Oksana Drachkovska Art by Oksana Drachkovska From Bunny Rabbits to Bomb Shelters, an Illustrator Turns Activist WORDS BY EMILY PITTMAN | KYIV-MAASTRICHT | VISUAL ARTS MAR 03, 2023 | ISSUE 10 Artists are some of the world’s most important activists, helping us to make meaning from human folly and tragedy. They help translate emotions into something tangible we can understand. Oksana Drachkovska built her art career working with publishing houses and magazines, earning notoriety and prizes for her illustration of children’s books. In 2020, her book The Jumpless Bunny and His Brave Mother won Best Literature for Children from ages six to eight in Ukraine’s Lviv Book Fair. On February 28, 2022, Oksana packed her bags to escape Lviv, not sure if or when she would ever return. She fled a home she knew and loved, leaving friends and family behind or scattered across neighbouring countries. Her journey led her to Barcelona, where she found refuge in the homes of fellow artists and art lovers. Five months later, Oksana continues to draw, but her subjects have changed dramatically. She is one of many artists and illustrators sharing perspectives on the war that is ravaging her home country.

Rufus Wainwright’s Folkocracy Rufus Wainwright by Tony Hauser Returning to his folk roots, the Canadian songmaster finds a new musical family WORDS BY RACHEL WINDSOR | PHOTOGRAPHY BY PENN TURIN ISSUE 12 | LOS ANGELES | HOMEGROWN Rufus Wainwright is no stranger to experimentation: over his twenty-five-year career, he has dabbled in pop, opera, and live theatre. Wainwright released his first studio album in 1998 to critical acclaim and followed it with eleven more. His newest release, Folkocracy , marks a turn to (as the name suggests) the folk genre. While traditional folk music in Canada dates back to the 16th century for settlers — and much longer for Indigenous peoples — its history is a bit nebulous, with no precise definition or characteristics. Contemporary folk rose to popularity in the 20th century, blending the traditional with other genres (such as rock or pop) and often including a political or counter-cultural slant. The 1960s and 70s in particular saw a rise of influential Canadian folk musicians (including Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Wainwright’s mother and aunt, respectively), a legacy that Wainwright attempts to uphold with Folkocracy . The album’s release thus marks both a new chapter and a return for Wainwright (whose father, Loudon Wainwright III, is also a well-known American folk musician). In putting together the album, Wainwright drew from his childhood — spent primarily in Montreal, Quebec — where he sang folk songs and attended folk festivals with his mother and his sister, Martha Wainwright (herself a critically acclaimed artist). If the album is a homecoming, though, it is necessarily an exercise in nostalgia, as Wainwright contemplates his youth from the vantage point of his upcoming fiftieth birthday. The saving grace is that repetition, tradition, and reflection are part and parcel to folk music. Hiding behind the veil of a studio album, Folkocracy might really just be a pretext for an artist with an illustrious career to gather together all the friends he’s made along the way. Recording appearances are made by the likes of Brandi Carlile, John Legend, David Byrne, Sheryl Crow, Nicole Scherzinger, Chaka Khan, Andrew Bird, ANOHNI, Susanna Hoffs, Van Dyke Parks, and Madison Cunningham, as well as his sisters Martha and Lucy Wainwright Roche, aunt Anna, cousin Lily Lanken, and close family friend Chaim Tannenbaum. Indeed, it’s a bit of a fancy get together. The star-studded lineup again reflects the core tenants of folk music, which is by definition a communal genre. Traditional folk music was transmitted via oral tradition, rather than through written words and lyrics, and the word “folk” derives from the Old English “folc” meaning “the people”. Keeping with his experimental and spontaneous creative spirit, Wainwright recently staged Wainwright Does Weill , a five-night residency at Café Carlyle in New York performing the songs of German-born composer Kurt Weill. He followed these shows with his Folkocracy tour, kicking off June 2 — the album’s release date — at the very low-key Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. As an album, Folkocracy demonstrates Wainwright’s knowledge of, and respect for, folk music’s history and ethics, which he remains committed to throughout the record—even at the risk of alienating mainstream audiences. Cannopy Magazine sat down with Wainwright to discover the “why” behind Wainwright’s dedication to folk and its principles. CANNOPY x Rufus Wainwright Rufus Wainwright by Kalya Ramu FOLKOCRACY CAN | Was there a rhyme or reason behind assembling this cast of collaborators, or were you more so listening to who each song was asking for? RW ─ I mean, it was a combination of many things. I think if anything it’s a testament to L.A. not only having great weather, but if you live here there are certain perks and one of them is that it's not hard to get in touch with a lot of different types of musicians who call L.A. their home. I wanted to do a lot of duets on this record ─ I do feel like with folk music, one of the main tenets is that it’s about group singing. It’s about harmonising, and it’s about sharing songs with friends and so forth. We had a limited amount of time and so we just kind of sent out the call with some wishlists and that’s who came in. “ALONE” CAN | The album opens with “Alone” (Feat. Madison Cunningham). Where was it along your journey that you discovered this song, and why did it resonate with you? RW ─ What’s interesting is, it’s about age really. The song, I mean. When your body starts to really leave you—I’m not in that bracket yet, I’m turning 50, so it’s not that bad. But the horizon has started to show itself a little bit and you do start to recap a little bit of your experience, and you realise there are people who are no longer with us and/or in your life. And there we are, you do end up alone in the end. Ewan MacColl, in my opinion, is probably the greatest known Scottish songwriter. There’s a lot of great Scottish folk songs, but we don’t always know who wrote them. But Ewan wrote the song “Alone”. He also wrote, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, and “Dirty Old Town”. So he is arguably kind of a hit songwriter, but he was very rooted in the folk tradition. Madison Cunningham, who sings one of the verses and also plays guitar, really is one of the big new forces in music right now in California; she’s having her own success. I think she won a Grammy this year, actually, for her records. So it’s great to have new talent as well. Photography by Tony Hauser SCHUBERT CAN | Franz Schubert’s “Nacht und Träume” (Night and Dreams) makes an appearance on this record. What do you appreciate most about Schubert? RW ─ The thing about Schubert that has always stayed with me and I always reference in my compositions is that someone once said — I think it was opera singer Brigitte Fassbaender who once said in an interview — there are two second moments in Schubert songs that are more profound than six-hour-long operas. And I think that’s always been a real guiding principle for me, to really focus on the minutia and just try to catch that musical moment. I wanted it to be more of a dreamscape, something that you hear that could be a lullaby or something that would haunt you in your dreams. CHAKA KHAN CAN | You recorded your rendition of “Cotton Eye Joe” with Chaka Khan. How did this collaboration come about? RW ─ I first met her and Earnest during the Joni Tributes here in Los Angeles that we did for Joni’s 75th birthday and we’ve remained in touch. The song Cotton Eye Joe, it’s interesting ─ it’s directly from a Nina Simone version, but not the one that she’s most well known for. On most of her albums she sings Cotton Eye Joe in a certain way. But there’s this one live version of her doing it that is unlike all the others, and that is my favourite. It’s a recording that affected me very deeply when I was very young. As much as I love the song, it’s also very much a kind of ode to Nina Simone as well and you need a pretty great singer to do that with, and Chaka is right up there. FAMILY BUSINESS CAN | This record is in many ways a family affair. What is the “folkocracy” and how did growing up in this very musical family cultivate that for you? RW ─ A lot of it has to do with the fact that the last album I put out, Unfollow the Rules, was a kind of examination of my early years here in L.A., and of the first records I made, which were mostly done in studios out in California. So this recording was this return to Laurel Canyon, but somehow that sparked a desire to go even further back into my psyche and go back to the real roots of my upbringing, which was folk music. Also, to be honest, there is a kind of resurgence in that field, when you look at Brandi Carlile for instance, or Mumford & Sons, and then when you watch the Grammys, there are a lot of categories that use folk music. So I think I felt a desire to reclaim some of my heritage. I’d been so long out in the opera realm, which is very much the antithesis of folk music — though they are related at times — so I wanted to reclaim that inheritance and reclaim some of my childhood, and some of these innocent memories that I had around the banjo and the piano. Now I can move forward again ─ I had to go all the way. KATE MCGARRIGLE CAN | Y our mom’s banjo can be heard in the recording of “Wild Mountain Thyme”. How did the memory of her — and her legacy as perhaps the matriarch of your “folkocracy” — inform the arrangement of this song in particular? RW ─ Well, I made a beautiful recording of it when I was around 14 with my mother, my aunt, Dick Gotham, and Emmylou Harris. It’s actually on YouTube. We did it for the Trans-Atlantic session. So that was a pretty profound memory and experience to have at that age, with that calibre of musicians. If you go back and look at that, you can see me turn, grow during that three-minute song. And so it’s very important to me. I think we all — both her and I and others — really accepted the fact that the saddest songs are Scottish and there’s a kind of romantic longing that those songs engender. And so I think she would approve. THE PEOPLE CAN | How do you define folk music? RW ─ Well, folk is really music that has risen from the bottom up, in the sense that it’s not composed to serve any kind of court or industry. It comes from the boiling pot of humanity. And you can write folk songs, but I think the goal should be that it has a purpose. I think it has to have a utilitarian quality to it that sort of serves the masses, whether it’s to help them work, or to explain some sort of political situation, or to rally a cause. It is about the proletariat, shall we say? So yeah, I think that’s what makes folk music.

