Calendar

A deep listening experience.
Impressionistic music. World sounds.
8 p.m. $20

[46 essex]

Doors at 8:30pm
Show at 9pm, $15/PWYC

TRIO CONCERT
Silence, 46 Essex Street, Guelph

Ugly Beauties Trio with Matt Brubeck, Nick Fraser, and Marilyn Lerner

The Ugly Beauties Trio is a configuration of some of Canada’s top improvisers- Marilyn Lerner - piano, Matt Brubeck - cello and Nick Fraser ­drums. Named for Thelonius Monk’s composition Ugly Beauty, the trio's music encompasses worlds of improvised music and modern jazz, with strong elements of contemporary classical music. With a repertoire consisting of an organic mixture of both written and improvised material the Ugly Beauties' sound can best be described as abstract lyricism, with swing and groove as part of the mix!

[46 essex]

1:30-3:30pm, $10/PWYC

MUSIC AND FILM DAY
Silence, 46 Essex Street, Guelph

Mauricio Martinez dir.; Just Play: A History of Improvised Music in Toronto (documentary)
Nicholas Loess and Joe Sorbara dir.; Start Making Noises Now (documentary)

Followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers

Just Play: A History of Improvised Music in Toronto, directed by Mauricio Martinez, weaves together interviews and archival photographs to detail the history of Toronto’s improvised music scene from its beginnings to the present day. Martinez approaches the topic as a literary critic, using textual cues to frame a narrative that occupies an ambiguous zone at the nexus of documentary
history, poesis, and mythopoesis. The film’s use of textual framing devices blurs the distinction between fact and metaphor, lending the history an epic quality—lives and stories told are highly individual yet lend themselves to analysis of theme and archetype. In Just Play, Martinez consciously works with the tension between what is said and unsaid in interview, what is present and absent in history, in the service of an archival poetics that opens something akin to a free improvisation of historical interpretation.

Mauricio Martinez is a Hamilton-based scholar, filmmaker, and writing instructor with a PhD in Literary/Theatre Studies in English from the University of Guelph. Since 2010, Martinez has produced a number of video projects for ICASP/IISCI beginning with a creative documentary about the project, The Improvising Eye (2010), and Ikons (2011), a video companion to the art installation by Eric Metcalfe and George Lewis. Martinez’s audiovisual work attempts to expose formalist assumptions about the commercial, the avant-garde, and the student through the cultivation of an authenticity and propriety inspired by free improvisation. His camera is preoccupied with banal movement and transit across landscape and through public space, using visual distortion to make explicit otherwise unstated ways in which consciousness constructs audiovisual perception.

Start Making Noises Now, directed by Nicholas Loess and Joe Sorbara, is an experimental documentary film about free improvised music in Toronto. In 2012, with the help of the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice research project, Nicholas Loess and Joe Sorbara began gathering upwards of 60 hours of interview and performance footage featuring many of the city's creative improvising musicians. They then got to work constructing a film that would speak to the beauty and complexity of improvised music-making and the diverse ecology of approaches at play in an active community of improvisers. Start Making Noises Now looks at and listens to many of the struggles that make and sustain free improvised music in Toronto. The film asserts both the musicality of human speech and conversation and the dialogical nature of an often cacophonous music. Its lens is as much aural as it is visual. It asks you to listen as much as it asks you to watch. It also asks you to consider, to question, to laugh, to enjoy. And it asks you to improvise.

Nicholas Loess is a Guelph-based video artist and improvisation scholar. He is a PhD candidate in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph where he is exploring the creative linkages between experimental film and improvisation. His "ultra-short" one-minute silent film, 24Progressive, won first prize at the Toronto Urban Film Festival in 2012.

Joe Sorbara is a drummer and percussionist living and making music in Toronto. An active member of Toronto's creative music scene, he is equally at home playing jazz standards, free improvised music, punk rock, and chamber music--but he prefers to play them all at the same time. As an educator, Sorbara works with young musicians through the School of Fine Arts at the University of Guelph and through the Regent Park School of Music in Toronto. He is also a member of the Somewhere There Collective, the director of the long-running Leftover Daylight Series, and was a founding board member of the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto.

