In order to fill up the post-thesis writing void that I seem to find myself in, I took the time to write a few articles for the Sneak Peek Orchestra talking about the musicians and composers in their recent concert. In retrospect, music criticism or journalism was a passion that I had intended to pursue when I wondered what good was a degree in music history. It is both surprising and wonderful to find an opportunity to pursue it while supporting a wonderful group. The Heliconian Club’s new website is also affording me a chance to do more content development, soliciting and editing content that represents the full range of activities and community initiatives that happen at the club, something that the old site did not reflect at all. A colleague who was in town made a flattering comparison of this work as a kind of ethnography—documenting the stories of people that make up a community or an institution—which was certainly an interesting way to think about what I’m doing.

February is upon us, and all this interviewing and writing has been excellent warm up for pursuing the idea of designing digital tools that can facilitate the processes of music transmission that are happening online. Dabbling in readings on critical pedagogy and knowledge commons has helped me frame my research questions in terms of system design implications, such as copyright, online communities, economic models, and the likes. The challenge is defining the design objective, which is going to be iterative and emergent. In fact, this is probably a good time to finally crack open Embracing Complexity in Design for some inspiration and guidance.

Many roads lead me here, and many others lead from here. Time to re-orient myself and update my maps before continuing on.

(I have been writing, just not for this blog. While those draft posts percolate some more, here’s something I’ve written recently.)

The Toy Piano Composers’ “Opera Scenesters” was a refreshing take on the magical combination of music, voice, props and human drama that can only be found in the operatic form. Over the course of the evening, six operatic miniatures composed by Elisha Denburg, Chirstiain Floisand, Monica Pearce, Glenn James, Fiona Ryan and Chris Thornborrow were performed by Maureen Batt (Soprano), Marta Herman (Soprano) and Jeremy Ludwig (Baritone), accompanied by Wesley Shen on the piano. Erik Thor’s stage direction and props completed the illusion of turning the Heliconian Hall into an opera house. The result was an engaging program that would delight those new to opera and those that “loved opera before it was hip to love opera”.

Co-founded in 2008 by Monica Pearce (also know as Monica Clorey until recently) and Chris Thornborrow, the group gives new composers a whimsical and dynamic space in which to present their work. In particular, Pearce looks up to the way groups such as Tapestry New Opera, Sound Streams, and Sneak Peek Orchestra have taken a more imaginative approach to programming and concert presentations.

“Chris and I had been to a lot of new music concerts, not only now but also while we were studying at the University of Toronto. We both felt that the way new music was being presented could be changed in a way to be more interesting and engaging.”

While you may think that the Toy Piano Composers only write for toy pianos—and they have presented concerts where this instrument is featured—it is more of a nod to composers like John Cage and George Crumb who have used it in their compositions, as well as a reflection of the group’s fun and whimsical attitude when it comes to making new works more accessible to a larger audience.

“We don’t expect people to like every piece, every time, but if they actually come out and enjoy a concert because the name drew them in, hopefully they get a sense of what we’re about and will come back again.”

When planning their 2011-2012 season, the Toy Piano Composers wanted to do a vocal concert. The last time they put up a concert of new vocal works (“Smile: Songs of the Toy Piano Composers”), it was one of their most well-attended concerts. Even though the idea for operatic scenes came up as some of the members had already done similar work during their studies, they all wrote new pieces for this concert. It was an opportunity to try something new with not just music, but also words and drama.

“The word ‘scensters’ was used in order to avoid the seriousness that opera is often perceived to be. We definitely considered having a small ensemble at some point, and we had to make a lot of decisions about the stage direction as well.”

Opera is serious business for anyone that gets themselves involved, be they singers, instrumentalists, composers, designers, directors, and even as audiences. During “Opera Scensters”, many pieces were introduced with an on stage interview conducted by marketing director Tim Crouch, who engaged the composers and librettists in conversation about their pieces. Some of the pieces are deeply personal, and all are rooted in each composer’s experiences of the world. Floisand channeled his love of wordplay and his daily habit of doing crosswords into an endearing scene of reconciled love. Pearce used the opportunity to write a “carthartic” piece based loosely on her experience planning her own wedding last year. Thornborrow recaptures the experience of childhood make-believe games, the perfect opportunity to make music about a giant octopus at sea and kidnappings by zombie pirates.