Gordon Shadrach From "Trade" by Gordon Shadrach An exploration of the semiotics of clothing, gaze, and black expression. WORDS BY MACENZIE REBELO & MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK | TORONTO | SPACES MAR 03, 2023 | ISSUE 10 In the recent exhibit by Gordon Shadrach—entitled Trade , presented by United Contemporary Gallery—the Toronto-based painter explores the semiotics of clothing and Black masculinity. Shadrach compares the historic attire of African diasporic peoples to present-day basketball jerseys, highlighting the parallels between Black soldiers and the modern athlete. Shadrach also collaborated with artists Karin Jones and Damian Jöel in the November 2021 exhibit History is Rarely Black or White . Like Trade, History combines visual art and fashion to examine colonial history and Black heritage. Both exhibits illuminate the oppression of Black culture, expression, and prosperity.

Monty Python’s Spamalot Maria Jenson by Ella Mazur An absurdly funny, absurdly fun, tsunami of laughs WORDS BY BRONTE CRONSBERRY | BUFFALO | VISUAL ARTS JUN 22, 2023 | ISSUE 12 The Stratford Production of Eric Idle and John Du Prez’s musical, Spamalot , “lovingly ripped off” from the 1975 motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail is absurdly funny and absurdly fun. Director Lezlie Wade crafts a tsunami of song, dance, and iconic sketch comedy that is nothing but two hours of wild entertainment and belly laughs. Eric Idle, an original member of the legendary British sketch comedy troupe Monty Python, weaves clever song and dance parodies through much of the original material of the 1975 original movie. Though secondary to the sketch comedy, the plot follows King Arthur as he gathers honourable men to become his Knights of the Round Table in his quest to find the Holy Grail. All the iconic sketches from the film are still there: audiences are reintroduced to the Knights who say NI!: the Knight who won’t accept he’s lost the duel despite losing all four limbs (It’s just a scratch! Come on now! Fight me!); the cute but murderous Rabbit guarding the Holy Grail; the peasants who refuse to bow to their king but rather remain part of their democratic collective; the plague-inflicted villagers who are “Not dead yet,”; and, of course, the French soldier who farts in Arthur’s general direction. In addition to these sketches, the musical includes some of the best meta-theatrical musical theatre parodies of all time. “The Song that Goes Like This” makes fun of romantic ballads; “Knights of the Round Table” takes the song-and-dance production number to absurd lengths of high-energy musical theatre performance; and ”Find Your Grail” spoofs inspirational songs like “Climb Every Mountain” or “Tomorrow.” Wade’s direction ensures that the material itself shines. There is no need for a directorial intervention for this stuff. After all, these sketches continue to make people laugh almost fifty years after first aired, garnering attention from each successive generation. That being said, the cast under Wade’s sensitive touch delivers the comedy expertly. Jonathan Goad as Arthur provides a stable and solid foundation for the mayhem to swirl around, while also delivering some impressive song and dance skills in the process. Eddie Glen, who is no stranger to the world of comedy — having been featured in Ross Petty’s yearly pantos for decades — performs deft physical comedy and expert comic mugging as the coconut-clapping squire of the mythical British king. Aaron Korhn, as the French Taunter, delivers this iconic character in a way that honours the original but feels fresh and alive. Jennifer Rider-Shaw, as the Lady of the Lake, is both virtuosic, delivering torch-songs such as “Find Your Grail,” and comic, such as when she brings down the house with “The Diva’s Lament (What Ever Happened to my Part!?) in Act Two. Jesse Rob’s choreography is masterfully crafted controlled chaos. The pandemonium of the high-energy song-and-dance numbers may appear chaotic, but a trained eye can see that the well-rehearsed ensemble functions like a well-oiled machine. They are able to bowl over the audience with such spirited musical burlesques as “He Is Not Dead Yet,” “Knights of the Round Table,” and “You Won’t Succeed On Broadway.” The design evokes the cartoonish imagery associated with Monty Python. When God appears to instruct Arthur to search for the Grail — and when the Grail is inevitably found — simple cartoon appendages such as God's feet and a hand grasping the Grail, are used to render the scene. The mediaeval ramparts of the set remind the audience of the time and place of the action, while never slowing down the comic commotion of the musical.

