Table of Contents

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Crystallizing the Community: a CNMN research project
CNMN welcomes Clemens Merkel and Brenda Cleniuk

Reports from the CNMN Committees, June 2017

Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report
FORUM 2018 Steering Committee Report
Touring Network Committee Report
Equity & Diversity Committee Report
Communications Committee Report
Public Engagement Committee Report

Welcome New Members – June 2017
ISCM World New Music Days 2017
Subscribe to Musicworks – special offer
Want to get to know Circuit?
Musical Improvisation at Land’s End
Membership Dues 2016–17
Open a space for CNMN
Members’ Corner – How to Submit

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24th edition CNMN Bulletin – June 2017

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Wondering just how it is that people come to the practice of new music in Canada, and how these routes may have changed over the past few decades, we have proposed the following:

To examine the routes, pathways and accidents that bring people in Canada to the practice of new music composition. We will look at: (1) how the pathways may have changed over the past five decades; (2) gender and diversity; (3) regional variations; and (4) changes in the importance of traditional musical literacy. The study will also identify events, perceptions and experiences that propel some people into composition rather than some other musical occupation.

Riveting, you say? Indeed, it is. Interviews conducted in the preparation of questions reveal a fascinating range of entry points and inspiration. We imagine that the hard data results will have implications for what post-secondary institutions require as prerequisites, and what skills they teach.

Crystallizing the Community is conducted with assistance from CNMN member Mary Ingraham (PhD Musicology), with Deanna Yerichuk (PhD Music Education) and Gillian Stevens, (PhD Sociology) through the Sound Studies Initiative at the University of Alberta. Ross Waring (PhD Communications Theory) contributes expertise in data visualization, while Jim Ruxton (electrical engineer, inventor, installation artist and founder of Subtle Technologies Festival) is advising on data display.

Other partners provide contact with the community: the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre will assist in sending the survey to their membership.

Getting the sampling is the trick and this is where you, our CNMN members, come in.

Please fill out the questionnaire when it comes your way.

Late spring/summer we will be sending it out to the community. And because we want to see where and how people branch into the different sub-practices of new music, the sampling will be broader than just composers, improvisers and other sound/music creators. Make sure your personal story contributes to the community story – form part of this crystalline structure.

The presentation of this research project at ISCM’s World New Music Days in Vancouver, November 2–8, includes a panel discussion as well as a projection installation.

Steering Committee members: Jennifer Waring (chair), Megumi Masaki, Tim Brady, Mary Ingraham, Gillian Stevens and Ross Waring.

For more information, contact Jennifer Waring:
jwaring@interlog.com

Direct link: Crystallizing the Community
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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• Clemens Merkel – violinist, Quatuor Bozzini – Montreal QC
• Brenda Cleniuk – independent curator, arts administrator, creator – ‘New Music Concert Series’ & SOIL Media Arts & Technology – Regina SK

Let’s give a warm welcome to the newest CNMN board members, Brenda Cleniuk and Clemens Merkel, who have recently been appointed by the board to step in and fill empty mid-term seats.

Clemens will be serving as a Quebec regional representative; he is a strong supporter and advocate for new music in Québec and in Canada while also being a member of Montreal’s Quatuor Bozzini for nearly twenty years. Brenda will be serving as the Saskatchewan regional representative. She is an independent curator/director and has played an integral role in Regina’s arts community for over twenty-five years.

Read more about Clemens and Brenda, including what drives their interest in volunteering on the CNMN board.

We would like to generously thank outgoing board members Tim Brady and Alain Perron, who left mid-term this season, and have given many years of commitment to CNMN as board members. Alain Perron dedicated his time to the CNMN board for seven years (2010–2017) as regional representative for Saskatchewan. Tim Brady was president of CNMN from its inception in 2005 until 2014. He continues to fill a large role for CNMN as chair of the Digital Content Initiative.

Direct link: CNMN welcomes Clemens Merkel and Brenda Cleniuk
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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Submitted by Tim Brady, chair

The DCI had a very active fall 2016 and winter 2017. In collaboration with our partners the Canadian Music Centre and Le Vivier, we prepared and submitted a very major grant for DCI development to the Department of Canadian Heritage Collective Initiatives Program. This grant was for what we call Phase Two of the project – creating the basic infrastructures, promotional, production and data management systems. This was a very large, complex grant and would not have been possible without the great cooperation of Glenn Hodgins (CMC), Pierrette Gingras (Le Vivier), Clément Topping, and a range of consultants. The team worked very well together, which bodes well for future collaborations.

We will have an answer to this grant in November 2017. We are also watching the new Canada Council Digital fund – details of which will be announced this fall. From all we have heard, this new money could play a significant role in the development of the DCI. There will probably be a significant grant application to submit late this fall for this new program.

