Vocal Milestones: Giving Voice to New Musical Ideas

Colourful image of eighth notes and treble clef

Contemporary music is acknowledged as a means of introducing fresh ideas. And contemporary vocal music offers a powerful artistic medium for the delivery of meaningful and profound messages. I have witnessed this often throughout my career in broadcasting and music production. Before my professional life, one of the earliest and most indicative examples of this … Read more

Seminal Schoenberg: A Mini-Revival of the Second Viennese School

Glenn Gould recording Schoenberg’s songs with Helen Vanni, 1964

Late in 1974, CBC Radio, in collaboration with writer/host Glenn Gould (1932-1982) and with me as producer, presented Arnold Schoenberg: The Man Who Changed Music, ten one-hour-long broadcasts honouring the centennial of the birth of composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). It was a comprehensive series of programs, and in the course of those ten episodes a … Read more

Concert Report: Journals from ISCM 2017, Part II

Full Orchestra performing in concert hall

Of the 30 or more concerts that took place in Vancouver during ISCM 2017, the annual festival presented by the International Society for Contemporary Music, only a few involved orchestras. Naturally, due to the greater costs of larger musical forces, the majority of concerts in the festival were for smaller ensembles. It was, nonetheless, impressive … Read more

Concert Report: Journals from ISCM 2017, Part I

Chamber orchestrat with solo Violinist performing on stage

The World New Music Days festival has been held in a different country each year, since 1922. Organized by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), its stated purpose is “to present music from each of our members, showcasing the incredible diversity of musical practice in our time.” The 2017 edition of the festival, marketed … Read more

Music of Remembrance

Field of poppys in mountain valley in Afghanistan

In 2009 Canadian poet Suzanne Steele was appointed as the first ever Canadian war poet, and served in Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry as a part of the Canadian Forces Artist Program. She documented her experiences in her poetry and on her website, warpoet.ca. After her return home, she mentioned … Read more

A Lecture on the Weather

John Cage sitting in a chair in a large room with many plants

It’s November at last, in a more than usually acerbic election year in the USA, in the final days of a presidential campaign revolving in large part around a slogan about making America great again. All of which causes me to recall a moment in CBC Radio history, just over 40 years ago, that not … Read more

Coming of Age In The 1990s – Part 2

Large decorated canoe with 12 people on a misty lake

It was 3:40 in the morning. The forest was in absolute stillness, the canoe slipping into the water, barely making a sound. It was a cool September morning on Wildcat Lake in the Haliburton Forest in 1997. My cargo – two condenser microphones and a portable digital recorder – and I were heading out to … Read more

Coming of Age in the 1990’s

The Karen Klein Award

The decade of the 1990s witnessed a flourishing of Canadian musical creativity, in terms of both the composition of significant new works and the growing maturity of several organizations that commissioned and presented performances of them. Two New Hours, the contemporary music program I created for CBC Radio Two, turned 12-years-old on New Years Day, … Read more

Remembering Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould leaning over a mixing console

The announcement of Phillip Glass as the 11th recipient the Glenn Gould Prize this past April 14 gives us an opportunity to remember that Glenn Gould was himself an artist who walked amongst us. Although he was someone who changed the world of music in a number of significant ways, the fact remains that he … Read more