DECA by Austra Austra - Photo by Lamia Karic For this installation of DECA — our running series inviting artists to curate top-ten lists — Katie Stelmanis reflects on the records that informed their newest release ISSUE 16 | TORONTO | HOMEGROWN The gravitational force behind the Canadian electronic band Austra , is a woman who knows how to create sound that transcends boundaries and experience. As a classically trained vocalist, Katie Stelmanis’s compositions fuse synth-laden Euro-pop beats with her powerful, operatic voice. With four previous albums that sing of love and tragedy in her catalogue, it might come as a surprise that Austra’s latest album Chin Up Buttercup is the first truly born of great heartbreak. A devastating pandemic-era dissolution of her relationship pushes Austra to dance on the musical equivalent of a tightrope—resulting in an album that’s taut, yet overflowing with a lush sense of bouncy, exuberant catharsis. Listening feels like having the freedom to dance and express yourself, to grow through the melancholy. Fittingly, Austra’s inspirations echo the ’90s dance-pop she grew up hearing on the radio and reach forward to experimental, internet-era electronic music. For the first time in eight years, the Toronto artist will kick off a world tour that begins in January 2026 . Cher ─ “Believe" I love the moment when a song transitions from “joke” to “genius.” When I was around 12 and this track (and the album of the same name) came out, I thought it was extremely cringe and hated the auto-tune. It was the kind of thing I’d hear on the radio and plug my ears to avoid. At some point, though, my perception of this track changed. I started DJing it in 2020 after going through a bad breakup, and now whenever I hear it I’m filled with joy and can’t help but sing along at the top of my lungs. Maybe it’s because my taste has improved, or maybe it’s simply that I can better identify with the lyrics. I’m not sure. Either way, this song ─ and the album ─ is indisputably genius and I hope it gets played at my funeral. Madonna ─ Ray of light This is another album I thought was absolutely terrible when it first came out, but now I think it’s genius. I lumped it in with a lot of commercial pop music of that era without paying attention to the intricacies that make this album great. It was produced by William Orbit who was a relatively unknown producer when Madonna asked him to collaborate. They ended up making the whole thing together over just four months, which is incredibly short for a pop album of this scale. The whole thing was made using a couple of drum machines, a Juno 106, and a Korg MS-20. I’ve read interviews with Orbit about his experience working with Madonna, and he always praises her for her unparalleled artistry. He talks about how she made a very specific point of making sure not to “overcook” anything they were working on, and that’s why Ray of Light feels so free, loose, and imperfect. In an era of highly-polished pop, this was a revolutionary approach. Donna Summer — Live and More I love Donna Summer and usually wouldn’t pick a live album over a studio recording, but this is probably one of the best live albums ever made. I listened to it repeatedly throughout the pandemic. Summer was at the peak of her career when she recorded it, and this performance is not just a series of songs, but a story, a narrative with peaks and valleys that carry you through love and loss, all while being supported by a superb backing band. Everyone on stage appears to be having the time of their lives, with a masterful performer and storyteller at the helm. Aya — I’m Hole Aya is one of my favourite producers at the moment, and I've listened to this album dozens of times, particularly the song “The Only Solution I Have Found Is to Simply Jump Higher”. I was so transfixed by the synths in the track that I became obsessed with learning how she made it, which was actually using only the Native Instruments plug-in Massive X. I found that very cool because it’s a pretty common soft-synth and fairly affordable, though I will not say it is particularly easy to use. She also recommended a few bit-crusher plugins (notably Devastor 2) which I subsequently bought and became addicted to. So I can confidently say that, without Aya’s brilliant record, my own album — although very different in sound — would not be the same without her influence. Vangelis ─ Blade Runner (Music from the original soundtrack) While making Chin Up Buttercup I got really into film scores after being invited to score an old friend’s television series and feature film for CBC Canada. I’d never scored before and was really nervous about it, so I started collecting some well-known scores as inspiration. Vangelis’ Score for Blade Runner was one of them. It’s a wonderful balance of synthesizers and acoustic instruments with classical/folk singing that feels free, completely off the grid, and eerie. I love Rachel's song, which is sung by the uncredited Mary Hopkin, who is a Welsh folk singer. Fabric Presents Octo Octa & Eris Drew I chose this live album because not only does it feature some of my favourite original tracks by Octo Octa and Eris Drew, it also features some late 90s house music selections that the couple often feature in their electrifying, joyful, DJ sets. It’s the best of both worlds: their own work and a small sample of what it’s like to be transfixed by two of the most important house music DJs of the moment. Octo Octa and Eris Drew are a trans couple whose love and optimism radiates through all their musical ventures─a radiance we need urgently today. Dorothy Ashby ─ Afro Harping So much of the music that influenced my new album was what I played on repeat during lockdown. I have a few Dorothy Ashby LPs, and one dark winter I probably listened to them every single weekend. Ashby incorporates her spiritual practice into her recordings, especially the later ones, and I think that channeling of the divine through her music helped me survive the cold, lonely lockdowns in Toronto. ABBA ─ The Visitors When my co-producer Kieran and I started working on music together, we exchanged countless songs and I was really surprised to learn how much he loved folk and traditional songwriting. He played me a song by ABBA I had never heard called “Should I Laugh or Cry” from the album The Visitors and I became transfixed. It’s not quite as bubbly as their more popular work, yet there is something devastating about the opening melody that keeps pulling me back. It feels like a masterclass in melody writing and chord structures that somehow sound effortless. I wish ABBA had made dozens more records and ventured even deeper into this style of music making, because I hear the beginnings of a weirdness we’re just starting to scratch the surface of with this track. Yu Su - Yellow River Blue YuSu is one of the most interesting producers and composers in Canada today. This album was released in 2021 and I listened to it excessively throughout lockdown. She is classically trained and blends ambient, classical, and East Asian traditions in her compositions. She is also an incredible DJ. Some of her tracks find their way into my DJ sets — often as openers or closers — because her ambient productions bring an otherworldly atmosphere to a room, exactly what a rave should aspire to. Sally Oldfield - Celebration Sally is a British musician who released 15 records throughout the 1970s and 80s. My co-producer Kieran introduced me to her work via the song “Blue Water” from her album Celebration , which is spectacularly beautiful. It’s like an onomatopoeia set to sound—music that evokes blue water dancing on blue flowers somewhere near the blue ocean. I realized later that I was already familiar with her brother’s work, Mike Oldfield, a prolific composer whose compositions have influenced my work for over 2 decades. Funnily enough, I was introduced to his work after a fan compared my early recordings to his Incantations which Sally also sings on. It must be quite something to share a rich musical life with a sibling—I can’t imagine it, but the idea of effortlessly sharing the social side of music with someone is deeply appealing.