[46 essex]

Thursday, September 14, 9pm, $10/PWYC
Doors at 8:45pm

PLEASE NOTE: THIS SILENCE EVENT IS BEING HELD AT THE BOOKSHELF, 41 QUEBEC STREET, GUELPH

MUSIC AND FILM DAY
The Bookshelf, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph

Vira Burmenko dir.; La vie d'un clown & L'amor d'un clown (two film shorts)
Emma Franz dir.; Bill Frisell: A Portrait (full-length documentary)

Vira Burmenko Films

La vie d'un clown:
A skilled artist Jacques Pitre sets out on his journey to find employment in the modern Toronto. Being also a clown he is faced with obstacles and judgment from the people and authorities; yet he finds his tribe along his path. Jacques is a modern Charlie Chaplin in this short, silent black and white comedy-grotesque. He finds joy in simple things and is amazed at the vibrancy of the big city. Through music and the raw emotion of brilliant acting Jacques tells us his story of perseverance and determination.

IMDb:
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt6320838/

L'amour d'un clown:
Jacques, the entertainer working at a lounge, and Jacqueline, a waitress, finally decide to take the next step and declare their love for each other. The couple face multiple obstacles, including their employment situation and judgement for their unconventional image. Nevertheless, the true love between two artists overcomes all obstacles.

IMDb:
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt6579886/plotsummary?ref_=m_tt_ov_pl

Vira Burmenko Bio

"When I was little I did not think I was special - I thought we each meant to pick our instrument and to learn to make beautiful music."

Meet Vira Burmenko, award winning performing artist from the Ukraine, Kiev - a gypsy punk violinist, Vira sets hearts on fire with her bold energy. Fans describe her as the "Female Doctor Draw" and her musical style as "David Garrett meets Lindsey Stirling, exploded with Gypsy fire."

In the ocean of modern violin Vira stands out with her pristine instrumental technique and the theatrical twist of dance in live performance.

Her 2015 Akademia Award winning hit singles Three-Mix and The Never Ending Tango received acclimation as Best Instrumental Classical/Electronica and Best Latin and are spun on over 70 FM Radio stations. Vira's press release with Marquix Global Networks surpassed its 1 million views in February 2016 and her feature Three-Mix video screened in the Toronto Short Film Festival (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVM_yt_KGqc), alongside Moshe Hammer's "Music Child". Vira has been recently nominated as the Emerging Artist of the Year in the upcoming In Fame Awards 2017. Among other nominees are Eugene (Doctor) Draw and pianist Elizabeth Spano as Established Artists of the Year.

In the past few years Vira featured in the live events around Toronto, among them Miracle on Queen Street at the Naked Bodyz Fashion by designer Brenda Konwisarz, The Waterfront Magazine Media Event at The Toula Lounge performing with Leah Hawkins, The TIFF Green Room by Madflower Canada's Nico Bacigalupo, Celebrate Toronto, Health and Beauty Expo, The Persian Beauty Awards broadcast on national television. Vira also acted in TV shows and films as a violinist, among them Netflix' Hemlock Grove. Having gathered her supporters Vira is currently launching a live events and web series campaign of Weekend Motivation, in collaboration with Ouggo's King Za Milli, a fellow motivational author. The artist will share not only her music but also articles from her life-changing book, My Key to Immortality: Tuning your Mind into the Life of Universal Love, available through Balboa Press, a division of Hay House Publishing. Vira is a speaker at other's events for music, mind, spirit, body and success in self-realization. Weekend Motivation first video "Waking up Early for Your Success" reached over 201,000 views this summer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGcmFqk5zfQ

Vira is currently producing a series of silent short comedy films - in style of Charlie Chaplin - which she directed and scored. "La vie d'un clown" screened in fourteen festivals, has received four international awards, and three nominations, among them:
Best Short Film - Best Actor (Dwight Harrison) - Best Score NYC Indie Film Awards
Best Silent Film Calcutta International Cult Film Festival
Judges' Top Five Pick TAPFest (Home Base Premiere)
Ohh No You Didn't Award (Dwayne Wilson Supporting Actor) TAPFest
Dan Willmott Award (Executive Producer Lena Burmenko) TAPFest

Vira's hit singles are available on iTunes and on Artist's website: www.viraburmenko.com

Vira is represented by EMG Canada's Sam Ottaviano.

Emma Franz Bio

Emma Franz is a filmmaker and musician whose projects have taken her to 35 countries. Her first music feature film, the award-winning Intangible Asset No. 82, screened at SXSW, HotDocs, AFI SIlverdocs and other significant festivals around the world. Franz produced, directed, shot and edited "Bill Frisell, A Portrait."