Mezzo-Soprano Marta Herman and Soprano Maureen Batt were a dynamic duo offering both individually and collaboratively an expressive range of vocal colours and emotions. Batt was equally comfortable playing a sly, sexy con-artist based on the real life story of Kari Ferrell in Denburg’s “The Hipster Grifter”, and an innocent youth serving as the captain on an imaginary ship with Marta as her second mate in Thornborrow’s “Hannah and Paige and the Zombie Pirates”. Herman’s endearing charm drew the audience in as she played the roles of reconciled lover in Floisand’s “Crossword” and a passionate baker in Pearce’s “Cake”. Ludwig was no less capable of conveying both the light and dark sides of human experiences within short operatic scenes, such as the remorseful lover in James’ “Like a Dog” and an eavesdropping blogger in Ryan’s “The Best of ‘Nosey Nate’”. All three performers sang with conviction and flare, with extra credit going to Ludwig for also taking on the role of a female character.

The final concert in the Toy Piano Composers’ 2011-2012 season is coming up on April 28^th, 2012, which is a collaborative venture with new music performers Array Music Chamber Ensemble, led by Artistic Director Rick Sacks. If “Opera Scensters” was any indication, the music written for and performed by this established new music group will not be just another new music concert.

(Photo supplied by Monica Pearce. Photo caption: Maureen Batt and Marta Herman (with teddy bear) in Thornborrow’s “Hannah and Paige and the Zombie Pirates” at Heliconian Hall in Toronto. Wesley Shen can be spotted accompanying on the piano.)

The new year brings a whole new slate of projects and ideas, and a lot of freedom to do things that I may have had to say “no” to because of a packed schedule. To start, I am joining a reading group on critical pedagogy, organized by Michael MacDonald at the University of Alberta Centre for Teaching and Learning. I met him at ICTM this summer, and I really wanted to learn more about his research. The intimate connection between teaching and learning is extremely important to address in any form of online education, but especially music education, broadly speaking. Our first book is Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, and my copy just arrived in the mail. It will be interesting to see what participating in a reading group via skype will be like.

This month I will be working on research proposals and grant applications, and as a result, lots of reading and writing. It is always difficult to anticipate what the future will bring, but you won’t know until you try.

So here’s to diving right in!

There were many first on this trip: plants, animals, landscapes, waters. Even the skies were different. My brain got a total reset, and my mental space was freed up by a total disconnection with any kind of digital media. It’s definitely motivation to draw better boundaries between work and life, in order to enjoy both to the fullest. Engaging in one while worry that the other is being neglected is completely counter-productive, and all it takes to shift the energy is a little mental adjustments. Admittedly, relaxing is not exactly my forté, but you know what they say, practice makes perfect. I better enjoy this before I suddenly find 2012 magically filled up with things to do!

Here’s wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday (whatever it is that you may be celebrating). I hope 2012 will be good to you. See you in the new year!

We had a packed Heliconian Hall, and received overwhelmingly positive response for this format. It showcased all the best that the Sneak Peek Orchestra strives to be in an intimate setting: great musicianship, great music by the masters and our contemporaries, and charming MCs, all of which translate to great fun for our audience.

Below is a video of Kevin and Victor premiering Kevin’s arrange of themes from Harry Potter for 4 hands. A well deserved standing ovation guys, now let’s start prepping for our next orchestral concert on February 4th!

I promptly fell ill once my conference obligations at MobilityShifts wrapped up, which makes me extremely grateful for the fact that all the panels were audio-recorded. They promise that everything will be up about a month after the conference, so I look forward to listening to all the sessions I missed!

Both the panel with my fellow critical making colleagues and the workshop with Kiku Day were instructive as well as inspiring. Questions from the audience during the panel reaffirmed my desire to pursue work in the area of music knowledge transmission and preservation, while the workshop solidified for me a research trajectory to pursue outside of a university setting, as well as connecting researchers with similar interests to share their experiences and pool their resources. Sincerely thanks to everyone that came out, asked good questions, and even bought a PVC shakuhachi by the end of the workshop!

I also contribute a lot of the inspiration to one of the few sessions I did catch, which was Matt Gold’s session on “Open Education: The University and The Commons”. The talking points in his jam packed talk with excellent and practical advice on building an infrastructure for humanities research were invaluable, but what struck me the most was how much of what he was talking about was learned through the process of making it happen in the first place. Yes, there’s theory, such as the immensely useful reference for Ostrom’s work on knowledge as commons, but it was the wisdom from doing or making that he had amassed that made his talk so engaging.

With that, I am curbing the desire to respond to more calls for proposals or papers, and get into a new headspace that recognize that I have to set new priorities and objectives, even though the things that seem familiar to me now were quite new to me just a few years ago. A new kind of self-discipline is required in this transition period as I seek out new institutions and networks within which to situate my work, as well as new media (aside from words) to explore ideas and thoughts.

