In July, I moved to Montreal to start my doctoral studies in composition with Philippe Leroux. I’m really looking forward to being a student again and being able to concentrate full-time on all my creative activities.

Being in Montreal also means new creative collaboration opportunities, with both those musicians who are good friends already, and all of those I have yet to meet.

Montreal has a very vibrant experimental and improvisation scene, and I’m looking forward to hearing everything that is going on.

The second wave of the Bird on a Wire project is underway. This time, the theme is “flocking patterns.” For a full description of the project and the composers involved, please look here.


The premiere of these pieces will be very exciting! Stay tuned for more information very soon.

We are lucky to be generously supported both by the Alberta Creative Development Initiative and the New Music Project Grant of the Canada Council for the Arts.

This spring, I wrote a piece for the wonderful pianist, Luciane Cardassi. It is the second piece I’ve written this year that has been inspired by my recent research into my family history.


The piece is dedicated to my grandma. It can be played with recordings of poems written by my grandfather, Jan Vladislav, between the movements. They are some of his last poems, and I chose the ones that related somehow to my grandmother. This is how we played it both at The Banff Centre, where I wrote it, and here in Montreal at the Sonnez-Ici Festival.


You can listen to a recording of it here.

Earlier this month, I spent a lovely week in Oslo, working with the technical experts at NOTAM. Hans Wilmers and I worked on creating a working connection between the “bowsense” he had designed and my computer. This involved calibration and programming, but we managed to get it up and working for a lovely intimate concert at The Sound of Mu at the end of our workshop week.
Both of us look forward to continuing our collaboration and to create a system that will be of interest to both researchers and performers.
Stay tuned for sound samples from the concert and updates on the research activities!

Click here to see the complete video of our SpaceMelt show in Banff!

FACEMELT has officially become SpaceMelt.
our first concert was at the Happening Festival in Calgary:

Click here to see the full performance of SpaceMelt at the festival!

Playing on Saturday at with The Improvisation Pool at Open Sound in Boston.




The Improvisation Pool:

Jorrit Dijkstra – alto sax, lyricon, synth
Terri Hron – recorders, electronics
Andrew Neumann – laptop
Esther Kurtz – oboe
James Coleman, Theremin

Saturday, September 12, at 8 PM (doors open at 7:30) suggested donation $8

A nomadic few months brings me the opportunity to play with friends I don’t see very often, but who inspire me no end. Three shows coming up:

with Transverse Doppler Effect (Adam Kinner, saxophone, Terri Hron, recorders, Ryan Butler, guitar and Mark Nelson, drums) at L’Escalier in Montreal on September 2nd.

with
Jorrit Dijkstra in looper heaven. Jorrit is a wonderful and surprising musician with his lyricon and effect chops (and the saxophone too, of course). We’ve been wanting to play duos for some time, so this is an exciting prospect! September 4th at Le Cagibi in Montreal and September 12th at the Open Sound in Boston.

So I’m back on this side of the pond since July 24th, first for a couple of weeks in New York, then off to Montreal, with a few side-trips in between.



So far the schedule is (roughly):

July 27-August 7: Summer Intensive Workshop @ the School for Improvisational Music, Brooklyn
July 27 & August 1: concerts with Dan Blake in Brooklyn
August 8-9: recording with treelet (Curtis Macdonald and Daniel Porter)
August 17: playing highlights of Bird on a Wire at the ICMC 2009 in Montreal
September 2: Transdoppler Effect Reunion in Montreal
September 4: sharing an evening’s concert with Kinny K Blaze in Montreal
September 17-20: Montreal International Recorder Competition 2009

more shows and mischief are in the works, but are less confirmed. Check back to find out more details. For times and locations, please see the Agenda!

I’m playing a beautiful version of Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic, led by Bob Gilmore as part of the Klank Kleur Festival. Come sink to new depths! Friday, June 12th at 10 pm. in the Uilenberger Synagoge Amsterdam.

here it is — almost! i sent the files off to the manufacturer today. so many thanks to everyone, especially rachel for her beautiful artwork! i’m so looking forward to having it in my hot little hands!

There are new videos on the Egg of Sand website. Check them out!

So it’s back from the six-month stay up in the high altitude of Banff. I will try to post some of the many goodies that came out of that intensive working period here, as well as finish bringing the website back to its fully operational state. There is not so much time left after I’ve finished scheming for the day, but it will happen within the next little while.

Until then, here is a taste of FACEMELT with the extraordinary Sam Davidson. Thanks to Will Howie for a great evening in Telus Studio recording this stuff! I’ve named this one Brontosaurus Brunch