Arraymusic

Arraymusic’s mission is to ignite and sustain a passion for contemporary Canadian musical art within an equitable, international, interdisciplinary context. 

Three interrelated programs define what Array does, why we do it and how we realize our artistic, organizational, and community-based goals:

1. Array’s Contemporary Music Program produces, presents and supports diverse work on the cutting edges of current musical/sound art practice;
2. Array’s Creative Music Hub utilizes the Array Space to foster a thriving, inclusive contemporary music and art scene; and
3. Array For All engages diverse and equity seeking audiences through innovative programs.

Arraymusic believes that experiencing art can give rise to real change and that if one engages art fully, subtle but profound positive transformations can take place that can impact communities and enhance our quality of life. Arraymusic is devoted to co-creating and presenting speculative new music—music that creates more questions than answers (for both the musicians involved and for listeners).

We believe that through sharing music which finds wonder in the discovery of the unexpected, the imagination is stimulated, questions are asked, alternative ways of thinking are considered, and a sharing of ideas takes place. We are devoted to presenting music that draws listeners in, and encourages them to embrace musical experiences as experimental (both words derived from the Latin root expiri—‘to try’) and know that they are active, co-creative participants in the experience. Music focused on this kind of productive interaction is not confined to any style, methodology or genre. Arraymusic embraces and nurtures work that is radically in-between.

Progressively, Arraymusic situates its creative activities in a cultural context that goes beyond traditional definitions of contemporary classical music. We acknowledge that Arraymusic continues to benefit from the historical privileging of European art forms and the systematic suppression of marginalized voices, and we are committed to continuing to address inequity in all aspects of our programming and organization. 

One critical aspect of this broadening of context is the ongoing development of the Array Space as a creative hub. We see our creative endeavours as being very much in conversation with the pursuits of the many diverse community members who use the Space, our Resident Artist organizations, key artistic and outreach program partners, and those many artists who rent our Space for all manner of arts activities (not only musical). The Array Space BIPOC Access Program supports artists as they rehearse, teach, record and present their work at The Array Space, and we actively seek out Black, Indigenous, non-Black people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and Deaf, Disabled, and Mad composers, and prioritize the inclusion of their works in our programs.

We also see our activities as part of a global conversation, which has driven us to be at the forefront of web-based initiatives, live-streaming of our events, and making audio-visual records of our and our partners’ work available online. It is in the context of these extremely diverse sets of cultural enterprises that Array works to bring its own artistic vision to fruition.

1. FASCINATING READING ABOUT ARRAY’S EARLY YEARS:
   Eatock, Colin. “Arraymusic: the first fifteen years,” Three Studies, CanMus Documents 4 (Toronto 1989)

2. WHAT THE CANADIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA SAYS ABOUT ARRAY’S BEGINNINGS
   https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arraymusic-emc

 

General Director – David Schotzko

As a soloist, chamber musician, and curator, percussionist David Schotzko is a passionate advocate for contemporary composers, having premiered over 300 works with percussion by composers from around the globe. He was a founding member of the renowned International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in New York and Chicago and was ICE’s Program Director from 2002 to 2008.

Since moving to Toronto in 2010, David has served as Artistic Advisor for Ottawa Chamberfest, and curated programs for Arraymusic, Intersection, the University of Toronto, and more.

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House & Production Manager – Matt Legge

Matt Legge is a recording engineer and producer from Nashville, TN. His engineering work includes major label and independent artists across a broad spectrum, though he is best known for his contributions to the country, rock, and Americana genres. Early in his career, Matt was fortunate to work with Taylor Swift on her multiple Grammy-winning album Fearless, serving as assistant and engineer on the song “White Horse”. The song would get Matt nominated for a TEC Award in Outstanding Creative Achievement in 2009, and it won Grammy awards for “Best Female Country Vocal Performance” and “Best Country Song” at the 2010 Grammy Awards, as well as being featured on the television show Grey’s Anatomy. This boost to visibility and his unwavering work ethic lead him to engineering for artists Peter Frampton, Ringo Starr, Ricky Skaggs, and Jerry Lee Lewis. His genre-blending style came from his childhood, tinkering with the family’s record players and tape recorders to create mixtapes and remixes of his favorite songs. This influence became evident as his career progressed and he felt more comfortable introducing his ideas into the process. In 2016, with only a few loose ideas written on construction paper and two weeks booked at Nashville’s Omni Studios, Matt and supergroup Hard Working Americans recorded the band’s second full length album Rest in Chaos. The album’s producer, Dave Schools (Widespread Panic), was especially welcoming of Matt’s input, having him stitch together ideas from their recordings along with found sounds which they crafted into a full length album. The album surprised many listeners with what the Boston Globe describes as a “Likably twisted strain of cosmic-hippie, gonzo-outlaw music” and “a major step forward for the band”, with Rolling Stone calling it “A fascinating roots-rock collaboration”. Also in 2016, Matt recorded Peter Frampton’s album Acoustic Classics. Billboard Magazine reported that Frampton overcame “Stubbornness and fear” to reapproach his classic songs in a way that gave the listener an intimate listening experience as if he were to say “”Hey, sit down, I’ve just written a song’ and I sit down and play you ‘Lines on My Face’ or whatever”. In 2018, Matt and his family moved to Denver, CO where he began producing projects ranging from indie rock to classical. “I want to give people something they’ve never heard, yet feel familiar enough with to accept” became the motto that influenced Matt’s production techniques. Rock critic Dave Marsh wrote of one of his records “I can tell you about its surface but I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it. I’m not really sure there is one.” Matt is excited to continue his audio experimentation at Arraymusic, and is looking forward to creating more magic moments with Toronto’s music community.