DECA by Fleur Electra Fleur Electra by Kirk Lisaj For this installation of DECA, Anne Klein rolls back the sonic curtain of her “Strike the Match” EP ISSUE 17 | TORONTO | HOMEGROWN DECA is a Cannopy series where artists curate Top 10 lists of the albums that shaped their latest release, tracing their creative lineage, influence, and inspiration one record at a time. Fleur Electra — the dream-pop outlet of Toronto-via-Saskatchewan artist Anna Klein — began as a bedroom experiment in the early pandemic haze. But after a house fire reduced that bedroom (and nearly her archive) to ash, and as her mental health wavered under the weight of survival and self-doubt, the project was pushed to a breaking point. Enter a chance Instagram message from LA producer Alex Black Bessen, and suddenly Klein found herself in a California cabin, sifting through salvaged demos and coaxing them into bloom. With Bessen and percussionist Tim Voet, those once-intimate little room sketches swell into the big ballroom alt-pop vignettes that make up her latest EP, Strike the Match . Strike the Match - Cover art Songs like “Best of the Worst” and “Weather Girl” sift through past relationships with clarity and a cool ache, while the title track crystallizes a harder-won truth: endurance can become ignition. Raised in the imaginative sprawl of rural Saskatchewan and steeped in the communal intensity of church music, Klein has always chased the kind of song that feels like a white winter hymnal set to a campfire. What emerges on Strike the Match is a record about surviving literal and emotional fires, about dancing through the wreckage, and about finally beginning. Fleur Electra joins Cannopy to provide some background on the album via reflections on the 10 albums that inspired her sound. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk This album had a hand in shifting my perspective on the way I view pop production. After absolutely loving their previous album, Mercurial World , getting into Imaginal Disk took a bit longer for me to grasp. But once I was in, I was really in it - and I think that is the beauty of an album like this. To really connect with it is to enter the world that was so meticulously created, and it feels like a gift for the listener to be a part of. Most albums are best listened to front to back, but this one especially. Each song feels like you’re floating into different spaces that naturally meld into one another. This is a very visual album for me, and it encouraged me to lean into the idea of songs having their own unique character and identity. MGMT - Little Dark Age This band was one of the first to inspire my love for indie-pop/psych-pop. I think growing up I had a skewed perception of what pop music really was. This album in particular showed me just how fun it can be, and it doesn’t have to follow a rigid formula. I am obsessed with the jangle of this album. The song, “When You Die” is probably one of my most listened to songs of all time. It’s full of life, energy, and loads of nostalgia. One of my favourite things about MGMT is the way they infuse their music with nostalgia. There’s just something about the melodies and tonality of it all that feels very warm, even though the album as a whole I would describe as quite cold in tone. I look to this album in experimenting with brighter synths and vocal distortion. Sometimes I find what I like, and have a hard time escaping the box that it subconsciously keeps me in, and I think this album reminds me to challenge that. Everything is worth trying, and you never know what’s gonna click. King Krule - Space Heavy The title says it all — this album is heavy. Again, I feel lucky that these kinds of albums tend to find me just when I need them. This record is dark, with a contrasting peaceful ambience to it that I really appreciate. I also admire the use of space in this. The structure of each song is unique to its own, and there’s a lot of room for interpretation and filling in the gaps. When listening, there were a lot of quiet moments within the bigger moments, and that is one of my favourite things in music. You can take it for what it is, but you can also pay attention to the delicate intricacies and dive deeper. Texturally, this album is very intriguing as a listener. It successfully establishes a particular overtone through a body of textural moments that is difficult to articulate, and that’s what makes it beautiful and inspiring to me. Phoenix - Alphabetical This is one of the first bands that I remember my older sister playing on one of her burnt CD mixes. I heard the song “Run, Run, Run” and I instantly was hooked. This album in itself isn’t one that impacted me as much as just this whole band did. Their music is a constant for me, and I’m always discovering new things I love about it. Production wise, I was heavily influenced by the drums, percussive moments, and melody lines. Also, to me there was always this underlying sensuality in their music that is hard to describe, and maybe unintentional ─ but very cool nonetheless. The late Philippe Zdar is one of my favourite producers. I love the cleanliness of sound and the way it sounds compact with just enough room to breathe ─ it’s just truly awesome. Alvvays - Blue Rev This has been in my rotation since it came out. When it was first released, it was all I could listen to for a good chunk of time. To me, this record is perfect in a lot of ways — but I was particularly drawn to the arrangement, dynamics, and lyrics. One thing I always appreciate about Molly Rankin’s vocals is the attention to delivery. One small melodic change, or certain pronunciation of words can change the tone completely. Lyrically and instrumentally I think this album left a lasting imprint on me in the way I go about my own songwriting and vocal execution. Beach House - Depression Cherry This is an album that I had heard many times throughout the years, though mainly in passing. I had a few songs I’d listened to here and there, but it wasn’t until recently that I took the time to listen with intention and I’m so grateful I did. I think this album, and band as a whole, really speaks to the catharsis of music for me. Before noticing the song's sonic surface, I found myself noticing the immediate feeling they gave me. From there, I would dive into each song and try to find the small things that somehow made me feel that way. Bands like Beach House are ones that I will always go back to. Because to me, that deep cutting emotion, that normally seems so inaccessible — is the primary reason I make my own music. It is of course a form of self expression and creative outlet, but more than anything it is a way to become closer to a part of myself I can’t easily get to. I think music is a very strong tool for that, and this album in particular did that for me. It reminds me of what I hope others might feel when they hear my music. Bread - The Best Of Bread I could not pick one album, because this band truly is everything to me. Growing up, I remember being on road trips, sitting in my parent’s thirteen seater van (big family vibes) and hearing these songs over and over again. They comforted me in a way I couldn’t explain back then, and they still do but even more so. Now I can resonate with the lyrics, appreciate the composition, and also be reminded of some fond memories of my childhood. I think David Gates is an amazing songwriter, and I look to him when I’m writing when it comes to all things romantic. He had a very special way of writing a song that felt like absolute poetry, not just in the lyrical content. The way the instruments move so naturally with the melody, the softness of heart, and the honesty; it is all very immersive to me. When it comes to allowing myself to soften, and feel the romance of life and how it translates to music — that is when I look to Bread. Soccer Mommy - Color Theory This found me when I needed it most. The atmosphere of this record is extremely heavy, and at the time I could closely relate to it. It kind of felt like a friend giving me a hug and letting me know they see me. I think the dark truth and authenticity of this record is what inspired me going forward in my own writing. It displays a world of grief and heaviness like I’d never heard before, and I was touched by the freedom and raw expression. This album struck me, and overall I think it gave me my own green light to speak from a place of brutal honesty in my music. Foster The People - Torches This is one of the most underrated indie albums of its time. While "Pumped Up Kicks" had its well deserved moment — the record in its entirety is incredible, and in my opinion a 10/10. Mark Foster is one of my favourite producers, songwriters and vocalists. He inspired me from the first moment I heard his music when I was around 12 years old. The unique play with vocal technique, extremely punchy drums, driving bass lines, and overall liveliness of the tracks still stick with me over a decade later — translating into my own current approach. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie And Lowell This is one of my all time favourites. I am grateful that I heard this album so early on because it helped shape the way I experience music. I think, though unassuming, it carries a lot of fundamental qualities that all of my favourite albums have. It is vulnerable and dark, but still extracts moments of pure essence and soft solitude. Everything about this album is beautiful to me. It also helps to know some of Sufjan’s other albums to understand the different avenues he has taken, and how this album came to be. Though quite different from my current sound, there are a lot of production and writing takeaways that I have carried with me throughout the years, and still impact me in all my work today.

