Heidi Chan is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and music researcher. She plays Asian flutes (Chinese dongxiao, Japanese shinobue), percussion (Japanese taiko drums, percussion, drum kit), electronics (modular synth, software, effects), and bass ukulele. She has performed with numerous music groups including professional Japanese taiko drumming ensemble Nagata Shachu (Toronto), ground-breaking rock band The Cliks (Toronto), and experimental music ensemble Brown Note Collective (Hong Kong). She is currently a member of folktronic duo deenzi, experimental Japanese folk ensemble Ten Ten, ukulele duo My Bach Has Fleas, and continues to be involved in music projects that challenge and expand her musical knowledge, skills and sensitivities. She performs and collaborates regularly with a wide range of musicians and artists in Toronto and abroad.
heidiwychan.com

Sarah Peebles is a Toronto-based installation artist, composer and music improvisor. Much of her work explores digitally manipulated found sound, unconventional methods of amplification and distinct approaches to performing shô, the Japanese mouth-organ used in gagaku (court music). She has also collaborated with artists, technicians and bee biologists on a series of projects addressing pollination ecology and biodiversity, entitled “Resonating Bodies” since 2008. Peebles' activities over the past 3 decades have been wide-ranging and include music for dance, multi-channel sound, radio, video/film, performance art, integrated media, sound installation and improvised performance. She has been active in North America, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, and has collaborated with musicians, visual artists, data visualizers and with the groups “Smash and Teeny” (Peebles & guitarist Nilan Perera), and “Cinnamon Sphere” (Perera, Peebles & action calligrapher Chung Gong). Her 2014 release, "Delicate Paths - Music for Shô" features solo and group improvisations and electroacoustic works (unsouds.com 42U). Her music has also been published on Cycling '74, Spool, Post-Concrète, innova Recordings and others.
sarahpeebles.net

Rob Clutton is a composer/performer with two solo bass recordings, Dubious Pleasures and Suchness Monster, on the Rat-Drifting label. In 2015 the Cluttertones released Ordinary Joy, a recording of original compositions, on the Healing Power label. Earlier independent releases of original compositions include Holstein Dream Pageant and Tender Buttons. Rob has participated in collaborative projects including Handslang, This Moment, Drumheller, Clutton/Michelli/West, Kavli, and Sweet Session. As a side person, other long- term projects have included the Steve Koven Trio, NOJO, John Millard and Happy Day, Lina Allemano's Titanium Riot, the Ryan Driver Sextet, Pete Johnston's See Through 2, Tim Posgate's Jazzstory, Nick Fraser Quartet featuring Tony Malaby, Ronda Rindone's Quorum, the David Mott Quintet, Bill Grove Quartet, Mark Segger Sextet, AIMToronto Orchestra, Shurum Burum Jazz Circus, Faint Praise, and the Winged Marsupials. Touring with these and other projects has included Europe, Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Ecuador, The Caribbean, and Japan.
robclutton.com

Michael Lynn is an upright bassist who had been living and playing in Toronto since 2008. He runs the free improvisation music series, Audiopollination.
Michael Lynn @ audiopollination.ca

Born in Buffalo NY, Diane Roblin was classically trained as a child and continued her music education at York University in Toronto. Her studies were eclectic and wide-ranging; including electronic music, ethnomusicology, jazz improvisation, and classical piano. She attended the Karl Berger/Ornette Coleman intensive workshop in Woodstock and New York City where she played with Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Lee Konitz, and other notable musicians. Recently Diane participated in the Dutch Improvisation Academy in Amsterdam where she had the opportunity to play with Han Bennink, Mary Oliver, Eric Boeren,Wilbert de Joode, and John Pikeman. Roblin has a long history in free improvisation starting as far back as the 1970s with the Artist Jazz Band. She continues to explore contemporary, improvisational music with Canada’s finest players as well as leading RECONNECT, a jazz-funk project featuring, among others, Richard Underhill, Chris Wallace, Chris Gale, Sly Juhas, Russ Boswell, and Jeff King. Diane plays high energy music from the heart.
dianeroblin.com

Michael Snow is one of Canada's most important living artists, distinguished as a highly accomplished musician, visual artist, composer, filmmaker, writer, and sculptor. Snow’s musical career began in the ’50s, when he played with such jazz greats as Pee Wee Russell, Jimmy Rushing, and Cootie Williams. In the late ’50s and ’60s he led his own groups in early experiments in extended improvisation and his 1964 film, New York Eye and Ear Control, has a soundtrack by Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Gary Peacock, and Sunny Murray. Snow has performed solo piano in the U.S., Canada, and Europe and has issued many recordings, including the infamous The Last LP CD and the acclaimed Snow Solo Piano Solo Snow, a three-CD set documenting his playing from 1948 to 1997. Snow is a founding member of Toronto’s CCMC. Dazzling in his ability to switch from one medium to another outside of any predictable sequence and noted for a multi-disciplinary approach to his work, Snow continually challenges notions of content and form, seeing and representation.
Michael Snow @ fondation-langlois.org

James Bailey is an improvisor, pure and simple. Things occasionally become tuneful, though rarely by intent. His main aim is the exploration of new and possibly unheard sounds, often requiring novel approaches to performance techniques. To this end, Bailey will employ just about anything that comes to hand, whether it be an acoustic instrument, electronics, or just some found junk.
James Bailey @ soundcloud.com

Allison Cameron is a professional composer, performer and improvising musician in Toronto. She has been commissioned in Europe and North America by many ensembles and festivals. Since 2000, she has been performing improvised music using electronic keyboards, ukulele, banjo, piano, mini amplifiers, radios, crackle boxes, cassette tapes, miscellaneous objects and toys. Allison has been celebrated in Musicworks Magazine, The Wire Magazine, I Care if You Listen and a variety of other online publications. Her reputation for writing compelling compositions for contemporary music ensembles is international. She is also a sought after improviser with a strong national following. She has completed two national solo tours in the past four years. In 2007 she founded the Allison Cameron Band with fellow musician/composers Eric Chenaux and Stephen Parkinson to explore uncharted territory in her compositions by integrating a variety of musical forms into her work. The result has been a critically acclaimed CD on the Rat-Drifting label of several genre-defying pieces. In 2009 she formed a trio with trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud and drummer Germaine Liu called c_RL (pronounced curl) who released the CD ‘Friends’ to critical acclaim. In 2015 she completed several new graphic and instructional scores that will soon be published together. These experimental scores have been performed by Ensemble Supermusique (Montreal), Contact, Suddenly Listen (Halifax) and by various ad hoc groups in Toronto.
allisoncameron.com

back to the festival program