Nothing is fully worked out yet, but I don’t feel that they need to be. A couple of months of simmering ideas is just what  I need before I start tending to the loose threads and finding out where they will lead me next.

We’re going to have more questions than answers, it’ll be the first time we’ve all spoken about our research since defending, and we are all going to bring something different to the discussion. Learning happens anywhere and at anytime, and the three contexts that we look at will give some interest contexts to discuss questions and concerns that the conference participants will surely have.

I’ve staked out a place to get my coffee and croissant before it all starts, and the summer-like weather will certainly help with getting me out of bed early. Not looking forward to rush-hour subway.

I’ve never thought of myself as a particular good writer, but I realize I love the process of research and writing. Am I a writer? Researcher? Librarian? I don’t know. I like connecting people with each other, and introducing hidden gems of ideas to a wider audience. I have benefited from such interactions, and the trajectory I’d like to embark on is shaped by a desire to help people make those connections. Part of that, I have a feeling, is going to involve writing that is directed to more than just me and a handful of immediate collaborators and colleagues.

Since early August, I have been quietly wrapping up many loose ends related to my degree, such as thesis revisions and conference proposals, as well as a book design project that I have been involved in on and off for the last few years. Having weekends and weeknights back as me-time has been a bit of a shock, my system is slowly recalibrating to realize that it can think and plan beyond the next deadline and one singular long-term goal like a thesis defence. It also feels very strange to sleep in on weekends without guilt, or not planning for every block of time imaginable.

In October, I will be going to be in New York City for the Mobility Shifts conference. It was quite serendipitous to find a whole conference dedicated to alternative forms of learning with a focus on projects that are based outside of North America, and I am very much looking forward to it. I’ll be there to speak about my thesis along with my masters buddies ginger coons and Bob Ree, and hopefully doing another interactive workshop with Kiku Day with regards to the transmission of Shakuhachi over skype.

Convocation will be in mid-November. A trip to visit a friend in New Zealand will occur some time before the end of the year. I look forward to some time to contemplate, reflect, and travel for the first time in three years for the sake of travelling, not for professional development, and definitely no allowing myself to work on the road.

It’s going to feel weird.

Since then, however, all I seem to want to do is sleep, stay cool, and let my mind go blank as I pay attention to all the small things that give such great pleasure: the sound of leaves rustling, the feeling of walking on grass, driving aimlessly into the country side and watching the rolling hills and crop fields go on forever and ever.

The days of being sustained by expresso is over, replaced by days of the comfortably mundane. Thoughts of papers and projects are replaced by thoughts of people I know affected by forest fires in Northwestern Ontario, the Oslo bombing and youth camp shooting in Norway, the famine in Somalia. My focus is shifting away from meeting deadlines and towards some much needed reflection and imagination.

Years from now, I won’t remember the long days and long nights of reading and writing, but I will remember all the people I met along the way, the things I learned from the experiences they shared with me, and the lives that they live. I really am very grateful for the brief but meaningful connections I’ve made. Each and every one of them will be my inspiration as I daydream about the future.

Thanks guys.

The presentation yesterday went pretty well. It was a small but engaged crowd, with many familiar faces and some great new colleagues. As always, putting ideas out there was a great way to strike up conversations with others, and learning about other people’s work. Experiencing a gathering of people from all corners of the globe has been both enlightening and humbling. I am especially excited about some of the new canadian colleagues I have met. I am forever indebted to Prof. Beverley Diamond (co-chair of local arrangements with Prof. Kati Szego and the inspirations behind Memorial University’s Research Centre for Music, Media and Place) for recommending that I submit a proposal when we met last year at BFE 2010. It’s funny how unplanned connections draw you down a path you never dreamed of walking down. I won’t promise anything, but I will do my best to write up some of my thoughts and some of the most interesting sessions that I have sat in.

I have to note once again that this was an extremely well organized conference. Maybe Newfoundlanders are just used to organizing music-related gatherings of this size, but what a team and what a city to be Canadian hosts to the world. Heck, they made me feel so welcomed, I want to come back and explore the rest of the province!

I am going to take the “excursion day” tomorrow to soak in more of the wonderful people at this place, and do my own job as Canadian host by showing people around. And if I am lucky, I will get to see the sun rise over Cape Spear before I leave, like I wanted to when I was here almost ten years ago exactly.

May there be a clear sky on Sunday morning.