Music flows through our lives, across spaces and places, channeled by creators, players and listeners.
New Works Calgary’s 35th season celebrates the organization’s role as a meeting place for new music practice and performance, as a node in a national and international network that promote a confluence of creative energies of composers, musicians and adventurous listeners.
Our 35th Anniversary concert season embodies music moving through us: three programs of more than two dozen newly created Canadian compositions being swept across the land by three Canadian ensembles – Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Quasar Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Made in Canada, a program that crisscrosses music from north to sound bringing together the Ultraviolet Ensemble from Edmonton and Ensemble Resonance from Calgary, the admixture of sound and movement with an intimate performance by Vertical City, and voyages between the inside and outside, between the concert hall and the sounding world around us in a series of Soundwalks and educational school presentations.
New Works Calgary’s mission is to present Canadian music, and to create a cultural environment in which an appreciation of 20th and 21st century Canadian music can be developed. Our mandate also includes the presentation of landmark 20th Century compositions.
New Works Calgary came about because the artist John Snow had commissioned a trio by Allan Rae and discovered there were no performance opportunities for the piece. Surprised by this, John and his wife Kathleen sponsored a concert of new music by Calgary composers and musicians, in association with the Canadian Music Centre, celebrating the 25th anniversary of its foundation in April 1984. The success of this concert encouraged John and co-founder Quenten Doolittle to continue with a concert series that would feature new works. As a result, the “New Works of Art Calgary Society” was established in 1984 and has maintained a continuous series of three to seven programs each season ever since.
“New paintings are easily seen by everyone, even if it is only by looking in the window of an art gallery. Written works are almost as easy being available from libraries, magazines, books, and many radio programs. More difficult are works for the theatre and most difficult of all is to have the opportunity to hear new music.”
Besides being the first President of the society, John designed the programs and posters, which became collector’s items. John and Kathleen Snow again helped to fund the next program, which was held in the Pleiades Theatre, in April, 1985.
As co-founder Quenten Doolittle has said, “Our general goal has been not only to present contemporary Canadian music in all its diversity but also to explore the rich collaborative possibilities between Canadian composers and poets, writers, video and performance artists, visual artists, dancers, actors, and musicians.
Not only has New Works Calgary presented a rich diversity of music, we’ve also played host to collaborations between Canadian composers, poets, visual artists, dancers and more. Striving to be thought-provoking has always been in our makeup.
Artists interested in performing or having New Works Calgary present their work are invited to contact the New Works General Manager.
Premieres by Calgary Composers
neworks 2019-2020 Artists & Composers
Laurie Radford
Laurie Radford is a Canadian composer, sound artist, music technologist, educator and researcher who creates music for diverse combinations of instruments and voices, electroacoustic media, and performers in interaction with computer-controlled signal...
Sunita LeGallou
Sunita LeGallou is a self-taught abstract artist, using intuitive mark-making to chart her emotional response to music. She’s performed live on stage alongside musicians and orchestras, most often along with contemporary classical.
Mark Ikeda
Mark Kunji Ikeda creates original performances that combine narrative and dance. Through training in dance and theatre he has developed a unique methodology combining story, imagination, and choreography that has lead to being named the 2015 Emerging Artist by Calgary Arts Development Authority.
Helen Pridmore
Helen Pridmore enjoys a career focused on contemporary scored music, experimental music and improvisation. She has performed as soloist and chamber musician across Canada and the US, and in Japan, the UK and Germany. With a special focus on new Canadian music, Helen has premiered many vocal works by Canadians; her two CDs Janet and …between the shore and the ships champion Canadian composers. Helen is also a teacher, a clinician and a writer.
Vincent Ho, composer
Vincent Ho is a composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and theatre music. His works have been described as “brilliant and compelling” by The New York Times.
Grdina/Houle/Loewen Trio
Since 2014, the Grdina/Houle/Loewen Trio has forged a new stream of complex compositions that meld together density, ferocious energy and technical virtuosity. The group's versatility and wide dynamic range has become finely honed, creating an ensemble that can change...
Jeremy Brown Collective
Known for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance scores, jazz and free improvisation.
Bug Incision
The Bug Incision Players is a group specially assembled for this occasion and can be thought of as ambassadors for the Bug Incision community of musicians
Keith Turnbull
Keith Turnbull is a director, dramaturge and producer committed to contemporary and new work in both theatre and opera. He was artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre; of Second Stage, Neptune Theatre; and founding artistic director of the NDWT Co. with which...
Linda Bouchard
My work is often inspired by nature’s geometry, structure and textures. As if writing music could begin by staring with a magnifying glass at nature’s elements: water-gas-rock formations-chemical reactions, creating from these images a series of abstract landscapes. I...
Parisa Sabet
Parisa Sabet is an Iranian composer based in Toronto. Her work covers a broad variety of acoustic and electro-acoustic music.
Juliet Palmer
New Zealand-Canadian composer Juliet Palmer is known as a “post-modernist with a conscience” (The Listener) whose work “crosses so many genres as to be in a category of its own”.
Proteus Saxophone Quartet
Known for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance scores, jazz and free improvisation.