Top 8 Albums That We're Listening To On IDAGIO this Month J.S. Bach by Dane Thibeault for CANNOPY Listen along with a free 30-day subscription to the world's largest catalogue of classical recordings PARTNERSHIP | ENSEMBLE 1) Bach: Keyboard Concertos, BWV 1052, 1053, 1054 & 1056 Amsterdam Sinfonietta, conducted by Candida Thompson | Beatrice Rana, piano | Warner Classics My favourite part in these Bach concertos is probably an incredibly intimate moment in the second movement of the F minor. When I see it in the score, which calls for so much of the legato and cantabile that typifies piano technique, I wonder what Bach had in mind when he wrote this kind of music for a harpsichord, an instrument that offers properties that are dramatically different from the piano. What I really adore in this movement is the way the incredibly moving piano line hovers so far above a layer of subtle pizzicatos. As soon as we start playing it feels like we are entering another dimension. It is hard to describe, but it takes you to another planet, especially after that rather dramatic first movement. Suddenly finding this heavenly sound in the middle of nowhere is like finding a gem in the dark. It is a moment of revelation. — Beatrice Rana, notes from the recording 2) Shostakovich: Symphonies; Concertos; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons | Yuja Wang, piano • Baiba Skride, violin • Yo-Yo Ma, cello | Deutsche Grammophon Shostakovich’s relationship to the Soviet regime continues to fascinate. Was he a loyal (and therefore reprehensible) servant of the evil Soviet regime, a cowardly cheerleader for the Communist motherland? Or was he an embittered and alienated closet-dissident, inserting into his scores secret anti-Soviet messages intended to be decoded as anguished cries of protest? These questions raise another: should the issue of Shostakovich’s political convictions (or lack thereof) change the way we listen to the music anyway? For Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons, who experienced the Soviet system firsthand growing up in Latvia, and who has spent much of his career studying and conducting Shostakovich’s music, the answer is clear, as he said in an interview at the start of this monumental recording project: “The greatness of his music lies beyond politics. It speaks to people whether they know the times he lived in or not.” — Harlow Robinson, notes from the recording 3) Ravel: Fragments Bertrand Chamayou, piano | Warner Classics All the pieces in this latter category contain Ravelian echoes, whether in the Hispanic strains of Joaquín Nin’s Mensaje, the enigmatic lyricism of the Elegía by Xavier Montsalvatge, the luminous neoclassicism of Arthur Honegger or the bewitching bell sounds of Alexandre Tansman. The other pieces employ more overt references: the gallows death knell in Frédéric Durieux’s disquieting piece (evoking Ravel’s “Le Gibet”) or the motifs from Gaspard de la nuit borrowed by Betsy Jolas. A homage to Gaspard is no doubt also the guiding force behind the album’s focus on fragments: De la nuit by Salvatore Sciarrino, albeit ironically dedicated to Chopin, is a sequenced collage of scraps from ”Ondine” and ”Scarbo”, playing with our memory and giving the impression of a hallucination. At the heart of the programme is a touching gesture from Ravel’s faithful pianist and friend Ricardo Viñes, in the guise of a short romantic evocation. — Bertrand Chamayou, notes from the recording 4) Bach: The Art of Fugue Albert Cano Smit, piano | Aparté The boundless imagination in Bach’s writing is multiplied by the fact that no the piece for the first time, and being captivated by the impression that an entire universe was slowly being revealed through the work. Without immediately understanding the degree of complexity, the underlying layers of meaning, the Pythagorean proportions and mind blowing achievement of certain movements, such as the mirror fugues (imagine a four-voice fugue that also works by inverting every voice), or certain counterfugues, I was deeply moved by the music, and I believe every listener can be. This album is my humble attempt at communicating this to every music lover. I’m grateful to them and to everyone joining me on this journey of discovery, as well as to all those who through their generous support have made this project possible. — Albert Cano Smit, notes from the recording 5) Organised Delirium Tamara Stefanovich, piano | PENTATONE This sonata came to me at a moment of complete chaos, in the years of the Balkan Wars, when I was left with no concerts, but only with the youth and intensity that it brings with it. The rage of the first movement and its almost unbearable passion, the way of being poetic in a million ways in the second movement, the capricious, dangerous Scherzo and its enigmatic trio; all this had to be the preparation for the fourth movement that encompasses all the world. The choice to integrate fugues — the old form of utter musical organization — and its symbolic meaning are a masterstroke. Boulez employs them in a way that they can’t be really followed -the pitch is too low and dark, auditory virtuosity too impossible to follow. — Tamara Stefanovich, notes from the recording 6) Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Tonhalleorchester Zürich, conducted by Paavo Järvi | Alpha Classics The song describes a singing competition between a nightingale and a cuckoo: the judge is a donkey who crowns the cuckoo the winner because, among other things, it sings a good chorale. Mahler thus breaks the seriousness of the movement, parodying the listener’s usual expectation that the last movement should include a chorale that concludes the symphony. A chorale does appear at the end of the finale of the Fifth, although it has an ironic connotation right from the start, as the introduction consists of elements of the chorale itself — and the cuckoo is chosen as the winner because it sings a good chorale. The actual chorale at the end of the movement thus loses any legitimacy and has no solemnity; this is further emphasised by its restatement in a playful burlesque style once it has been heard. The music thus completely evades any clear interpretation of the fate of the symphonic self and leaves the outcome open. Did Mahler write his symphony this way on purpose so that “no one would understand it”? — Franziska Gallusser, notes from the recording 7) Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (1857 Version) The Hallé, conducted by Sir Mark Elder | Chorus of Opera North (Anthony Kraus, chorus master) • RNCM Opera Chorus (Kevin Thraves, chorus master) | Opera Rara Most lovers of the composer would surely want to argue that such questions of value will at the least be heavily inflected by the quality of the performance; and, perhaps just as much, by the nature of the audience – by who they are, where they are, and the mood (political or more broadly cultural) that surrounds them. Particularly when it is performed with commitment and an awareness of its stylistic peculiarities, hearing the original Boccanegra can, in short, lead us to confront important questions, ones that might even extend to the whole issue of whether Verdi’s revisions are, as well as re-imaginings, invariably improvements. True, he thought of them as just that. But times change, and with them change the meanings that we can extract from works of art. The ‘old’ Boccanegra might, in this context, quite suddenly become fresh and ‘new’, adapted to our times just as urgently as was its successor. — Roger Parker, notes from the recording 8) Marsalis: Blues Symphony Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jader Bignamini | PENTATONE The Blues Symphony is a seven-movement work that gives a symphonic identity to the form and feeling of the blues. It utilizes regional and stylistic particulars of the idiom’s language and form to convey the basic point of view of the blues as music: “Life hands you hard times.” When you cry, holler, and shout to release those hard times; when you tease, cajole, and play to diminish them; and when you dance and find a common community through groove, better times will be found. The more profound the pain, the deeper the groove. — Wynton Marsalis , notes from the recording CANNOPY Partners with IDAGIO! Continue reading...

