Reservations

This event is free and open to the public with reservation. Online ticket reservations for Bricolage, flowers and collective works can be made via this MS Form.

For CIRMMT students wishing to have their attendance tracked for awards eligibility, please ensure to reserve your own seat.

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Proposed Program

Arlan N. Schultz: saraba hana no sekai...saraba naki-sō (...farewell, world of flowers...farewell, I'm going to weep...) 62-channel version (2024/26, world premiere)

For solo oboe, computer processed audio, and real-time spatialization with AuraWand G3 gestural controller. Duration: 8:26'
Performer(s): Arlan N. Schultz (electronics, AuraWand G3 gestural controller), Aleksandra Panasik (oboe)

…farewell, world of flowers…farewell, I’m going to weep… was composed during my time as Visiting Professor at Hokkai-Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan, in the spring and summer of 2024. Commissioned by Polish oboist Aleksandra Panasik for her Western Canadian tour, the work is presented here in a newly re-imagined 62-channel immersive version, where the oboe is spatialized in real time using the AuraWand G3 gestural controller.

The piece was inspired by the fleeting beauty of Sapporo’s cherry blossoms in Nakajima Park. For a brief moment each spring, the trees erupt in quiet brilliance before gradually fading with the arrival of summer. Their disappearance, so often overlooked amid the spectacle of their bloom, forms the emotional core of the work.

During this period, I also confronted a series of personal losses: family members, friends, and colleagues. This music reflects on that shared human experience. Like the blossoms themselves, moments of beauty and connection are fragile. When they pass, the world remains, but we are irrevocably changed.

THIRTYMINUTES: I Wasn’t Ready to Leave this World Behind (2025, world premiere)

For mixed media (video and audio). Duration: 5:53'
Creator(s): Aliayta Foon-Dancoes, Liam Ross Gibson, and Paul MacIntyre

“I wasn’t ready to leave this world behind, so I continued to push it in an unknowable direction. Let’s see where we go.” Posted in March 2024, Aliayta put to words the bittersweet excitement we feel when our ideas briefly flicker in sync.

I Wasn’t Ready to Leave This World Behind emerged from a string of short works from early 2024 that we felt warranted further exploration. Grounded by simple yet evocative visual themes (the gate, the oculus), the piece hints at beginnings and endings, of time-dissolving, of place-transcending. Materially, it reflects the diversity found within our weekly practice, revealing traces of coding output, audio-reactive animations, low-fi video clips, heavily processed found-footage, acoustic violin, field recordings, and synthesis. Crumpled together and compressed into a deep intake of breath, the work holds on to that moment, stretching out that flicker.

Seulement: Bricolage Architecture (2025)

For stop-motion animation and modular synthesis. Duration: 25'

Bricolage Architecture is an audiovisual performance that combines stop-motion animation and live modular synthesis. It features minimal, hyper-flickering geometric abstractions reminiscent of computer-generated images. The difference being that they are all handmade using cardboard cutouts photographed on a light tablet. Aside from editing and cropping, no digital processing is applied to the photos. They are shown as they were taken, without concealing the imperfections in their lines, the tears in the cardboard, and the imprecisions in their movements. Rather than using purely electronic sounds, the music also opts for a more physical approach. It is constructed from snippets of my own voice and recorder which are transformed live using the modular synthesizer. By imitating technological processes with the body, the performance seeks to incorporate the human gesture into the digital arts. By doing so, Bricolage Architecture creates a tension between the irregularities of the human gesture and the systematic execution of the machine. It questions the position of the imperfect human body in a world of technological perfection.

Biographies

THIRTYMINUTES

Formed in late 2019, THIRTYMINUTES is an interdisciplinary artist collective consisting of composer/violinist Aliayta Foon-Dancoes (Princeton, USA) visual artist Paul MacIntyre (Cambridge, UK) and composer/keyboardist Liam Ross Gibson (Tiohtià:ke/Montreal). Taking their name from an ongoing project of creating brief works based on an ever-changing theme, their practice runs the gamut from lo-fi digital statements to full-fledged multimedia performances. Despite each of its members’ association with western Canada, they often work across multiple time zones, with themes of distortion and emergence integral to their work. They are the recipients of multiple Canada Council for the Arts grants and have collaborated widely, including with artist Marla Hlady (Tkaronto/Toronto) and poet, librettist, and performer Luke Hathaway (K'jipuktuk/Halifax). Their work has been featured internationally, including at Espacio Gallery courtesy of Degrees of Freedom (London, UK), SUB TEI (Berlin), and Make Art Not War Foundation (California).