Bill Frisell: A Portrait

A character portrait of anti-archetype guitar hero, Bill Frisell, this nuanced film traces the ideas and processes that shaped Frisell’s music, and provides rare insight into the mind and personality of one of the significant musicians of recent decades. Full of live music, revealing stories, and intimate access to the normally reclusive Frisell, various collaborations are followed from development to fruition, including the last ever performance of the Paul Motian Trio with Frisell and Joe Lovano. Also featuring Bonnie Raitt, Hal Willner, Paul Simon, Nels Cline, Joey Baron, Jim Hall, Jason Moran, Mike Gibbs, John Zorn, Jack DeJohnette, Ron Carter and John Abercrombie.

About Bill Frisell

Over the years, Frisell has contributed to the work of such collaborators as Paul Motian, John Zorn, Elvis Costello, Ginger Baker, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III, Van Dyke Parks, Vic Chesnutt, Rickie, Lee Jones, Ron Sexsmith, Vinicius Cantuária, Marc Johnson (in "Bass Desires"), Ronald Shannon Jackson and Melvin Gibbs (in "Power Tools"), Marianne Faithful, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Lyle Mays, Vernon Reid, Julius Hemphill, Paul Bley, Wayne Horvitz, Hal Willner, Robin Holcomb, Rinde Eckert, The Frankfurt Ballet, film director Gus Van Sant, David Sanborn, David Sylvian, Petra Haden and numerous others, including Bono, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell and Daniel Lanois on the soundtrack for Wim Wenders' film Million Dollar Hotel.

This work has established Frisell as one of the most sought-after guitar voices in contemporary music. The breadth of such performing and recording situations is a testament not only to his singular guitar conception, but his musical versatility as well. This, however, is old news by now. In recent years, it is Frisell's role as composer and band leader which has garnered him increasing notoriety.

"For over ten years Bill Frisell has quietly been the most brilliant and unique voice to come along in jazz guitar since Wes Montgomery. In light of this, it may be easy to overlook the fact that he may also be one of the most promising composers of American music on the current scene."
- Stereophile

"Bill Frisell is the Clark Kent of the electric guitar. Soft-spoken and self-effacing in conversation, he apparently breathes in lungfuls of raw fire when he straps on his (guitar)...His music is not what is typically called jazz, though it turns on improvisation; it's not rock'n roll; and it sure ain't that tired dinosaur called fusion. In one of the biggest leaps of imagination since the Yardbirds and Jimi Hendrix, Frisell coaxes and slams his hovering split-toned ax into shapes of things to come...But besides being a guitar genius, he's turned into a terrific songwriter. Like Monk, Frisell's harmonic and melodic ideas form a succinct, seamless mesh with outer sonic and rhythmic ideas about his ax."
- Spin

[46 essex]

Show at 5pm
$20 general admission
$15 students, seniors and underemployed

The festival welcomes this cooperative trio celebrating its 20th anniversary. Michel F. Côté (drums, feedback) is a hugely influential figure in Montreal musique actuelle making his first festival appearance. His countless projects are documented on Ambiances Magnétiques (since the early 1990s) as well as his own ‘project’ labels, &records and Sono Sordo. Alexandre St-Onge (bass guitar, electronics) works with MFC in another trio celebrating its 20th anniversary, Klaxon Gueule with Bernard Falaise, and is a consistently brilliant figure in Montreal creative music. Sam Shalabi (guitar) contributes eccentric electricity to his own bands (Shalabi Effect, Land of Kush, etc.) that combine improvisation, psychedelia, rock, noise, tropicalia, and traditional music from his periodic home, Cairo. Expect intelligent noise served up with rock intensity.

Jane and the Magic Bananas website: http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/et_17/

[46 essex]

[46 essex]

2-3:30pm, FREE

Apprehension Engine Workshop with Mark Korven and Tony Duggan-Smith, co-creators of The Apprehension Engine

Saturday September 16, 2-3:30pm, FREE
Silence, 46 Essex Street, Guelph

When Canadian movie composer Mark Korven wanted to craft dark sounds for horror movie film scores, he realized the acoustic instrument he needed didn’t exist. Consequently, to conjure up breathtaking moments of suspension, Mark teamed up with Tony Duggan-Smith, a renowned guitar designer and builder. Through their conversations and collaborations, Tony Duggan-Smith fashioned a one-of-a-kind instrument dubbed the Apprehension Engine. As a sonic palate, this original instrument incorporates bowed, plucked, and struck devices to generate ambient interludes and effects.