The Tranzac: A Case Study in Third Places The Tranzac Artistic hubs are in danger of becoming either profit-engineered businesses─or disappearing entirely. Words By Derek Manderson | Illustration By Dane Thibeault ISSUE 14 | TORONTO | HUBS & HUDDLES Foreword ── Our idea of what defines a hub has evolved since we started our Hubs & Huddles series. Initially, our vision of the ideal hub was a large multi-faceted institution capable of hosting international artistic talent while incubating projects that smaller collectives couldn’t achieve. But this vision was incomplete. It didn’t make space for the community mainstays that, though lacking in the bells and whistles of a national institution, were nevertheless better suited to serve the unique artistic needs of their immediate communities. As I was meditating on this issue’s focus on the artistic third places that bring us together, I settled on a case study that was close to home: The Tranzac. Nestled in the nucleus of Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood since 1971, The Tranzac self-describes as a “member-driven non-profit arts organisation.” While this string of words usually just cover for the nebulous corporatism that has infiltrated so much of the arts across Canada, The Tranzac is a rare example of an organisation that practises more than it preaches. On any given night, there’s something worthwhile happening in one of The Tranzacs three performance spaces: from experimental jazz trios in the smaller “Southern Cross” room, to large concerts in the Main Hall, to intimate poetry readings in the Living Room. Beyond merely providing space, the Tranzac’s magic lies in how these spaces are filled. Alternating between rentals and residencies, one-off shows and weekly performances, there’s a steady and pleasantly incoherent stream of artists appearing in one of the over 1,400 shows the venue hosts every year. I first visited the Southern Cross in December 2011, walking through the doors with no clue what show was on (which turned out to be an experimental noise band). I’ve spent many evenings in the Southern Cross over the past decade, especially last summer, watching the comings and goings of this uniquely conspicuous hub. In summa summarum , I arrived at the realisation that what happens at the Southern Cross is precisely the kind of shit we mean by art is true north . Some evenings at The Tranzac are teeming with people from all over the city, packed tight to catch glimpses of emerging talents in Toronto’s bluegrass, jazz, folk, singer-songwriter, and experimental music scene. Some evenings look like a bar scene from an Aki Kaurismäki film: largely empty, with a trio playing jazz standards for a few attentive albeit reclined onlookers. Regardless of the crowd size, this venue—and the programming that fills it—has achieved an effortless and unimposing consistency. It makes no attempts to be chic; its social media marketing is even-keeled, earnest, and behind the times; you can get a pint for $7; and most events are PWYC. Ironically, its refusal to be the hip go-to spot is what makes it the ideal go-to third place. It is one of the few remaining places in this part of town where the aesthetic and virtue of lingering is still fostered. To that end, I invited writer Derek Manderson to reflect on this evaporating virtue of lingering, and the economic hurdles that make lingering difficult in a city as expensive and expansive as Toronto. For a perspective on how community hubs like The Tranzac support the cultivation of creative experimentation, electroacoustic musician Michael Palumbo joins us to discuss Exit Points (a monthly free-improvisation concert series). ─Michael Zarathus-Cook, Chief Editor On the Evaporating Virtue of Lingering ── There are two places where the average person spends the majority of their time: at home and at work. Respectively, these are our “first” and “second” places. The “third place,” as Ray Oldenburg describes in his 1989 book The Great Good Place , is a neutral, public space for socialisation and connection. These are the parks, libraries, coffee shops, and arts venues where we can meet people to chat and spend time together. More than just offering an escape, third places are fundamental in fostering a sense of community, creating informal support networks, and providing opportunities to learn, play, and unwind. Arts venues are a particularly valuable kind of third place space because they are designed to serve as a cultural hub where artists can share their work and experiment at both low cost and pressure. For attendees, a night of lingering promises exposure to something new, challenging, comforting, or provocative. That is a valuable communal contribution that we cannot lose. However, a cursory glance at the rapid corporatization of other popular third places and ever-pressing harsh economic realities reveals a scary truth: artistic hubs are in danger of becoming either profit-engineered businesses─or disappearing entirely. At its core, third places and spaces are an opportunity to … just be a person, whatever that looks like on any given day. Maybe that means going to an open mic night and silently listening to music by yourself. Maybe that’s celebrating an achievement with friends at a dive bar, revelling in the rambunctious energy of the crowd. The price-tag to entry should not be a barrier to entry─in theory, financial pressure should be minimal. It shouldn’t cost us to be . For a while, cafés were the quintessential third place: the price of a cheap coffee procured a cosy corner for catching up with a friend amidst the cocooning hum of similarly-spirited conversations. In recent years, that cup of coffee has gotten a little more expensive, and the most prominent sound of this archetypal setting has become the click-clacking of keyboards as tables have been transformed into loci for work. The second place has yet again invaded a crucial third one. At some of the largest coffee chains (looking at you, Starbucks), the bottom line has thrown its weight behind mobile ordering and swapping seating areas for queueing spaces. With minimal humane interactions, we are robotically expediting customer turnover. A lingering body is not a paying one and is, therefore, not a desirable one from the corporate perspective. The Threat ── It is precisely this calculating profit-oriented design that poses the greatest threat to third places, especially in an expensive and expansive city like Toronto. The heartbeat, spirit, and value of a third place won't show up in the corporate numbers and spreadsheets of our capitalist business models. Yet, it is in this corporate soil that our arts organisations are increasingly embedded in order to compensate for the astronomic costs of operation. In an alternative world: studios, galleries, and event halls would continue to be nodes of collaboration and experimentation, an affordable boon for aspiring artists and lingering patrons alike. But in this world, the permanent closures of artistic third places has become routine. Even a major industry player like Artscape (a Toronto-based operation that’s been making artist studios affordable for over 30 years) is showing its mortality as a cultural hub by going into receivership this year. The Digital Alternative ── Then there’s the question: can digital, online third places provide a viable alternative to alleviate the corporatization of brick-and-mortar third places? The proliferation of Zoom hangs, gaming nights spent on Discord, and the virtually real environments of VRChat all make a compelling case for it. Consider that the global gaming phenomenon Fortnite —itself an apparatus for socialising with friends and strangers—offers live events and concerts for players to attend in-game. These spaces may not physically move us out of the home, but they remain a transportation site for escape and connection. In some ways, digital spaces are quite accessible─most software meeting spaces are free (provided you have the hardware and internet), drinks are cheaper, and you can’t beat the commute. For many, they bridge gaps between friends, family, and loved ones who are geographically distant. However, embracing at-home digital third places as a replacement for physical sites of gathering ignores precarious realities for many without access to the required technology, those who do not experience home as a place of safety and comfort, and those who—crucially—don’t want to be home alone. As a graduate student living in Toronto, I don’t have the luxury of a home office. My computer desk sits beside my bed, where I sleep, work, and socialise. A singular room is my first, second, and third place. Some days, this is okay. But most days, I crave an escape that won’t burn holes in my already disintegrating wallet. The Tranzac ── As a not-for-profit staple in the local arts scene, the Tranzac Club is the perfect third place to go when I can no longer bear the unrelenting glow of my computer. A quick jaunt over on the subway, and I am greeted by a night of live music, art, and theatre (for free!). It is an institution that thrives more on culture than money. In April 2024, the venue programmed its first fundraising concert to help cover the untenable operating costs. It was the first in a series of similar events, complemented by a GoFundMe campaign. For now, the Tranzac continues to survive with the support of its dedicated community and generous donors who recognize the value of artistic third places as a place to be human. But for how much longer? Capitalism doesn’t care about third places. Our various levels of governments, with all their overlapping budget cuts, don't care about third places. If we treasure places like the Tranzac and everything they can offer us in an age of increasing social isolation, we must show that we care. Third places are our places, if they disappear, so does our ability to come together. ─ Derek Manderson Michael Palumbo ── Third places have been essential to my growth as an artist and to the development of Exit Points. The Tranzac is where I first engaged with the free-improvisation community and where I’ve tested curatorial ideas like the Cool New Instruments Night, a platform for instrument designers and performance artists to present prototypes for new instrument designs. The Southern Cross room has been pivotal, offering a free booking option that allows me to experiment with programming, such as providing performance opportunities for my former students outside of academic settings. With over 1,000 shows annually, and 100% of door revenue (plus 10% of bar sales) going to the independent event organiser, the Tranzac presentation model creates a supportive and sustainable environment for the performers. It’s a DIY space where artists manage their own setups and operate the PA system, fostering artistic and professional growth. With its multiple rooms, lesson spaces, and zine library, I see the Tranzac functioning as a cultural production meets community centre.
