EPIC_Tom ++ – May 7, 2022

Julie Andreyev is an artist-activist, researcher, writer and educator. Her practice explores more-than-human ways of knowing and creating through her multispecies studio called Animal Lover. Andreyev uses walking creation, field recording, sound art, video, new media installation, and land-based methods. She is currently working on co-productions with birds (Bird Park Survival Station), and immersive media experiences depicting old-growth forest ecologies (Wild Empathy). Her practice is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Andreyev has a PhD from Simon Fraser University and is Associate Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Her new book Lessons from a Multispecies Art Studio: Uncovering Ecological Understanding & Biophilia Through Creative Reciprocity is published with Intellect Books, UK. Andreyev enjoys walking with her canine companions, Heroe and Zorra, paying attention to the liveliness of the local animals, plant life and Earth forces.

Simon Lysander Overstall is a media artist and composer from Vancouver, Canada. He is currently a doctoral student at the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. He develops works with generative, interaction, or performance elements. He is particularly interested in computational creativity in music, biologically and ecologically inspired art and music systems, and art and performance in immersive environments. He has created and collaborated on custom performance systems and interactive art installations that have been shown in Canada, the US, Europe, and China. He has also supported installation, theatre, and dance productions as a technologist, programmer, and sound, interaction, and visual designer. He has an MA in Sound in New Media from Aalto University in Helsinki, a BFA in Music from the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, and an Associate in Music (Jazz). simonlysander.net

Adrian Avandaño. Photo by Alisha Weng.

Adrian Avendaño is an emerging sound artist, musician and recordist based in Surrey / Vancouver, Canada [unceded First Nation territories]. Recent projects include Parallel 03 with experimental music duo ENDLINGS (Raven Chacon and John Dietriech of Deerhoof) alongside musicians of the Vancouver creative music community. He was the recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts: Digital Originals funding initiative working with Chilean sound artists Tebo Henriquez and Bastian Diaz. Port Parallels – Acoustic Meridians was a remote collaboration exploring open-source hardware and software to develop methods of interpreting graphic and animated scores. He was a performer and composer for John Brennan’s Rudiments for Hexadrome performance and installation project for the 2021 Vancouver International Jazz Festival. He currently plays with Gamelan Bike Bike and will be studying traditional Korean drumming with Dr. Peter Joon Park.

https://avendanosounds.wordpress.com/

Giorgio Magnanensi. Photo by Mark Mushet.

Born and raised in Italy, Giorgio Magnanensi currently lives in Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada.  His diverse artistic practice includes composition, conducting, improvisation, circuit bending, video art and sonic and spatial explorations. He is artistic director of Vancouver New Music and Laboratorio, and lecturer at the School of Music of the Vancouver Community College.

From the early 80’s to date he has been working as a composer, conductor, educator, artistic director, and performer in Europe, Japan and Canada. His views have developed gradually to my current belief that in today’s world of music, cultural studies and research, the most vital ideas and resources travel through many different channels. This has led me to work with a wide variety of musicians, artists, performers and researchers, local, national and international organizations and to test through technology, interactivity, free creative improvisation and conduction the possibilities of a varied approach to sound composition, performance and pedagogy. Through my work he wants to emphasize the value of difference, communication and active participation in the creative process as a path towards a deeper availability to the dialogue and the encounter. The process is a generative one that leads towards the foundation of a meaningful social function of the musician composer in contemporary society while fostering higher level of knowledge transference. This process shows that art is a potentiality in a continuous becoming and that it takes form through the individual identity of each person existing as a manifestation of our multiplicity, we, existing as personæ – from the Latin word per sonum: “that through which sound can resonate”, according to our ability to regain the qualities of curiosity, interest and commitment, and experience them in communication, mutual exchange and caring. https://giorgiomagnanensi.com

Martin Reisle. Photo by Alex Johnson.

Martin Reisle is a Vancouver BC based composer, performer, improvisor, educator, artistic collaborator and calligrapher/designer. Whether with voice, cello, tenor-banjo, or guitar, Martin is consistently dedicated to the support and creation of local culture and community music making. Prior to the pandemic, they worked toward this aim primarily with Vanessa Richards and the Van Van Song Society (Woodwards Community Singers), now you are most likely to find them in their frontyard, playing detailed transcriptions of Duke Ellington’s early work with small non-vocal acoustic ensembles. Martin feels like a cloud, trying to become a tree.

Anju Singh explores the depth of texture through her practice as an experimental musician and a sound artist. Her work is often focused on determining the edges of musical sound and pure texture, and where they meet.

Stefan Smulovitz is a true innovator known for his creative use of technology and mastery of sound manipulation. His craft has been honed creating nearly 100 live film scores, innumerable dance and theatre scores, and hundreds of live performances with some of the top improvising musicians in the world. Stefan’s roots as an improvisor allow him to skillfully use viola, electronics, and his game-changing software Kenaxis, to create vast sonic worlds. Always open to exploring new ideas he has collaborated with film, dance, theatre, poets, writers, visual artists, theoretical particle physicists, buffoon, circus, and now most excitingly crows!

He lives in Roberts Creek, BC where he is working on his most ambitious project yet…

www.stefansmulovitz.ca & www.kenaxis.com