As Mark Korven says, “With an instrument like this, the goal is to produce sounds that are disturbing.”

The focus of this afternoon workshop is to showcase The Apprehension Engine live with Mark as composer and Tony as builder. Participants will get to hear, first hand, an unprecedented instrument that expresses evocative sounds that stir up the emotions. Mark will share the application of intense sonic textures in film composition. The session will be interactive with ample opportunity to ask questions.

This workshop is free of charge and accessible to the public. Seating is limited and registration is suggested.

[46 essex]

7-8:30pm & 9:30-11pm, General Admission $25

A Canadian Premiere: The Apprehension Engine in Performance
Saturday September 16, 7-8:30pm or 9:30-11pm

For tickets, visit: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-apprehension-engine-in-performance-a-canadian-premiere-tickets-36614924224?aff=eac2

The Apprehension Engine in Performance with Mark Korven, Matt Brubeck, Gary Diggins, Daniel Fischlin, Lewis Melville, and Joe Sorbara

What happens when you combine a Canadian composer (who specializes in horror film soundtracks) with a guitar maker who is respected around the world for his innovative approach to acoustic instruments? The end result of this collaboration is an unprecedented, fear-inducing instrument they call “The Apprehension Engine.” The project began last fall when composer Mark Korven called up his friend Tony Duggan-Smith and asked him to custom design an instrument that could generate dark, ambient sounds.

“The mission was to make something that causes people to feel strange and uncomfortable,” Tony says. “With a guitar, I’m trying to make a beautiful instrument with the sweetest, most pleasing sound possible. With the Apprehension Engine, we’re trying to annoy people.”

“It’s a matter of personal perspective,” Mark says. “Some people tell us the Apprehension Engine freaks them out, while others tell us the sounds are beautiful and relaxing.”

Mark, who would normally use digital samples for eerie effects, is best known for his unsettling score to Robert Eggers’s 2015 horror film The Witch. Tony is a well established Canadian luthier and one of seven artisans commissioned by the McMichael Gallery for its current Group of Seven Guitar Project.

Originally envisioned as a one-off commission, plans now call for the building of 10 new devices that will be based on the prototype, with refinements. Millions of individuals have tuned into a short film on the Apprehension Engine and now a growing number of musicians, mixed-media artists, and major composers are wanting to own the device.

The two performances will showcase the sonic possibilities of The Apprehension Engine within an ensemble of musicians adept at generating cinematic textures and timbres. In this Canadian premiere, Mark Korven will enter into a sonic dialogue with the Silence Collective and demonstrate his skills as a composer and improvisor through The Apprehension Engine. This evening will be of special appeal to film composers, recording engineers, music students, and concert-goers with an ear for the edgy.

[46 essex]

Show at 8pm
$20 general admission
$15 students, seniors and underemployed

The partnership of singer Christine Duncan and drummer and producer Jean Martin over the years has resulted in many memorable large-scale productions, including Element Choir projects with soloists William Parker and Veryan Weston, and recently a Toronto Symphony Orchestra commission, Qiksaaktuq, featuring Tanya Tagaq as soloist and Christine conducting the brass section with improvised hand-cues (derived in part from those of the Element Choir). They have also produced eleven(!) Barnyard Drama Xmas Singalong records featuring friends and neighbours playing fun and twisted seasonal chestnuts, testament to their family and community spirit. As an intimate, closing concert for the festival, we are pleased to host Duncan and Martin in the original duo incarnation of Barnyard Drama, no less than a national treasure.

Website: http://www.barnyardrecords.com/bioBarn.html

[46 essex]

Doors at 7:30pm
Show at 8pm
$10/PWYC, Licensed

STAR TRIPTYCH

Bio:

Star Triptych is Elisa Thorn (harp), David Riddel (guitar) and Laura Swankey (voice). The trio explores lyrical melody, soundscape, and gesture through composition, improvisation, extended techniques and electronic effects. Bringing together their different musical backgrounds, the group features each of their unique styles and musical relationships. Thorn and Swankey met at the International Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre in 2015 and since performed together in Ontario, New York City, British Columbia, and Michigan for the Detroit Free Arts Festival. Riddel and Swankey met during their studies at the University of Toronto Jazz program and regularly perform together in Delusions of Grandeur and the VIA rail program. The three formed Star Triptych in 2016, creating a tapestry of sound drawing upon each of their own compositional and improvisational practices. The trio has performed in Vancouver, Victoria, Gabriola and Galiano islands, and Detroit. They are looking forward to an Ontario tour in fall 2017, with plans to record their debut album within the next year.