 Arraymusic operates differently, more like a black box space that can support projects with high production demands, aligning perfectly with Exit Points’s goal to elevate the presentation of free-improvised music. For Exit Points alone, Arraymusic has facilitated live concerts, a vinyl LP, 15 digital album releases, and welcomed over 2,000 audience members. As third places, both the Tranzac and Arraymusic not only make grassroots projects like Exit Points feasible but also create the atmosphere necessary for experimental improvisational music to thrive. By supporting artists at every level—from performers to technicians—they cultivate a community that encourages creative risks and artistic development. Learn more about Exit Points at www.exitpoints.org . Support The Tranzac at www.tranzac.org

LAS VEGAS — AiR TOUR — Issue 9 Jonathan Justo Avila LAS VEGAS — AiR TOUR — Issue 9 Art by Jonathan Justo Avila Jonathan Justo Avila sM | How do you think this Artist-in-Residence program fits into the artist community in Las Vegas? JJA ── The exhibit and program helped to elevate our artist community. The program itself is enriching and a great opportunity to build momentum in your career. I encourage everyone to visit and immerse themselves in our gallery to connect to Vincent and his art. Most artists I know operate downtown, so I was nervous to operate on the [Las Vegas] Strip. Most locals stay away from the Strip unless it’s for work, but it was so fun to have connected with so many people from all over the world at our venue. Continue the AiR tour in print: ISSUE 9 | ISSUE 10 Sign Up to K eep Up! Our newsletter brings you the best in the visual and performing arts. Exclusive interviews. Global coverage. Local perspectves. sM | What inspiration do you get from artists around you? JJA ── I am inspired by a lot of local artists; too many to mention, notably, Juan Quetzal, also known as Quetzal Visions. I love how he represents and supports the local indigenous community. I am fortunate enough to call him my friend and I love his art. He inspires me to look within and express myself authentically. Juan’s art speaks to my soul, a feat I aspire to achieve in my work. He, as well as many other local artists I’ve met, have encouraged me to not give up. Never give up! You can find Juan on Instagram @quetzal.visions. sM | How has the pandemic transformed the priorities of Las Vegas’s artist community? JJA ── The most exciting thing to me about the current atmosphere in the artist community in Las Vegas is the growing inclusivity. I have met so many wonderful artists and musicians seeking opportunities to be seen and heard. Fortunately, there are plenty of events now that encourage creatives to network and share their gifts. My personal favorite is the Love Yourself Expression event hosted by the Love Yourself Foundation. You can find me there supporting my friends, live painting and singing at the open mic. I am very proud to represent our growing art community and am excited to see our art and growth. PREVIOUS NEXT

smART x Stratford Pt.1: "King Lear" Eddie Glen (centre) as Patsy with members of the company in Monty Python’s Spamalot. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou Paul Gross delivers a Lear of a lifetime WORDS BY EMMA SCHMIEDECKE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLLIE ALI | NOTTINGHAM | THE smART ENSEMBLE JUN 12, 2023 | ISSUE 12 King Lear is about a man on the threshold of his twilight years. Many productions chose to cast Lear by an actor who is also at a moment of transition in his career. As they age, handsome men who have enjoyed playing romantic leads graduate from these characters to play their fathers or even grandfathers. Paul Gross, who makes his return after twenty years to the Stratford stage, is a perfect choice to take on the role of Shakespeare’s aged king. After a career playing leading men on television, most notably for his lead role as Constable Benton Fraser in the popular Canadian television series Due South , Gross both has the experience and skills, garnered through a productive and long career, to play the monumental titular role of Shakespeare’s masterpiece .

Tekahionwake Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake The double life of Emily Pauline Johnson’s Poetry WORDS BY ROWAN SKY | ARTS & LETTERS FEB 28, 2023 | ISSUE 11 A printed poem is experienced visually─text displays the whole poem at once, and readers contemplate rhythm, emphasis, and pacing for themselves. Readers also rely on editors and critics for expert opinions on interpretation. Yet performance is a differently constrained spatial and temporal experience for the audience: their own prior knowledge and experience influences how they perceive what they see and hear moment by moment. The performer controls the time and space that the poem fills using her body and uses pauses, breaths, movement, gesture, emphasis, volume, rhythm, and pacing to embody the poem and provoke meanings that cannot be expressed in the usual textual conventions of printed poetry. One performer who notably put poetry into action was E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake (1861-1913), an Indigenous artist from Six Nations who used her work to renegotiate negative images of Indigenous people in Canadian culture. She began publishing poetry in the 1880s and toured Canada, the U.S, and Britain to perform in music halls from 1892 to...

Antoni Cimolino on Stratford Festival 2025 Antoni Cimolino, Artist Director Stratford Festival INTERVIEW ─ “The great thing about theatre is that you get to watch terrible things happen, but do it safely and within a jungle gym for the mind.” Words and Interview by Michael Zarathus-Cook ISSUE 15 | STRATFORD | FOURTH WALL When it comes to curating the biggest theatre festival in Canada, running out of ideas is not an option. As an artistic director, your curiosity is your bullion, and it’s the only type of currency that you accumulate only by spending. Antoni Cimolino has been spending his store of curiosity as Artistic Director of Stratford Festival since 2013 and, after 38 years in association with this company, Cimolino will be stepping down from this role at the end of the 2026 season. There is a long list of reasons to step away from a demanding role such as his, but running out of ideas for programming is far from the case with Cimolino. Speaking with Cannopy about the 2025 Stratford Festival, it’s hard to believe that this is the same man that will be leaving this role next year. His vision for what this Festival can achieve, and the imprint that theatre can leave on the audience, seems as fervent as a newcomer chest-thumping on his first day on the job. Likewise, a brief glance at the programming for 2025 looks like that of a company on the cusp of going mainstream rather than the over 70-year-old institution that Stratford Festival has become. The Programming for this season takes enough chances to attract newcomers, while raising the Baseline of expectations enough to keep seasoned patrons curiously engaged. Stratford Festival 2025. Photos by Ted Belton. One of the seemingly ineluctable modes of thinking that come out of large institutions such as this is the habit of resting on your laurels and believing that the reams of donor dollars and operational funding are a substitute for true audience engagement. This mode of thinking does very little for crafting a truly interesting compilation of works that make up a season. To retain audience interest, you need to swing for the fences, and in order to do that it helps to at least pretend this is the only shot you’re going to get. Stratford 2025 indeed swings for the fences. Take something as run-of-the-mill as staging Macbeth , the formula for success is crystal clear: hire great actors, good directors, and stage it as infrequently as possible. The last variable of this equation is perhaps the most crucial one, because it means that, ceteris paribus , the audience will be happy enough just to see Macbeth and willing to forgive everything else. Despite checking off these boxes—the last time that Stratford staged Macbeth was in 2016, directed by Cimolino and starring Ian Lake—this 2025 production goes for the high-hanging fruits by reimagining the Shakespearean classic in the context of biker-gang culture. That's just one glimpse of acrobatic programming that Cimolino has prepared for Stratford 2025. Joining Cannopy from Stratford, Ontario, Cimolino traces several strands of inspiration throughout a season that's shaping up to be a tug-o-war between meeting and defying expectation.

Yo-Yo Ma Celebrates 100 Years of the TSO Jeremy Dutcher and Sarah Prosper | Photo by Jag Gundu : Toronto Symphony Orchestra All North-American program sets the tone for the TSO’s future WORDS BY MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK | Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto NOV 16, 2022 | COMMUNITY Why are we here? And by here I mean Roy Thomson Hall on any given night that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is performing. Why are we preserving this music? Why, as taxpayers, are we contributing to the perpetuation of this organisation’s competitiveness on the world stage? These are of course questions that are taken for granted, and were perhaps settled at a much earlier point in the TSO’s 100-year history. Yet, it seems these are precisely the type of questions that concerts such as this Celebrate 100: A Gala Evening with Yo-Yo Ma examines within the context of a centennial celebration. The answers yielded are as multivarious as the number of tickets sold, but the overwhelming sentiment was singular: nothing else does what this music can do, and the way we do it here cannot be replicated anywhere else. And after a century as an ensemble - one that began with false starts and a grassroots effort - the TSO seems to be charting a path forward that is uniquely Canadian, and an increasingly prominent node in the circuit of concerts by some of the world’s most celebrated talents. This program - with Yo-Yo Ma and Jeremy Dutcher in tow - exuded the type of confidence that comes not only from turning 100, but also from striking an optimal balance between the horse-and-buggy that your audience is accustomed to—and the Ford Model T that’ll drive them into the future.