Darren Young
Multi-instrumentalist and music educator Darren Young is one of the hardest working musicians in Western Canada. He performs regularly as a classical guitarist in solo and chamber settings and is a member of multiple Calgary-based projects including Diatessaron, Jung People, Evan Freeman, and Timepoint Ensemble.
Nia Devetzis
Nia Devetzis completed her Bachelor of Music with distinction in percussion performance and education with Rod Squance at the University of Calgary.
Mathew James
Based out of Calgary, Mathew James is a hornist known for radical performance and as an advocate for new music.
Holly De Caigny
Saxophonist Holly De Caigny holds degrees in Classical Saxophone Performance from the University of British Columbia, and the University of Calgary.
Manuela Kerer, composer
Manuela Kerer born in 1980 in Brixen/ Italy, likes to marvel and is continuously on the search for new sounds, surprises and challenges.
Alexander Kaiser, composer
Composer Alexander Kaiser was born in 1985 in Bruneck/Italy.
Peter Hannan, composer
Uğurcan Öztekin was born in Istanbul in 1990. He studied composition with Mehmet Ali Uzunselvi at Kocaeli University State Conservatory.
Uğurcan Öztekin, composer
Uğurcan Öztekin was born in Istanbul in 1990. He studied composition with Mehmet Ali Uzunselvi at Kocaeli University State Conservatory.
Aya Yoshida, composer
Aya Yoshida was born in Kobe in studied at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo and The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark
(Master of Music in composition).
Elisabeth Harnik, composer
Elisabeth Harnik, born 1970 in Austria is a composer and pianist. She studied classical piano and later – with Beat Furrer – composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. The “repertoire” and it’s extensions in composition and improvisation is her central focus
Hannes Kerschbaumer, composer
Hannes Kerschbaumer is co-founder of the ensemble chromoson, artistic director of “hörbar! tag der neuen music” and member of the electronik-trio “dark matter”. He lives as a freelance composer in Innsbruck (Austria).
Margaretha Ferek-Petric, composer
Margareta Ferek-Petric was born in 1982 in Zagreb/Croatia. She currently lives as a freelance composer in Vienna. Her composition teachers at the University of Music in Vienna were Ivan Eröd, Chaya Czernowin and Klaus Peter Sattler. She was awarded among others with...
Alexina Louie, composer
One of Canadaʼs most sought after composers, Alexina Louie has written for many of Canada’s leading soloists, chamber ensembles, new music groups and orchestras. Her works have become part of the standard repertoire, in particular her many compositions for piano which are frequently performed by students and professionals alike.
Derek Charke, composer
Derek Charke is a JUNO and three-time ECMA award-winning composer, flutist and professor of composition at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Allan Gordon Bell, composer
Allan Gordon Bell received a Master of Music degree from the University of Alberta where he studied with Violet Archer, Malcolm Forsyth, and Manus Sasonkin.
François Rossé, composer
A pianist by training and a self-taught improviser, François Rossé studied at conservatories in Strasbourg, Nancy and then at the Conservatoire de Paris (1974-1980).
Matthew Ricketts, composer
Matthew Ricketts is a Canadian composer currently based in New York City. His music moves from extremes of presence and absence, from clamor to quietude, at once reticent and flamboyant.
Denis Levaillant, composer
French composer and pianist Denis Levaillant is one of today’s major musical talents.
Colin Labadie, composer
“As a composer, I write notably un-classical music for classical instruments. Through simple patterning and subtle variation, I seek to build intricate yet clear structures and sounds. As a performer, I do exactly the opposite; I create noisy and chaotic...
Erkki-Sven TÜÜR
Estonian composer, Erkki-Sven Tüür is drawn to music with an intense, energetic, transformative dimension.
Tommy Davis
Known for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance scores, jazz and free improvisation.
airborne extended
airborne extended was founded in 2013 and is a female Quartett for contemporary music. The unusual combination of instruments gives airborne extended the possibility to create a wide range of new sounds and colours that inspires both composers and the public all over the world.
Jennifer Butler
Jennifer Butler is a composer and flutist living in Vancouver, BC.
Her music, described as “beautifully remote”, “intimate” and “disquieting” has been commissioned, performed, and broadcast across Canada, in the United States, Australia, and Europe. She loves working with quiet and fragile sounds, but will often juxtapose these with loud, forceful outbursts of sound.
Tim Brady
Known for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance scores, jazz and free improvisation.
Kiya Tabassian
Kiya Tabassian was born in 1976, in Tehran (Iran) and immigrated to Montreal in 1990. He has been trained in Persian music under Reza Ghasemi and Kayhan Kalhor. In 1998, he co-founded Constantinople, a Montreal based ensemble which has earned an international reputation for its unique juxtaposition of early musical sources and the living traditions of the Middle East.
Timepoint Ensemble
Timepoint is a new music ensemble in Calgary, dedicated to performing works by living composers.
David Eagle
David Eagle composes chamber, orchestral and electroacoustic music, and explores computer applications in composition and sonic arts. Active as a composer and interpreter of interactive works, he has developed various approaches focusing on sonic transformation...