Link:
http://www.elisathorn.com/startriptych

MODO KOAGON

Bio:
Modo Koagon is the experimental ambient, drone, soundscape project of Adam Harnest. Through the improvisational use of field recordings, tape loops, synthesizers, conventional instrumentation and found objects Modo Koagon creates an ever shifting timbral experience that can be both wild and free or tame and subdued.

Links:
https://modokoagon.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/modokoagon/

Videos:
https://youtu.be/-XSqLn1enzE
https://youtu.be/csR4RCA_g5g

[46 essex]

Silence invites you to the opening reception for mixed media artist Dennis Gaumond and video artists Nora Ruddock and Nathan Saliwonchyk. Please join us for an evening of art, music, and stimulating conversation. Wine, beer, coffee and kombucha will be served. This event is free and accessible to the public.

The events scheduled for the evening are:

7-7:30pm: Meet the artists
7:30-8pm: Artist's talk by Dennis Gaumond
8:15-8:45pm: Screening of Tinderbox (2017) and Q&A with artists Nora Ruddock & Nathan Saliwonchyk
9:15pm: Free sit-down concert with Dennis Gaumond and Black Cat Bone

The Exhibition runs September 22-October 20 with additional presentations by the artists on September 29, in conjunction with Canada Culture Days. Building hours are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 1-4pm, or by appointment.

Dennis Gaumond
Gaumond, a professional musician for forty years, is also an author, a songwriter and a visual artist. He has been painting for about thirty years and in the nineties, studied art at Zavitz College, University of Guelph. In 1998, he participated in a juried art competition sponsored by Wellington County with about one thousand other submissions, and placed in the top twenty. His painting, “Cheap Room in Cuba”, was part of a three-month exhibition at the Wellington County Museum. Paintings in this phase were done using a thick paint applied with painting knives. In the past several years Gaumond has begun a new line of paintings using painted tissue. The style is mostly non-representational abstracts, emphasizing color relationships. This new style is the result of a search for a process that allows the artist to relinquish a certain amount of creative control to chance. For Gaumond, the artistic process is even more important than the product.

"Tinderbox" (2017), Nora Ruddock & Nathan Saliwonchyk
Tinderbox generates a random sequence of 30-second videos; simultaneously, a random audio sequence of poems is heard; every 30 seconds, a new set of images and sounds follows the old. By mimicking the random connections created by dating apps, Tinderbox experiments with the ephemeral “sparkage” of image and word. What does the juxtaposition of one video do to a poem, and vice versa? What new “piece” is fired in the viewing consciousness? Our hope is that the meditative connections made will be rich and strange, celebrating the possibility, as Whitman says, for us to “preserve [our] nakedness / from the gibe of image-making love.”

Black Cat Bone Concert
This group of seasoned musicians takes great pleasure in re-interpreting standard blues and rock classics, taking them in new and adventurous directions. Led by Dennis Gaumond on vocals, guitar, dobro, harmonica and flute, it also includes Phil Bennett on 6-string fretless bass and Tom Wolf on drums and percussion. A Black Cat Bone performance is often blessed with guest appearances of musician friends playing a variety of instruments.

On September 29, the artists will be presenting talks in conjunction with Canada Culture Days. Here are September 29 activities:

4:30-5:30 pm: Screening of Tinderbox (2017) , talk and Q&A with Nora Ruddock & Nathan Saliwonchyk

6:30-7:30 pm: Artist’s talk and Q&A with Dennis Gaumond

7:30-8:30 pm: Reception: meet the artists

9-11 pm: Musical performance by Jennis

The artist's talks are free of charge. $15 cover at the door for the Jennis performance.

[46 Essex]

Performance starts at 8pm.

KASHKA presents her new album, Relax. With special guests LCON.

Tickets are $12 advance/$15 at the door, or $12 w/ student ID.

Advance ticket link: http://bit.ly/23917GUELPH

LINKS
www.kashkamusic.com
facebook.com/LConOfficial
https://www.facebook.com/events/266030240579019

[46 essex]