I had the honor and privilege to participate in the 5th Annual Strata Festival, June 10-12, 2016 in Sasaktoon, Saskatchewan.
The Saturday evening concert was presented at Paved Arts, and was attended by a warm and supportive group of musicians, composers, and aficionados.
The performance of Duo Gillis Cunningham was preceded by an inspiring re-arrangement of a Sarah Neufeld violin composition for saxophone by Gerard Webber, and followed by electro-acoustic performances by British euphoniumist David Thornton and electronic composer Chad Munson.
The Strata Festival provided a welcome opportunity to further experiment with live convolution reverberation technology, and also to present performances with a self-designed and constructed conch trumpet…
the newly invented slide wailphone…
and the first-ever Canadian-made sewerphone…
Strata featured Canadian premiers of an acoustic piece, Fanfare (for alto saxophone and conch trumpet) ©2016; and two electro-acoustic compositions, Breached Wail (for alto saxophone and slide wailphone) ©2016, and Aurora Borealis Live (for alto saxophone and double sewerphone in E-flat and B-flat) ©2015.
Both Breached Wail and Aurora Borealis Live included accompanying video projections.
I would personally like to thank Strata New Music Festival organizers Paul Suchan and Darren Miller for their efforts and support.