Sound It Out

This special hour travels through the Sound Symposium in St. John’s Newfoundland with the members of the Summer Institute of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. The theme for this episode is overcoming aversion to discomfort through group improvising. The Summer Institute brought together scholars and practitioners of all descriptions, not everyone skilled in every variety of improvisation. We pushed our boundaries and came face to face with the normative limits of much performance styles. Hear George Blake and I interviewing the founder of the Symposium, Kathy Clark-Wherry, as well as Memorial University Archivist, Colleen Quigley, who likes to recollect this bi-annual event through the visual imagery of the event posters. The Harbour Symphony and local opinions on it. Anders Eskildsen on Sound Painting, Chris Tonelli and Un-piched Singing, and Jason Cullimore speaking about the evolutionary origins of music as a way of group bonding, articulating why we feel more able to take expressive risks in groups than on our own: these are all patches in this episode’s quilt! This originally aired on CFRU 93.3FM on August 18, 2014.

In the middle of February, Toronto-based artist collective Public Recordings staged a performance of Pauline Oliveros‘ score To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation at Toronto’s City Hall, in the Council Chambers. The performance concluded a week of public rehearsals in various locations around the city. Join us in this episode as we inquire into the process of group decision-making, and how artistic collaboration can illuminate what it means to act together in new formations of community.

Sound It Out airs on CFRU in Guelph on Tuesdays at 5pm. New episodes usually appear on a fortnightly basis. Sound It Out is produced and hosted by Rachel Elliott in conjunction with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

This episode aired on June 21, 2019.

What is the relationship between forms of social life and forms of art? In Social Aesthetics, Professor Georgina Born of Oxford University offers an analysis of the social in music and art using what she calls ‘planes of analysis.’ This is an empirical, ethnographic method of gathering data through observation, a way of finding out, rather than making assumptions about how the social is involved in any particular musical or artistic event. The social is not the only component in what Born calls musical assemblages, but in my conversation with her in this episode, tools for describing this aspect of it are illuminatingly explained.

Sound It Out airs on CFRU in Guelph on Tuesdays at 5pm. New episodes usually appear on a fortnightly basis. Sound It Out is produced and hosted by Rachel Elliott in conjunction with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

This episode aired on December 18, 2018.

We often focus on the what of improvisation without questioning the who (or whom) of the practice. If we think of improvisation as judicious real-time responsiveness to a situation, we might wonder whether the image of the human implicit in that picture needs revision. In this episode, hear Dr. Edgar Landgraf discuss why we should shake off our humanistic hangover and embrace a methodological cybernetic posthumanism.

Sound It Out airs on CFRU in Guelph on Tuesdays at 5pm. New episodes usually appear on a fortnightly basis. Sound It Out is produced and hosted by Rachel Elliott in conjunction with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

This episode aired on Tuesday November 27, 2018.

We often focus on the what of improvisation without questioning the who (or whom) of the practice. If we think of improvisation as judicious real-time responsiveness to a situation, we might wonder whether the image of the human implicit in that picture needs revision. In this episode, hear Dr. Edgar Landgraf discuss why we should shake off our … Continue reading Episode #81: Improvisation as Self-Reflexive Autopoesis – Edgar Landgraf on Posthumanism →

Its the CFRU Raise Your Voice Funding Drive! Donate!!!

You will receive merch and a chance to win fabulous prizes if you give $25 or more.

While donating you will be listening to Mano-Dharma by Takehisa Kosugi’s Catch Wave and also Louise Landes Levi with Paul Labrecque and Bart De Paepe playing Colloidal Love.

Sound It Out airs on CFRU in Guelph on Tuesdays at 5pm. New episodes usually appear on a fortnightly basis. Sound It Out is produced and hosted by Rachel Elliott in conjunction with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

This episode aired on Tuesday November 13, 2018.

Its the CFRU Raise Your Voice Funding Drive! Donate!!! You will receive merch and a chance to win fabulous prizes if you give $25 or more. While donating you will be listening to Mano-Dharma by Takehisa Kosugi’s Catch Wave and also Louise Landes Levi with Paul Labrecque and Bart De Paepe playing Colloidal Love. Sound … Continue reading Episode #80: Takehisa Kosugi and Louise Landes Levi →

Is the voice like an instrument or is it the other way around? Can the voice communicate as pure sound or is it always entangled with language? How does the gendering of voice shape conventions of performance and composition in Gospel music? Chamber music? Vedic chant?

Think through this stuff with #BlackComposer Darius Jones, vocal experimenter Amirtha Kidambi, Canadian singer/songwriter Thanya Iyer, and IISCI’s own Kevin McNeilly of UBC.

Sound It Out airs on CFRU in Guelph on Tuesdays at 5pm. New episodes usually appear on a fortnightly basis. Sound It Out is produced and hosted by Rachel Elliott in conjunction with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

This episode aired on Tuesday November 5, 2018.

Canadian jazz experimentalist François Houle attempts to mount Cornelius Cardew’s 193-page series of symbols and images using solo clarinet, myriad electronics, and a series of loopers. In this world premier recorded at the IICSI House in September 2018, Houle presents an improvised dreamscape of sounds – nightmarish at times – reflecting his live-time compositional decision-making and virtuosic experimentation with extended technique.

Sound It Out airs on CFRU in Guelph on Tuesdays at 5pm. New episodes usually appear on a fortnightly basis. Sound It Out is produced and hosted by Rachel Elliott in conjunction with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

This episode aired on Tuesday October 16, 2018.

Is the voice like an instrument or is it the other way around? Can the voice communicate as pure sound or is it always entangled with language? How does the gendering of voice shape conventions of performance and composition in Gospel music? Chamber music? Vedic chant? Think through this stuff with #BlackComposer Darius Jones, vocal … Continue reading Episode #79 – “The Voice is Supreme” →