“Aperture” shines through a glass brightly Matt Gervais and Charity Rose Thielen of The Head and the Heart - by Dane Thibeault for Cannopy. INTERVIEW ─ On their sixth studio album, The Head and the Heart looks back in order to move forward Words and Interview by Michael Zarathus-Cook | Illustration by Dane Thibeault | Photography by Jasper Graham ISSUE 15 | SEATTLE | ALT.ITUDE Latest Release The Head and The Heart. Photo by Shervin Lainez. If I had to summarize Aperture , the latest album by The Head and the Heart, in exactly 52 words, then I would look no further than lyrics from “Little Room” by The White Stripes: Well, you’re in your little room And you're working on something good But if it’s really good You're gonna need a bigger room And when you're in the bigger room You might not know what to do You might have to think of how you got started Sitting in your little room These 52 words spell out an unspoken law of creativity, especially the sort of creativity that emerged from the DIY ethos of late-2000s Indie folk outlets. This law is really a call-and-response pattern between nascent independent projects that inexplicably strike a resonant chord in the hearts and minds of a devoted audience. This resonance spreads mostly through word-of-mouth, then through social media, then through radio waves and music charts and, before you know it, bands like The Head and the Heart (THATH) have gone from the pay-what-you-can backrooms of Seattle’s folk scene to signing with some of the biggest labels in the world. But this increase in reach comes at a price: producers. The Head and The Heart. Photo by Jasper Graham. Generally speaking, producers are well-meaning people. They hear a sound that is unique and, like any decent person would, are inspired to share this sound with the world. Because they work in an industry that marches to the beat of algorithmically-derived trends, they know they will have to augment that raw and untethered sound that they were inspired by in order for it to travel further and find new audiences. It’s the seemingly ineluctable outcome that these augmentations eventually stray too far from what made it unique in the first place, and some sort of intervention is needed to rekindle that sense of originality. I think this explains why THATH decided to take back the reins of their own sound by self-producing Aperture . The band has come a long way since their “little room” release of their self-titled album, which they self-produced and self-released in June 2010. Through word of mouth alone, and before big business got involved, they were able to sell over 10,000 copies of this album via concerts and local record stores around the neighbourhood of Ballard, Seattle. Soon enough, they needed a bigger room, quite literally, as the song “Rivers and Roads” quickly made appearances in the soundtracks of shows on networks like CBS, NBC, Netflix, and Fox. That’s as close to becoming a household name as a folk band could get. The Head and The Heart. Photo by Jasper Graham. Larger concert venues also mean larger recording booths that, nevertheless, become more crowded as record labels and their producers chime in on exactly how it is that THATH should sound. For his part, Matt Gervais (guitar, vocals) is quite fond of the external perspective that producers bring; yet Aperture presented a fresh sense of freedom, an opportunity to bring that “little room” ethos into the big studio sound that’s been cultivated by their last five albums. Creatively speaking, is it possible to enjoy the sense of freedom that produced your latest album without looking down at your previous output as works released under the captivity of studio contracts and their “obligations”? And is believing in this possibility equivalent to eating your freedom cake, and having it too? Gervais and Charity Rose Thielen (violin, guitar, vocals) would likely say yes to the former, and no to the latter. Aperture is also their first release under their own label, Every Shade of Music, with exclusive licensing to Verve Forecast. The near identical nomenclature between their record label and the title of their previous album Every Shade of Blue (released by Warner Records) is perhaps a clue that the band’s newfound creative energy is in fact a long simmering one that has been expressed in previous projects and only now finding full vindication in Aperture . Whatever the precipitating factors might have engendered a certain restlessness in the band, enough for them to want to go back to how they started, the most interesting feature of Aperture is the audacity to manufacture their own sense of necessity. The audacious willingness to get uncomfortable again, to return back to the rag and bone shop of (the head and) the heart. The Head and The Heart. Photos by Jasper Graham. While necessity is the mother of all invention, reinvention is, in that sense, often an orphan. As Gervais points out in conversation with Cannopy : birthing something is painful, but rebirth is more painful. For a band with an established sound and listenership, sticking to what works is the expedient thing to do. Despite the mixed reviews that met Every Shade of Blue , that album swam in the same waters as its successful predecessors (2016’s Signs of Light debuted No.1 on the Top Rock Albums charts) and suffered more from its excesses (16 songs) than from any waning of the bands creative reserve. In other words, reinventing THATH was not a necessary project from the perspective of the industry, yet Thielen saw this retooling as the only artistic way forward for the band. From self-producing to taking their democratic approach to the next level — with different band members singing for the first time on Aperture — they chose not to rest on the laurels of their fabled Seattle come-up days, and rediscover their sounds under a new sense of necessity: what does the world need now and what do we want to give it? Across its 12 sub-5-minute songs, Aperture indeed spreads out as a meeting place between what our current collective moment needs the most, and what music of this sort can provide in earnest. Right from the opening “After The Setting Sun” THATH leans heavily into the stomp-and-holler anthemic sound that drove the folk revival of the early Mumford & Sons, Avett Brothers, Fleet Foxes zeitgeist. The rest of the album alternates between full-synth rallying calls and intimate acoustic sketches next to introspective word-painting. The comparisons to their breakout self-titled album are obvious and inescapable, and the fans that gathered around that first inning would feel rewarded by this return to homebase. The Head and The Heart, Blue Embers. As a pseudo-throwback album, Aperture treads a tightrope, as nostalgic revisitations in music are rarely a worthwhile endeavour for a band that’s far from hanging up their instruments and coasting off their glory days. What saves this album from the pitfalls of sounding too much like the year 2010 is its utter unselfconscious sincerity. Even when they sample the gospel-lullaby “This Little Light of Mine” in “Cop Car”, it sounds more like an earnest call to optimism rather than a half-assed attempt at a summer anthem that everyone can sing along to. That is the underlying throughline across Aperture , an optimism that isn’t trying to avoid the dire straits of our present moment but looking through its dark lens in order to find bright spots. It’s also the sort of optimism that parenthood trains you to adopt — Gervais and Thielen welcomed their second child in spring of 2023 as the band was gathering in Richmond, Virginia to record Aperture . This sense of responsibility of bringing a life into a world full of bright possibilities must have carried over into an album that likewise keeps on the sunny side. The Head and The Heart. Photos by Jasper Graham. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops for Aperture, there are strains throughout: painful memories of childhood in “Pool Break”, sober realizations in “Time With my Sins”, cool falsetto yearnings on “Beg, Steal, Borrow”, and a protracted exhalation on “Finally Free”. The album closes out with its title song, a percussive slow procession that lends a voice to the impulse to bring this album back to first principles: And I can tell your heart’s not in it What will it take to realize There is no end and no beginning There’s only now, open your eyes Someday you’ll find all you’ve left behind And wonder why your heart’s not in it It's not too late for you and I. Aperture is an interesting word, one that we encounter mostly in conversations about photography and camera lenses. Yet it’s a word that simply describes a doorway between the past and the future, between what our eyes can see and what is yet to be seen. With Aperture , it seems THATH has decided the brightest is yet to come, the darkness be damned.