Lee Mark Ranaldo is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as a co-founder of the rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list. In May 2012, Spin published a staff-selected top 100 guitarist list, ranking Ranaldo and his Sonic Youth bandmate Thurston Moore together at number 1.
John Oswald is a Canadian composer, saxophonist, media artist and dancer. His best known project is Plunderphonics, the practice of making new music out of previously existing recordings.
Christian Marclay is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality.
Eugene Chadbourne is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic.
Michael James Aleck Snow was a Canadian artist who worked in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are Wavelength (1967) and La Région Centrale (1971), with the former regarded as a milestone in avant-garde cinema.
Evan Shaw Parker is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation.
Marilyn Crispell is an American jazz pianist and composer. Scott Yanow described her as "a powerful player... who has her own way of using space... She is near the top of her field." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote: "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano... She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." In addition to her own extensive work as a soloist or bandleader, Crispell is also known as a longtime member of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's quartet in the 1980s and '90s.
Joëlle Léandre is a French double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation.
Michael Charles Colgrass was an American-born Canada-based musician, composer, and educator.
Paul Horace Plimley was a free jazz pianist and vibraphonist. He was one of the doyens of the Canadian jazz avant-garde, a co-founder of the New Orchestra Workshop Society and frequent collaborator with the bassist Lisle Ellis. He was well-versed in classical music and in all styles of jazz; he was one of the first and most convincing interpreters of Ornette Coleman's music on the piano.
Ann Southam, was a Canadian electronic and classical music composer and music teacher. She is known for her minimalist, iterative, and lyrical style, for her long-term collaborations with dance choreographers and performers, for her large body of work, and, according to the Globe and Mail, for "blazing a trail for women composers in a notoriously sexist field".
Paul Haines was an American poet and jazz lyricist. Born in Vassar, Michigan, Haines eventually settled in Canada after spending time in Europe, Asia, and the United States; he had a long stint as a French teacher at Fenelon Falls Secondary School, in Ontario, Canada. Active in New York City in the 60s, he recorded Albert Ayler's Ghosts. A second recording made by Ayler called Spiritual Unity (1965) included a printed folio with text by Paul Haines called "You and the Night and Music."
Timothy Wesley John Brady is a Canadian composer, electric guitarist, improvising musician, concert producer, record producer and cultural activist. Working in the field of contemporary classical music, experimental music, and musique actuelle, his compositions utilize a variety of styles from serialism to minimalism and often incorporate modern instruments such as electric guitars and other electroacoustic instruments. His music is marked by a synthesis of musical languages, having developed an ability to use elements of many musical styles while retaining a strong sense of personal expression. Some of his early recognized works are the 1982 orchestral pieces Variants and Visions, his Chamber Concerto (1985), the chamber trio ...in the Wake..., and his song cycle Revolutionary Songs (1994).
Paul Dutton is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist, and oral sound artist.
Dana Reason is a Canadian composer, recording artist, keyboardist, producer, arranger, and sound artist working at the intersections of contemporary musical genres and intermedia practices.
Musicworks is a Canadian avant-garde music magazine, launched in January 1978 by Andrew Timar (editor-in-chief) and John Oswald.
Nobuo Kubota D.F.A. is a Canadian multimedia artist.
Envoi is an album by American jazz trumpeter Bill Dixon, which was recorded live at the 2010 edition of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville and released on the Canadian Victo label. Dixon reassembled the nonet previously employed on Tapestries for Small Orchestra. It was his last concert, which took place less than a month before he died. Dixon’s failing health required that his solos were prerecorded and played back during the performance.
The Music Gallery is an independent performance venue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known as a space for musical and interdisciplinary projects in experimental genres. The Music Gallery is publicly funded through arts grants from the city, province, and country, and through membership and ticket sales.
Graham Coughtry, was a Canadian modernist figurative painter.