The current plan for DCI (assuming funding and partnerships are confirmed) is to spend 2018 – 2019 building the infrastructure and basic content, with the major launch of the public platform in early 2020. Technology and music are changing so quickly that it is impossible to say exactly where the issues around music dissemination will be at in 2020, but the DCI needs to be online with a strong Canadian music presence sooner rather than later. That is our goal.

Please contact Tim Brady for more information
tim@timbrady.ca

Read past bulletin entries from this committee

DCI Annual and Fall Report – October 2016 (n° 23)
Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report – June 2016 (n° 22)
Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report – October 2015 (n° 21)
Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report – May 2015 (n° 20)
Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Study: The Benefits of Musical Creation (n° 20)
Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report – Dec 2014 (n° 19)
Specialised Music Digital Content Creation Project (n° 18)

Direct link: DCI Report – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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Steering Committee members: Jennifer Waring (chair), Tim Brady, Po Yeh and representatives of the local partners (to be finalized).

CNMN is gearing up for the next edition of the biennial FORUM. Usually held in the darkest months of the year (dark in the astronomical sense, but also in the density of grant deadlines), this time it’s in May. Not so dark, not so cold, not so stressed (one hopes) – phew!

Though details cannot be publicized yet, we can confirm that it will be in Montreal, with a possible sortie into a neighbouring musical hotspot; in addition to our talks with Concordia University and Le Vivier, we are speaking seriously with Festival International musiques actuelle Victoriaville (FIMAV). Prospects are exciting!

The theme of this eighth CNMN FORUM is interdisciplinary practice. There’s reason to claim that interdisciplinarity is the new (or relatively new) thing: increasingly, ensembles produce concerts combining music with all manner of other expression; composers create in media where their training cannot be considered expert (just as artists from other disciplines create with sound); music is paired with non-artistic disciplines (science, philosophy, history, etc); and improvising musicians collaborate with improvisers working in other art forms. Concern for control through specialization and lonely creative process has given way to enthusiasm for the possibilities that come from mixing it up. Who knows, maybe the attraction is the very idea of relinquishing control.

FORUM 2018 is the place to go to find out what’s happening in this vibrant and varied practice – where these and other interesting, illuminating, and practical questions will be discussed by the fabulous array of local, national and international new music and interdisciplinary practitioners that we have all come to expect at CNMN’s FORUMs.

Your part in FORUM 2018

• Become a voting member of CNMN. Membership brings advantages, including a low, low FORUM registration fee.
• Watch for the Call for Submissions, your chance to bring your story/ideas/projects to the attention of the community.
• Plan to attend FORUM 2018

See you next year in Montreal.

Want to help, got ideas, have questions? Contact Jennifer Waring:
jwaring@interlog.com

Direct link: FORUM 2018 Steering Committee Report – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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Committee members: Norm Adams (chair), Kathryn Ladano.

This is the first time CNMN has assembled a Touring Network Committee, so we’re eager to discover what we can do to help CNMN members.

Both committee members Kathryn and Norm share a lot in common: they are both performers and improvisers that have made several tours across the country. They both direct music presenting/producing organizations, and are both interested in how making connections through touring can create new collaborations, and a richer new music community. We are also interested in expanding our committee’s membership so if you’d like to join the conversation, please let us know.

The Touring Network Committee was born at FORUM 2016 in Ottawa, where CNMN sponsored a number of meetings to explore the development of a touring network for new music. Discussions included 20 members from a nationally and stylistically diverse group, plus international guests. (The report of the meetings can be found here.) These meetings were very wide ranging and identified a need for support for artists wanting to tour their work. What that need is, and what CNMN can do to support touring artists is still unclear, so the committee was formed to address this question.

The committee is considering the following questions:

• How can we develop a national audience for contemporary music, through the support of a national touring network?

• How can we support a new model of touring of new music that is built around project exchanges and reciprocity instead of just “making the rounds”?

• How can we create and ensure the management of a new music touring information resource for those who are touring and those who are looking to book touring shows?

These are broad, complex questions, and we’ll be considering each question in more depth over the coming months, further focusing the work of the committee, and likely creating additional questions as we go before we formally recommend next steps.

Please consider joining our committee

This will be an interesting conversation that needs input from the whole range of Canadian new music practitioners. We hope that some of you would like to join in!

Contact Norm Adams:
norm@suddenlylisten.com

Direct link: Touring Network Committee Report – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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Committee members: Jennifer Waring (chair), Jennifer Butler, Juliet Palmer, Norm Adams, Lukas Pearse, Isak Goldschneider and Chris Reiche.

An outgrowth of FORUM 2016, the newly formed Equity and Diversity Committee hit the road running, in its first year planning and providing opportunities for community introspection around diversity and equity. Why? Because it’s 2017 and there are still problems, still marginalized voices that have not been heard.

The major project during this off-forum year was the Rolling National Conversation on diversity. With funding from CNMN’s general operating budget, FACTOR, and local presenting partners, the conversations began in Halifax (Jan. 9), moved on to Victoria (March 26), and wound up in Montreal (May 1). It was an extremely valuable project, allowing for intense discussion on a huge range of diversity concerns. We heard the voices of under-represented artists and practitioners, and historically privileged/established practitioners began understanding the ways that they need to make room.

