The No Normal Podcast New Music Edmonton

Welcome back to The No Normal.

In this episode of The No Normal we are delighted to feature one of the key figures in the experimental arts scene here in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan/ Edmonton, Kelly Ruth. Since moving here from Winnipeg in 2017, Kelly Ruth has given dozens of live performances, mainly featuring amplified weaving looms, collaborated with many local and visiting artists, created gallery installations, and worked within, or alongside, some of the key arts organizations here. Among her many activities, Kelly Ruth has for several years been developing a performance practice that takes place in the virtual world, on Second Life. Through her avatar, Poppy Morris, she has cultivated a unique approach to artistic world-building while developing an entirely new, international audience. To top it off, Kelly Ruth has developed a really amazing practice that hybridizes simultaneous in-person and virtual performances.

Music included in this episode:

02:27 Simulacra - Real Virtuality (excerpt)
Kelly Ruth, from the album Simulacra, Released 2021
Label: Pseudo Laboratories

13:21 Simulacra - Illusory Perceptions (excerpt)

21:00 Simulacra - Sensorial Waters (excerpt)

34:25 Pixelated Oscillations (excerpt 1)
Kelly Ruth and Allison Balcetis
Hybrid Live/ Virtual Performance, Harcourt House, Edmonton
April 21, 2023

44:36 Hybrid Live/ Virtual Performance (excerpt 1)
New Adventures in Sound Art
South River, Ontario
December 9, 2023

54:20 Hybrid Live/ Virtual Performance (excerpt 2)
New Adventures in Sound Art

62:09 Pixelated Oscillations (excerpt 2)
Kelly Ruth and Allison Balcetis
Hybrid Live/ Virtual Performance, Harcourt House, Edmonton
April 21, 2023

For more Information:
Kelly Ruth:
https://www.kellyruth.ca/
https://www.youtube.com/@kellyruth5063

Pseudo Laboratories:
https://pseudolaboratories.bandcamp.com/

Harcourt House Artist Run Centre
https://harcourthouse.ab.ca/

New Adventures in Sound Art
https://naisa.ca/

Moment Discovery
https://momentdiscovery.ca/

Welcome back to The No Normal. In this episode, we are happy to welcome Canadian interdisciplinary artist Steph Patsula. The projects Steph creates are focused across a variety of processes coalescing in a union of somatic experiencing, experimental sound creation and lens based ephemera. Patsula’s work prioritizes the creation of immersive art installations and live-performance which explore bodies as beacons and receptors in relationship to each other. Her processes embrace the unpredictable dynamics of working with new materials, spaces and bodies by corresponding with them improvisationally. A technique that reflects a personal desire for reciprocity and intimacy through an attentiveness to collaboration and adaptability.

New Music Edmonton was delighted to feature Steph in our 2023 festival, where she gave a live performance of her ongoing project, Sympathetic Resonance, and took a bunch of us on a lovely, if somewhat smokey, soundwalk in the river valley.

Music included in this episode:
- 11:01 Flexible Hours Live at The Grand, Steph Patsula and Eric Fraser
- 23:33 Flexible Hours Live in Iceland
- 53:14 Sympathetic Resonance
- 58:30 Tailgate, Live in Chicago

For more Information:
- Steph Patsula, i-am-YEG - arts
- Steph Patsula Facebook
- https://flexiblehours.bandcamp.com/

Welcome back to The No Normal.

Please note this important caution: this episode includes discussion of mental health issues experienced by the artists, and including experiences of suicidal ideation and a depressive episode. Listening to this may be triggering for some listeners.

This episode is dedicated with thanks to everyone at The Canadian Mental Health Association.

Back in February 2023 New Music Edmonton presented an extraordinary event, the premiere of a new composition by Mike McCormick, performed by Edmonton vocalist, and long-time friend of Mike, Jessica Wagner. The work, under: went is a powerful, very personal artistic gesture, a work and performance unlike anything I have ever experienced in a concert hall. We were honoured to have present at the show staff and volunteers from The Canadian Mental Health Association. They led us through a post-performance discussion group focused on the topic of suicide, and of the ideas brought forth by the composition.

In the following conversation, we caught up with Mike and Jessica only a few days after the event, and we had a chance then to really get to the heart of the work, and also to get to know a little more about both of their backgrounds.

Music included in this episode:

02:11 Underwent (excerpt)
Jessica Wagner, soprano
Composed and with electronics by Mike McCormack

6:11 Regnevejr (excerpt)
Jessica Wagner, soprano/ Natalie Dzbik, violin
Composed and with electronics by Brandon Chow

08:22 Duo 1 (excerpt)
Jessica Wagner, soprano
Composed and with electronics by Nico Arnáez

14:02 Rootpat (excerpt)
Composed by Mike McCormack

25:40 Underwent (excerpt)

43:33 Underwent (excerpt)

58:58 Underwent (excerpt)

For more Information:
Jessica Wagner:
https://www.jessicawagnermusic.com/

Mike McCormack:
https://mccrmck.com

The Canadian Mental Health Association
https://cmha.ca/
https://edmonton.cmha.ca/

We are back with another episode of New Music Edmonton’s The No Normal. Today’s guest is an artist familiar to many people in many places. Composer and violinist Alissa Cheung. Her compositions have been performed often in Edmonton and for several years she was a key part of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s violin section. More recently, Alissa moved to Montréal to take up a position in the mighty Quatuor Bozzini, and since then has continued to build her career as a composer while also taking part in the quartet’s almost constant schedule of performing, recording, and working with emerging artists.

