Naomi McCarroll-Butler (MTL) + Jelly Ear (TO) + Friesen/Hume/Waters

For this third show we’ve teamed up with local curatorial collective Tadpole to offer a weekend of East-West Canadian creative music exchange, featuring workshops and performances from Montréal’s Naomi McCarroll-Butler and Toronto’s Jelly Ear ensemble, as well as local Calgary musical guest Friesen/Hume/Waters.

Emblematic of many musicians coming out of Toronto and Montréal’s voraciously cross-pollinating musical hotbeds, Montréal’s Naomi McCarroll-Butler and the musicians of Toronto’s Jelly Ear - Cory Harper-Latkovich, Yang Chen, and Sara Constant - work across multiple genres and traditions, including free jazz, comprovisation, modal systems, notated classical music, and more.  McCarroll-Butler improvises on winds, creates tuning systems, and builds her own sculptural musical instruments.  Jelly Ear creates a-historical improvised musical experiences based on medieval and renaissance scores.  Each of its members also create variously as composers and performers with robust individual and collaborative practices.  

Not only are McCarroll-Butler and Jelly Ear intensely active as musical creators, they are also active in grassroots cultural production through activities that include community organizing, teaching, self-producing and producing for others, curating series, mentoring, and many other creative expressions. Through years of fertile musical relationship-building, collective creation, and practices of rigorous individual musicianship, each of them offers unique and de-hierarchicalized approaches to musical value, thoroughly rooted in values of curiosity, experimentation, and collaboration. 

We recognize a similarity of ethos between these musicians and many in the Calgary community, which is steeped in histories of collective DIY production. For this concert lineup our co-curators at Tadpole have selected local ‘free jazz ambient noise rock’ collective Friesen/Hume/Waters to start off the night. 

We’re excited to generate what we envision will be a fruitful exchange between Eastern Canadian and Calgarian creative musical cultures.

 

TO PURCHASE TICKETS OR REGISTER IN WORKSHOPS, PLEASE CLICK THE RED 'BUY TICKETS' BUTTON TO THE RIGHT.  THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO OUR TIERED TICKETING SYSTEM, WHICH YOU CAN REVIEW BEFORE FINALIZING YOUR ORDER.

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Concert Saturday, March 15th

7PM, Doors 6:30PM

Theatre 1308

1308 Edmonton trail

 

Workshops

Friday, March 14th: 6:30-8:30PM

Naomi McCarroll-Butler Conduction Workshop P.1

 

Saturday, March 15th: 1:30-3:30PM

Jelly Ear Improvisation Workshop

 

Sunday, March 16th: 1:30-3:30PM

Naomi McCarroll-Butler Conduction Workshop P.2

 

All Workshops at The Alcove Centre for the Arts

244 7 Ave SW

 

About the Workshops

 

Naomi McCarroll-Butler Conduction Workshop P.1 & P.2

Friday, March 14th, 6:30-8:30PM @ The Alcove

Sunday, March 16th, 1:30-3:30PM @ The Alcove

Conduction is a method of guided group improvisation that uses hand signals and basic musical elements to provide a level playing field for musicians of different traditions and levels to create together. Aimed at anyone interested in exploring collective music-making, this will be a community space for people with different artistic interests and backgrounds to meet, speak and create. Some homemade instruments and soundmaking objects will be provided onsite. If you play an instrument, bring it! Come to one or both workshops. Improvisation, by its nature, is a living practice; different groups of people bring out different directions each time.

 

Medieval Horizons of Now, an improvisation workshop with Jelly Ear

Saturday, March 15th, 1:30-3:30PM

Jelly Ear is a group that explores contemporaneity within medieval music and experimental improvisation. We draw from historically informed performance practices but do not strictly align ourselves with the early-music movement. We also seek to move beyond mere historical reference or nostalgia. The contemporary is not a line that separates the past from the future, but rather a plateau containing multiple pasts and possible futures. Jelly Ear approaches medieval music as a way to expand the horizons of this plateau, and form a more radical understanding of "now." 

Within this workshop, we will look at several examples of medieval music. This music will be briefly situated historically, with a short discussion around why and how this music was preserved and contemporary ideas of historically informed performance. We will then explore ways individual participants' musical backgrounds may interface with these historical pieces. Finally, we will do a few group improvisations, exploring ways of navigating this music in a supportive but free setting.

Participants can be of any background but ideally should be able to read music or have the ability to pick up simple melodic material by ear. Percussionists from any background are welcome.