A comprehensive report incorporating ideas from all three sessions will be made available to our membership. In the meantime, we encourage you to take a look at the individual post-session materials on our web site: the Montreal report has just been published, and the Halifax report remains available as well. A transcription of the Victoria session is coming out shortly – stay tuned! Be sure to check them out, they are great for fertilizing your thinking.

Another event of note: on behalf of CNMN and its Equity & Diversity Committee, Jennifer Waring attended a meeting called by Dylan Robinson and members of the Nisga’a and Metis community to discuss aspects of the opera Louis Riel. A formal report is in preparation by leaders of the meeting. Watch for the release of this important document in the near future.

If any CNMN members out there would like to become involved in the activities of this committee, please contact me either at the address below or through CNMN. 

Jennifer Waring:
jwaring@interlog.com

Direct link: Equity & Diversity Committee Report – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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Committee members: Juliet Palmer (chair), David Pay, Jennifer Butler

Communications are ever-evolving and in the last few years it seems that each of us needs to refine our methods every six months. At the Canadian New Music Network, our communications committee is developing ideas for efficient, fun, and relevant ways to share information with — and to learn from — our members. Over the coming years you’ll see changes large and small, but whatever methods we use to communicate, we always want to hear from you and what you need from the CNMN.

If you’re a social media whiz, have communications expertise to share, or simply want to ask a question, get in touch with committee chair: julietpalmer@gmail.com

Direct link: Communications Committee Report – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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Members: Sarah Albu (co-chair), Emily Doolittle (co-chair), Louise Campbell, Jason Doell, Kathy Kennedy, Tawnie Olson, Jerry Pergolesi.

The Public Engagement committee members have been discussing strategies and methodologies illustrating how public engagement is part of our own practices, and moving forward with the goal of sharing this knowledge of a more inclusive and encouraging approach in all CNMN activities.

We are also in the early planning stages to significantly grow our online resource archives, with a focus on community/public engagement in new music. Through these online resource archives, we hope to:

• Update and reconfigure the existing Creative Music Education Online Resource archive, a project that the committee launched back in 2015.
• Help new music artists, groups and organizations wishing to undertake community-engaged work (but perhaps do not know where to begin) find guidance from, and partners for collaboration with, people who are experienced in community arts and public engagement, including allies worldwide.
• Develop and maintain a handbook of practices and guidelines for community and public engagement.
• Reflect information about and useful for all regions across Canada.
• Encourage Canada-wide participation.
• Provide a space where anybody and everybody is welcome to engage in dialogue on topics of Community engagement / Public engagement.
• Provide a space for sharing scores, process notes and recordings of collaborative creative music works, open to anyone with any level of training.

Issues of diversity and inclusion have been integral to our ongoing discussions about public and community engagement, and we are in communication with CNMN’s newly formed Equity & Diversity Committee. If the new music community truly wishes to engage with a wider public and grow a larger community, it’s clear that it needs to continue to make space for a more diverse number of voices to be heard, developed at all ages and stages of training, and in different types of spaces. Perhaps this also includes stretching our own definitions of what “new music” can be and what/whom it is for, in the ways we conceive of projects and in how and where we execute them.

Also, the committee plans to continue its tradition of sharing and celebrating Public Engagement Success Stories, a series first launched in the 16^th edition of CNMN’s Bulletin, May 2013. Have you heard of or participated in an initiative that you found particularly inspiring in regards to public engagement? Are you interested in submitting a success story for a future bulletin?

Don’t hesitate to get in touch, we want to hear from you!
Please contact Sarah Albu: sarah.c.albu@gmail.com

Read more from this committee:

Creative Music Education Online Resources
Public Engagement Committee Annual Report – October 2016 (n° 23)
Public Engagement Committee Report – June 2016 (n° 22)
The Virtual MegaBand – June 2016 (n° 22)
Public Engagement Committee Report – October 2015 (n° 21)
Public Engagement in Schools – Lindsay Place High School (n° 21)
Public Engagement Committee Report – May 2015 (n° 20)
Curatorial and Art Criticism students meet Continuum in The OCADU Project (n° 20)
Public Engagement Committee Report – Dec. 2014 (n° 19)
I.S.S. Is Somebody Singing (n° 16)
Toronto’s New Music 101 (n° 16)
Youth/Music Education Committee Reports (p. 5–6) – 13^th edition (pdf)

Direct link: Public Engagement Committee Report – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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The new members are listed below, many of which have web sites for further information. We also hope all our members get a chance to check each other out – you can access a full list of members on our web site, viewable by category, region or name.

Who will be the next new member?

New Voting Members

New Supporting Members

Direct link: Welcome New Members – June 2017
Return to full Bulletin – June 2017

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