Here is a list of interesting sound-related links. This page is new and is still growing. If you would like your page (or someone else's page) to appear here, send an email to webmaster@openears.ca with the URL and, if possible, a brief description of the site.

There are currently links in these areas:

Music in K-W | Festivals | Organisations/Centres/Groups | On-line Journals | People doing interesting things | CDs: labels, distributors, on-line stores | Software

Other music links for Kitchener-Waterloo (and surrounding area):

•the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony is this festival's major collaborator, and one of Canada's best orchestras. They are housed in the Centre In The Square.

•NUMUS is a local new-music concert presenting organisation, and is another of this festival's major collaborators. You can join their e-mail list by sending an e-mail to: concerts@numus.on.ca.

•the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society has been hosting chamber music concerts out of a private residence for the past twenty-plus years, and features one of the most extensive schedules of any series anywhere - averaging 50 concerts a year! Although not specifically a new-music organisation, there are so many concerts that new works show up fairly regularly.

•Wilfrid Laurier University's Faculty of Music is home to many of KW's musicicans. They offer many concerts throughout the year, including free tuesday noon concers, and, for those wanting to hear really new music, concerts of works by student composers. (This link goes straight to the concert listings.)

•Sundays at the Centre (in Guelph) is a series of sunday matine concerts at the Guelph Youth Music Centre, and seeks to present "a diverse array of high-calibre musical performances that represent creative, explorative, and cross-cultural trends in contemporary music-making." Concerts are free for people aged 14 and under, and $12 for everyone else ($10 with donation of a non-perishable food item).

•Conrad Grebel College, on the University of Waterloo campus, hosts the music department's free noon-hour concert series.

•the Music Gallery (in Toronto) always has something interesting on its program. New composed music and improv are frequently featured.

•SoundList is an E-mail newsletter devoted to announcements of free-improvisation, experimental music and sound art events in the Toronto area.

Other music festivals of note:

•the Guelph Jazz Festival (in Guelph, Ontario - close to Kitchener) is another one of those amazing smaller-town avant-garde music festivals, like Victoriaville (see below) - almost a week of increadible free jazz and improvised music by major musicians from around the world. How does it happen?

•the Victoriaville Festival of Musique Actuelle (in Vicotriaville, Quebec) is a long standing festival devoted to "musique actuelle" (as the title suggests). May 15-19.

•the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra hosts a hugely successful new music festival every year.

•the Vancouver New Music Festival seems to be fairly close to Open Ears in terms of content.

•the Sound Symposium in St. John's, Newfoundland, shares the eclectic sensibilities of Open Ears, but goes on longer, and is closer to the ocean...

•Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques is a new music festival hosted by McGill University.

•Radicaliberté / Free Radicals is a Montreal festival devoted to experimental practices at the interstices of music and technology, improvisation and notation, radical grassroots experimentation paralleled with extreme works from the contemporary musical canon.

•Deep Wireless is a celebration of radio art taking place in Toronto at various times throughout this May. It features performances on May 6, 13, 23, 24 and a conference on May 24, 25.

•the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival has a rather self-explanatory name.

Organisations / Centres / Groups

•The Canadian Music Centre

•The Canadian Electroacoustic Community is housed at Concordia University in Montreal and has an excellent e-mail discussion list, as well as annual CD compilation opportunities, and the electroacoustic mp3 juke-box, SONUS (who are looking for submissions).

•New Adventures In Sound Art is a Toronto-based organisation which specialises in concerts and workshops of/about all types of electroacoustic music.

•The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), founded in 1993, is an international association of affiliated organisations and individuals, who share a common concern with the state of the world soundscape as an ecologically balanced entity.

•AcousticEcology.org involves a network of organizations and individuals who are engaged with the actual, living soundscapes of the world as they are directly experienced. They also have a great links page.

On-line journals:

•Musicworks is not an on-line journal, but is an excellent Canadian magazine devoted to experimental music, and has articles on their web site. It comes out 3 times a year, with a CD.

•Incursion.org is a Toronto-based web page dedicated to "exploring the exceptional." They have a good music review section.

•New Music Box is a publication of the American Music Center, and comes out about once a month. Each issue features a topic which is examined in an interview, an article, and a collection of short opinion pieces from various (American) musical personalities.

•Disquiet.com is a publication dedicated to ambient and electronic music. It comes out sporadically, and features an interview, reviews of new releases (CDs, mp3, books, etc...) and a CD give-away contest.

People doing interesting things:

•learn about what happens to Congolese traditional music when it gets transplanted to urban environments and electrified. These people make pick-ups out of car parts! http://www.crammed.be/konono

•The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. I'm told that after each concert the audience is invited to eat soup made out of the instruments...

•Dorkbot. A monthy forum devoted to bizarre electronic experimentation, with branches around the world.

•Sliiiiiiiinky is, as the name would suggest, a very long slinky, built by Robbin Whittle. Audio clips of the 71 foot suspended slinky are available, and are well worth the listen.

CDs: Labels, distributors, on-line stores:

•Ambiances Magnetiques is Montreal's label for musique actuelle.

•Cantaloupe Music is, in effect, Bang on a Can's label, devoted to releasing work by BOAC and other like-minded musicians.

•The Ceiling - "Sounds of Unusual Purpose" - is a distributor of very underground music, managed by local experimental musician Jim Dejong (a.k.a. The Infant Cycle).

•Centrediscs is an on-line store (and label) for the Canadian Music Centre.

•Electrocd.com is the on-line store for electroacoustic music. They are affiliated with Montreal's label Empreintes Digitales and the distributor DIFFUSION i MÉDIA, who also carry titles from France's INA-GRM label and others. They also have an extensive links page.

•Empreintes Digitales is Montreal's label for electroacoustic music.

•Soleilmoon is a label and a distribution company based in Portland which deals in music which makes "creative use of technology." They veer towards the darker end of the spectrum, specialising in such artists as Coil, Muslimgauze, Merzbow, et al. They also have a very extensive links page with links to further musicians, labels and resources.

•Spool is a Canadian label with a heavy focus improvised music.

•Verge is a Canadian distributor of contemporary and experimental music.

[free] [music] Software

•SuperCollider is a very powerful music synthesis programming language developed for the Mac by James McCartney. The current version doesn't support OS X. A new, significantly different version is being developed for OS X, but is still in experimental stages.

•Sonosphere : samples, effects and outputs are all represented by little coloured spheres floating in a cube. You define velocities and levels of attractions/repulsion between spheres, and assign parameters to one of the three directions, and then let them float around, creating sound as they go. Music of the spheres, for OS X.

•Spongefork was created with an intent to create a self-contained software instrument capable of responding to gestural control while requiring a minimum of hardware components. For Mac OS 9 or less, but version 2.0 for OS X is coming soon.

•mda-vst is a site with many freeVST plug-ins for Windows, Mac OS 9 and OS X platforms.

•Plogue is a site dedicated to experimental cross-platform audio software. They've currently got 3 things, including a new application called "Bidule" which is a "modular creation studio" in the spirit of MAX, Audiomulch and others.

•Smart Electronix is a group of people who spend their time making nice plug-ins for Windows, Mac OS 9 and OS X, and only ask for voluntary donations in return. Worth a look.