It’s always fantastic to chat with Alissa, and we hope you enjoy sitting with us while we do so! And so here we are, in a wide-ranging conversation recorded in early spring, 2023.

Compositions by Alissa Cheung Included in this episode:

- 20:45 ZWISCHENTÖNE (EXCERPT 1)
Performed by Alissa Cheung and Ewald Cheung, C’mon Festival Edmonton, 2022
- 25:27 ZWISCHENTÖNE (EXCERPT 2)
- 38:10 CHEMINS DE FER
Composed by Alissa Cheung, 2018
- 48:04 DU NORD (EXCERPT 1)
Performed by Quatuor Bozzini, Montréal, 2021
- 54:15 DU NORD (EXCERPT 2)
- 60:32 EUPHORIA (EXCERPT 1)
Performed by Continuum Contemporary Music HATCH, 2021
- 65:02 EUPHORIA (EXCERPT 2)
- 70:15 DU NORD (EXCERPT 3)

For more Information:
Alissa Cheung:
http://www.alissacheung.com/

Quatuor Bozzini:
https://quatuorbozzini.ca/en

Continuum Contemporary Music:
https://www.continuummusic.ca/

Continuum Contemporary Music Euphoria video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAmEW6CQsNE

C’mon Festival:
https://cmonfestival.ca/

This episode of The No Normal features composer and santurist Mehdi Rezania, a prolific and diverse artist, very familiar to audiences in our city. From his early teen years studying santur in Iran, and later compositional studies at York University, and current doctoral studies at The University of Alberta, Mehdi Rezania has developed a unique and compelling approach to creative music making. At home with traditional Persian music, composition, improvisation, and more, he regular performs and records as both a soloist, and as a much sought-after partner for artists from a unique array of practices.

Compositions by Mehdi Rezania Included in this episode:

02:07 Gems of Radif 1: At The Gate of Dawn (clip)

16:44 Gems of Radif 1: At The Gate of Dawn

31:22 Gems of Radif 2: Shahrāshub

38:40 Gems of Radif 3: Banafsheh

44:24 Fields of Abadeh, performed by The Windermere Quartet

58:49 Ice, performed by Toloe Roushenas

68:31 Gems of Radif 4: Sāqi-Nāmeh

For more Information:
Mehdi Rezania:
https://rezania.com

Mehdi Rezania New Music Edmonton Performances:
Now Hear This 2022: https://vimeo.com/732642086
Summer Solstice Series 2021, with Good Women Dance: https://vimeo.com/577714078

Baarbad Music:
https://sv-se.facebook.com/Baarbad/?ref=page_internal

Windermere Quartet:
https://windermere.braveform.com

New Music Edmonton is happy to return with a new series of The No Normal. We have some great interviews with amazing people lined up for the coming months, and we’re looking forward to sharing their work and their words with you!

To get things going, we are delighted to present composer Sointu Aalto, in conversation with Suzette Chan. Born in Helsinki, raised in Edmonton, Sointu Aalto is a composer and cellist, who has emerged as one of the most compelling emerging artists, with a formidable output of uncompromising instrumental and audio-visual works. She has studied with many eminent teachers in Edmonton and elsewhere, and has been a competition winner, and participant in festivals across Canada and abroad. In June, 2022, Aalto and her colleagues in The JAMS Quartet performed in the Now Hear This Festival in Edmonton, where they gave a rare, full-length performance of works by Aalto and other composers.

Compositions by Sointu Aalto Included in this episode:

2:34 THINK THINK THINK THINK THINK (Excerpt)
Audio portion of audio-visual work, commissioned by New Music Edmonton for the Summer Solstice Series, 2021.

6:09 Mass Extinction (Excerpt)
Performed by The JAMS Quartet: Jessica Ortlieb, Anna Vlasova, Mora Clarke, Sointu Aalto, with Kauri Aalto, tam-tam

13:22 super(ficial) (Full Length)
Performed by Bergamot Quartet at MATA Jr., Music at the Anthology Festival, NY, 2021

18:10 The Pizza Man Is Real (Full Length)
Performed by The JAMS Quartet: Jessica Ortlieb, Anna Vlasova, Mora Clarke, Sointu Aalto

34:01 THINK THINK THINK THINK THINK (Full Length)
Audio portion of audio-visual work, commissioned by New Music Edmonton for the Summer Solstice Series, 2021.

38:20 Yosinfonia (2020) (Full Length)
Performed by Daniel Aalto, piano, Eija Aalto, soprano
Text: Yösinfonia, 1, by Kirsi Kunna

For more Information:

Sointu Aalto:
https://soundcloud.com/user-759064400
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-z7kOEcb8OZ9B2wiBmlo9A

Suzette Chan:
(https://suzettechan.wordpress.com)