Sound Symposium XXII: Gina Burgess, Hans Tammen

Gina Burgess
Internationally recognized artist Gina Burgess is a multi-genre violinist, composer, yoga instructor, educator, and musician wellness facilitator. A former member of the Juno nominated Iqaluit-based Arctic rock band “The Jerry Cans”, a four-time ECMA award winner with the Hot Swing group “Gypsophilia”, and collaborator with numerous ensembles, Burgess is sought after!
Her debut album, “ISNOW”, won the 2024 ECMA fusion recording of the year award. This project reflects her diverse experience, mixing classical music with Celtic folk and incorporating contemporary Inuit throat singing with elements of jazz.
Burgess recently published a book, “One Note at a Time: A Musician’s Guide to Health on the Road.” This activity book serves as a health and wellness resource for touring musicians. It presents a new perspective to life on the road, aiding touring artists in developing a personalized wellness practice.
Burgess’s newest music is improvisational in nature and not confined to a specific ensemble structure. These compositions draw inspiration from the minimalist composers of the 1960s and aim to create large-scale, hypnotic musical experiences through repetition of rhythmic and melodic gestures. Like light, these pieces evolve and transform over time. Burgess’s original compositions have been described as ethereal, genre-defying, and filled with Spirit.

Hans Tammen
Hans Tammen is just another worker in rhythms, frequencies and intensities. He likes to set sounds in motion, and then sit back to watch the movements unfold. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, his music is continuously shifting, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. This flows like clockwork, “transforming a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off” (Touching Extremes).