 

Board of Directors

• Mark Wilson, Chair & Treasurer
• Amahl Arulanandam
• Michelle Breslin
• Kendall Kiddie
• Laurie Kwasnik
• David Lidov
• Afraaz Adam Mulji
• Michael Palumbo
• Adam Tindale
• Cynthia Wilkey
• Gayle Young

 

Zoma Maduekwe

Zoma is a sound and installation artist and new media instructor. She uses experimental technology and practices to create personal, intuitive and didactic experiences with sound production and performance. She explores the digital and electronic tools used to create and experience sonic artwork, conducts research in music technology, and designs and builds interfaces for digital media production. Zoma currently teaches graphic design and new media at OCAD University and TMU.

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Bruce Russell

Bruce A. Russell aka Ibrahim El Mahboob (he/him, b. 1968) is a composer and self-taught pianist living and working in Toronto (Tkarón:to, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat). He studied at York University with James Tenney and Phillip Werren. His early years were spent playing in bands and releasing DIY cassettes of art pop and experimental music, as well as composing predominantly electronic scores for dance, theatre and interdisciplinary productions.

This season through to 2025, Bruce A. Russell is in residence.

Bruce A. Russell aka Ibrahim El Mahboob (he/him, b. 1968) is a composer and self-taught pianist living and working in Toronto (Tkarón:to, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat). He studied at York University with James Tenney and Phillip Werren. His early years were spent playing in bands and releasing DIY cassettes of art pop and experimental music, as well as composing predominantly electronic scores for dance, theatre and interdisciplinary productions.

Equity is the single most important challenge in today’s contemporary music scene, and our work as artists, artistic directors, and curators cannot be separated from the social and political contexts in which we all live and create.  

As a legacy organization receiving operating funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and numerous private funding bodies large and small, Arraymusic continues to benefit from the historical privileging of European art forms and the systematic suppression of marginalized voices. Much work has been done in classical music and contemporary classical music over the past half century toward achieving gender equity. However, as necessary as that work continues to be to promote women within our discipline, we have for too long overlooked the continued oppression of Black, Indigenous, and non-Black people of colour, of the LGBTQ2S+ community, and of the Deaf, Disabled, and Mad community.

Arraymusic has a relatively reputable history of inclusive programming, and our role as an artistic hub through our management of The Array Space has allowed us to actively support a diverse range of artists from a broad swath of Toronto’s cultural scene. We have publicly committed to gender parity in our own programming through the Canadian League of Composers Gender Parity Pledge, and over the last several seasons we have worked to include more work by composers from marginalized communities and to challenge the inherited values of the western classical canon. We offer Pay-What-You-Want ticketing to overcome economic barriers, and installed a ramp and elevator to enable access for people with physical disabilities. Nonetheless, without a specific commitment to a broader understanding of equity, we have continued to privilege whiteness over other identificatory factors.

Beginning now, in our 2020-21 season Arraymusic will take the following actions:

• We will actively seek out Black, Indigenous, non-Black people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and Deaf, Disabled, and Mad composers, and will prioritize the inclusion of their works across the balance of our programs.

• We are establishing an annual fellowship for emerging BIPOC composers to support their participation in our annual Young Composers’ Workshop: providing housing and transportation subsidies, as well as a per-diem to offset the substantial costs of spending a month living and working in Toronto. We are able to fund one fellowship during 2020-2021 season and will work to fund additional equity fellowships in upcoming years. 

• Other future initiatives include open calls for proposals to The Array Space’s Resident Ensemble and Co-Presentation programs, where priority will be given to Black, Indigenous, non-Black people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and Deaf, Disabled, and Mad artists.

• We are seeking to change the organization from within in the coming years, focusing on diversity in all hiring and recruitment decisions: from curatorial leadership to artists, staff, and board.

Most important: we acknowledge that we will inevitably fail at points in this process, and we commit to continually listening, learning, and improving. We invite you to reach out directly to us with comments and criticisms, and will be available via email at:

David Schotzko, General Director
[email protected]

Mark Wilson, Chair
[email protected]

We look forward to continued change, and to an ongoing public dialog with the many artists, audiences, peers, and supporters working for social justice in the arts and in the world.

To ensure the safety of all Array Space users we have adopted and enforced a strict Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Policy.

The health and safety of our community, clients, and employees is our highest priority and we continue to work collaboratively with our renters to identify and minimize risk levels. We have put together a policy and set of best practice guidelines designed to be taken seriously and put into practice at all times while inside the Array Space. As the pandemic and government restrictions evolve, so too will these protocols.

Click here to review our COVID-19 policies, best practices and guidelines.