also performed extensively in Victoria and Vancouver as a founding member of the Fernwood Difficult Music Society, a concert group devoted solely to new works. In the summer of 2004, Eric was accepted for residencies with Steve Lacy at the ACA in performance and composition, and the Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music in performance. He was also a 2003 resident composer with ARRAYMUSIC in Toronto for their annual Young Composers’ Workshop. Eric is currently living in New York.
Over the past few years Mike Kane has split his time between playing jazz piano and composing. He completed graduate studies in composition at York University, mostly under composer James Tenney. Mike has accompanied many jazz artists in Los Angeles and Toronto, and has both played piano and had pieces performed at venues such as The Music Gallery and Arraymusic Studio in Toronto.
Doug Tielli has his hands in many musical pockets. A multi-instrumentalist (trombone, guitar, banjo, keyboards, junk, etc.) he finds himself on the edges of many musical projects (free-improvisation, composition, song-writing, jazz, pop, country and noise). He is currently a member of The silt, The Reveries, The Draperies, Drumheller, and No Man Band. He has performed with such renowned musicians as: Marhshall Allen, Eugene Chadbourne, John Oswald and Evan Parker, and he has had chamber music pieces performed by Arraymusic, Contact, and Neither/Nor.
Paul Swoger-Ruston studied computer music with pioneer composer James Tenney and with composer/theorist Glen Halls. Paul also studied with composer Linda Catlin Smith and musicologist Bob Gilmore as well as composers Frank Denyer and David Prior. He has a PhD in Music Composition and Theory from Dartington College of Arts in Devon, UK. The composer’s work reflects his interest in psychoacoustics, tuning theory, gradual processes and systems of organization. He has received many awards, including The Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) George Butterworth Award, the Marion Lower Prize in Composition, the Long & McQuade Guitar Scholarship, two CASBY Awards (with band King Apparatus), as well as free bursaries for degrees. Paul started his musical career as a guitarist, touring and recording with rock and jazz bands. His co-owned company Resolver (formerly Kinophone Music) composes and produces music for film and television. Recent work includes music for Showcase, The Discovery Channel and the CBC. Highlights of Paul’s composing career include a world-premier of Corrections and Applifications at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and a commission by the renowned Orkest de Volharding. Paul is an Associate Lecturer at Dartington College of Arts.