Cellist Norm Adams, and pianist Barbara Pritchard converse with guests from the world of contemporary art music, exploring fascinating ideas and demystifying the wild and wonderful music. In their July episode, they spoke with Julia Mermelstein about her music.
Interdisciplinary percussionists, Duo Cichorium, present their self-curated concert, Elemental, centering on themes of connection to oneself, to each other, to technology, and to nature. The duo will perform Julia Mermelstein's out of grains, within clouds alongside works by Nolan Hildebrand, Pauline Oliveros, and Jaz Tsui and Louis Pino.
New Wave 2 features the world premiere of Julia Mermelstein's between walls for chamber orchestra and fixed electronics, a new work by Stephanie Orlando, Misato Mochizuki’s Chimera, and the Canadian Premiere of Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla, in an arrangement for string septet by fellow American Jessie Montgomery.
Video of "in water suspended"
Back in 2021, Esprit Orchestra recorded my piece in water suspended in collaboration with visual artist Moira Ness and I'm so excited to finally share this recording. It was amazing to be able to collaborate with Esprit on this commission and to get to work with Moira and bring another layer to the piece.
I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be writing a new piece for the TSO a part of their NextGen Composer program to be premiered in their 2023-24 season. I'm very excited to get to work with Gustavo Gimeno and Alison Yun-Fei Jiang and to write a 2nd piece for the orchestra.
Recording session for "spora"
It's been awhile in the making but finally the 2021 ASCP (Art Song Collaborative Project) was able to happen this year! My piece "spora" for soprano, cello, and percussion was composed for this project's Terra's Resurgence Opera back in 2021 and it was amazing to finally hear it performed by Gwenna Fairchild-Taylor (sop), Joel Tangjerd (vc), and Joyce To (perc). The piece will be released as part of a video series on YouTube later this fall.
What Brings You In is an interactive multimedia performance by Leslie Ting featuring percussionist Germaine Liu, music by Linda Catlin Smith, two commissioned electroacoustic pieces by Rose Bolton and Julia Mermelstein, and binaural sound design by Matt Smith (Prince Nifty). This music-driven project explores the many ways we engage in the therapeutic process based on interview research, and personal experiences with talk therapy, hypnotherapy, dreamwork, sandplay, somatics, and reiki.
What Brings You In is being presented as part of the SummerWorks Lab from your personal device either at home, or with others at the venue.
Din of Shadow’s sixth production is an ode to the human voice in its many forms: singing, speaking, screaming, whispering, and noise-making; live, pre-recorded, natural, and processed. The voice is presented alone, and in collaboration with instruments, electronics, dance, and video projection.
Rehearsal + film stills for "A frame through bodies move"
Been working on a new multimedia piece, "A frame through bodies move" for solo voice + electronics in collaboration with Angela Blumberg. It's been such an amazing project to collaborate on and to get to work with soprano, Stacie Dunlop, dancers Sarah Di Iorio, Taylor Collis, and videographer Sue Howard. So excited to be premiering this piece on June 18 with Din of Shadows' Din VI: Mortal Chorus at the Music Gallery.
The TSO conducted by Music Director Gustavo Gimeno performs the entire ballet of Stravinsky’s The Firebird with back-to-back world premières from Canadian composers. First, a prelude by Julia Mermelstein, written in celebration of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s 100th season; then, music of “riotously inventive” (The New Yorker) composer Zosha Di Castri, featuring incomparable Canadian soprano and contemporary-music icon Barbara Hannigan.
