FARLS #1: Alexa Woloshyn

Wednesday, September 25 @ 12:30-1:30pm

Quance Theatre, Education Building, U of S - Free Event!

Dr. Alexa Woloshyn: "Sounding Beyond the Legacies of Privilege in Canada’s Electronic Music-Making History"

With rare exception, early electronic music studios in North America were housed in universities, which had the space, staffing, and funds to manage the cumbersome, expensive, and specialized equipment. I begin with a critique of the institutional barriers that existed historically as well as into the present within these studios. I explore universities across Canada, including the University of Toronto (which I address in my recent book An Orchestra at My Fingertips: A History of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble)and the University of Saskatchewan.

I trace two main paths of institutional electronic music-making: 1) studio-based and 2) live performance (specifically, improvisation). To illustrate these two paths, I highlight the case study of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE) and their aesthetic, technical, and collaborative frameworks. This section includes a brief analysis of the CEE’s 1977 performance at the U of S’s Convocation Hall, whose recording was included in the CEE’s first album.

I then summarize important technological (e.g., laptops; free DAWs) and institutional shifts (e.g., streaming platforms) that bypass some barriers. This section of the presentation is targeted to music students who are eager to expand the role of electronics in their artistic practice. I discuss artists from across Canada (e.g., The Halluci Nation; Eliot Britton) with a focus on the Prairies (e.g., Saskatoon-based Eekwol; Winnipeg-based Melody McKiver) to illustrate how the two paths summarized previously are recontextualized with contemporary technologies. I specifically highlight the possibilities for genre crossover and disintegration, allowing for historically-minoritized artists, in particular, to assert themselves within electronic music-making spheres.

Alexa Woloshyn is Associate Professor of Musicology at Carnegie Mellon University. Her first book An Orchestra at My Fingertips: A History of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble was published in 2023 by McGill-Queen’s University Press. Dr. Woloshyn is currently writing her second book manuscript entitled “Unsettling Sounds of Indigeneity: Reckoning with the White Possessive in Settler-Indigenous Sonic Encounters."