Aliayta Foon-Dancoes

Aliayta Foon-Dancoes is an award-winning Canadian violinist, composer and interdisciplinary collaborator. Until Fall 2023, she was living in London, England, working with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC, and 12 Ensemble.
She is a co-founder of the commissioning project Orbit Duo and the interdisciplinary collective THIRTYMINUTES. Through these projects, Aliayta has composed for new instruments designed by sound sculptor Marla Hlady, commissioned and performed pieces by Olivia Shott, Cris Derksen and Robyn Jacob, premiered work at the Canadian Opera Company, and exhibited experimental audiovisual pieces Sub Tei (Berlin) and Espacio Gallery (London).
Aliayta holds a BA from the University of Victoria, a MA from the Royal Academy of Music and has held Chamber Music Fellowships at both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music (London). In Fall 2023, she began a PhD in Composition at Princeton University.

Paul MacIntyre

Born in Whitehorse, Canada, Paul MacIntyre is a studio-based visual artist currently working in Cambridge, UK. Using historical precedence as a filter for interpreting the contemporary, he culls images, motifs, and sensibilities from the past and responds mostly through collage and drawing. His recent work addresses the reproducibility and ubiquity of canonical Western art, from traditional relief printing to the virtually identical “Art” section found in used bookstores from Canada to the UK and beyond.
Paul has exhibited internationally and across Canada as an individual and with THIRTYMINUTES, including solo exhibitions at The Art Gallery of Guelph and Empty Space Gallery (lək̓ʷəŋən territory/Victoria, BC). Paul holds an MFA from the University of Guelph, a BFA from the University of Victoria, and a diploma in visual arts from Vancouver Island University.

Liam Ross Gibson

Hailing from Vancouver Island, Liam Ross Gibson is a composer, keyboardist, and educator currently pursuing a DMus in composition at McGill University. His music draws inspiration from processes found in the natural world, and seeks to make connections between different musical traditions, in particular Western notated music, jazz, rock, and contemporary electronic music.
Gibson's music has been performed by groups such as Ensemble Éclat, Tsilumos Ensemble, Continuum Contemporary Music, Quatuor Bozzini, and the Winnipeg Symphony. He has been the recipient of commissions, awards, and grants from the SOCAN Foundation, la Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Gibson holds a MMus in composition from the University of Manitoba, a BMus in composition and theory from the University of Victoria, and a diploma in jazz piano from Vancouver Island University.

Aleksandra Panasik

Dr. Aleksandra Panasik is an internationally recognized oboist specializing in contemporary, experimental, and improvised music. A graduate of the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk, she earned her doctorate in musical arts in 2021 and furthered her studies in Stuttgart and Bremen with Christian Hommel of Ensemble Modern. She has participated in leading new music programs including the International Ensemble Modern Academy and the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music, where she received a scholarship.

Panasik’s artistic work focuses on the interpretation and creation of new repertoire, particularly projects exploring the relationship between acoustic sound and electronics. She collaborates closely with composers worldwide and has premiered numerous works written especially for her. Her debut solo album OBOElectronics (2023) features premiere recordings for oboe and electronics, highlighting her exploration of timbre, space, and technology.

Alongside her international performance career, Panasik regularly presents lectures, workshops, and interdisciplinary collaborations, engaging performers and composers in new approaches to contemporary music.

Arlan N. Schultz

Dr. Arlan N. Schultz is a Canadian composer, music educator, and music technologist whose work explores the expressive and spatial dimensions of contemporary music. He studied composition with Michael Matthews, Brian Cherney, Roger Reynolds, Chinary Ung, and Brian Ferneyhough, and earned his Ph.D. in Composition from the University of California, San Diego, where he held the Kurt Weill Fellowship.

His music has received international recognition, including the BMI Award for Quartet Opus 10, the Godfrey Ridout Award and the Canada Council’s Robert Fleming Prize for his large-scale oratorio Edifice, and Second Prize at the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg for PLI, later published by Universal Edition (Vienna). His work has also been nominated for the prestigious Grawemeyer Prize.

Alongside his compositional work, Dr. Schultz develops immersive audio technologies and is the inventor of the AuraWand, a gestural controller for spatial audio. He is Associate Professor of Music and head of Composition area at the University of Lethbridge.

Seulement

Seulement is the project of Montreal-based audiovisual artist and electronic musician Mathieu Arsenault. His work examines the irregularities of the human body in relation to technology. More specifically, he focuses on the integration and transformation of human voice and gesture within electronic music and digital arts. First known as the lead singer of the electronic rock band Technical Kidman, his solo practice now extends to music for albums as well as audiovisual performances and experimental films. His work has been presented at numerous festivals, including MUTEK Montréal (CA), MUTEK MX (MX), MUTEK AR (AR), Lunchmeat Festival (CZ), CODEC_sessions (PE), ELEKTRA (CA), Videocittà (IT), Modular M+ Festival (HN), Wavelength (CA), Sound/Image (UK), SXSW (US), International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL), Ann Arbor Film Festival (US), Festival International des Films sur l’Art (CA), Iceland Airwaves (IS), and Suoni Per Il Popolo (CA).