Stephanie Conn

Newly Hatched: A beloved Toronto early music band is reborn

Musico-Metaphorical Journeys ...

"Whether they are physical or metaphorical, staircases take us from one place to another through a liminal space. But far from being “non-places”’ that we should take for granted, stairways are also entities unto themselves: they can effect a change in place or fortune, and themselves stand as symbols of class or power. In Staircases, her new production for Tafelmusik, Alison Mackay explores music with direct or inferred links to staircases and, as she puts it herself, builds a case about...

Peter's Tapes: Private collections and mid-century Cape Breton musical culture

The late Peter MacLean’s private collection of forty-eight reel-to-reel tapes is a connoisseur’s archive of Gaelic and English songs, fiddle music and radio shows. It's also a resource that sustained MacLean’s own practice in his later years. This article considers his collection as a significant piece of Cape Breton musical history. Personal recordings of house parties are a source of rare performances and windows into an individual’s musical experience. They also reveal much about céilidh...

Review: Calcutta 1789

Review of a crossover recording

Review: Oswald, Airs for the Seasons

Review of a new recording by Rezonance Baroque Ensemble.

Toronto Symphony Program Notes

Program notes to Toronto Symphony Orchestra program.

Cape Breton and its Songs

With high hopes of accessing some of the vast amounts of folklore that previous collectors had said could be found in Cape Breton, American folklorist MacEdward Leach made a research trip to the island in July of 1949 to record Scottish Gaelic singing and storytelling. His interest was also piqued by his first wife, Nova Scotia–born folklorist and editor Maria Doane Leach.[...]

Website: Picanto.ca

Discover. Curated music that's creative, contemporary and Canadian.

Enclyclopedia entry: Morrison, Van

One of several entries I contributed to the Grove Dictionary of American Music