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Immersive Soundscape Music

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Andra McCartney’s radio piece Learning to Walk is an experimental radio story made in 2004 about traumatic memory, love, and walking.  Her piece Waiting games and widespread smoke (feat. Narcy) from 2018 is based on a train trip from Toronto to Vancouver reflecting on the widespread smoke and freight delays that structured it during the 2018 fires prevalent in Western Canada at the time.

Darren Copeland’s works on the program combine acousmatic and soundscape approaches to sound creation. His piece …while working and walking is based on exploring his new rural home on foot back in 2015 and while cleaning up and removing old building structures. His piece On Schedule from 2003 transforms a soundscape recording from the World Soundscape Project collection at Simon Fraser University. Synthetic sounds are also generated by plotting the times of station stops on the multi-day route from London Waterloo to Moskva Byelorusski.  

Free

Turntable Trio: Maria Chavez, Mariam Rezaei, Evicshen—Wet Sounds #3

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

On Sunday March 30th, 2025, Wet Sounds: feminist + queer music practices in the polycrisis, presents a performance and conversation with female pioneers of new turntablism, Turntable Trio—Maria Chavez, Mariam Rezaei, and Evicshen (Victoria Shen).

By Donation

Sounds Like Us 2.0 | Final Showcase

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Sounds Like Us—presented by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) and the Campus Friends (CF) program—brings professional musicians into collaboration with community members of varying developmental and physical needs through a series of fun and playful improvisation-based workshops. This season facilitators include postdoctoral fellow jashen edwards, PhD student Joe Sorbara, and community musician special guest, Valentina Morelli.

Free

Journée d’étude: Improvisation, Pedagogy, and Cocreative Worldmaking

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

—"An adept improviser can find ways forward amid impasse, agency amid oppression, and community amid division." – The Improviser's Classroom Join us on April 3, 2025 at ImprovLab for a full-day symposium investigating ways to re-imagine pedagogy through the prisms of activism, reciprocity, and communal care. This free, open-to-everyone event is focused around the launch…

Why Arts Matter Research Speaker Series: Technology

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

This panel will explore the transformative impact of technology on culture, the arts, and our understanding of the world. Featuring Dr. Peter Kuling, Dr. Susan Brown, Dr. Rozita Dara, and Dr. Donald Bruce, this discussion will examine how digital performance, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence are reshaping cultural engagement and artistic expression. The panelists will delve into the ethical implications of emerging technologies, the role of digital humanities in fostering collaboration, diversity, and inclusivity, and the ways science and technology are portrayed in media.

Free

Listening in the Dark: equilibrium

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

In this three-hour gathering with Anne Bourne, participation stems from Deep Listening practice and the Sonic text scores of Pauline Oliveros, with standing by artist/osteopath Lesley Greco, as well as sound interventions by composer/percussionist Germaine Liu. The practice of Deep Listening offers embodied listening, extreme slow walk, attunement, and collective creative expression.

Free

the space between (Guelph Dance Festival—In the Lab)

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

the space between is a research-based creation that explores the intersection between sacred geometry (the transcultural belief that the universe is based on geometric principles such as the Golden Mean and double helix) and our relationship to the embodiment of the unseen and ‘déjà là’ (‘already there’). 

$15 – $25

Improvnetics: Post-anthropocentric performance and improvisational modes for human-AI play, or: What we talk about when we talk about Intersentient empathy. | IMPR Colloquium by Michael Bergmann

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Please join us on Zoom or in the ImprovLab for a hybrid presentation of an IMPR Student Colloquium by Michael Bergmann! Michael Bergmann is a Canadian artist and scholar. He is a tenured Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research-creation work explores the integration of AI and robotics into performance and storytelling,…

Free

LITHOPHONICA | CD Release, Concert/Discussion

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Please join us on Thursday, June 12 at 7:00 PM (ET) to celebrate the release of the marvellous, eccentric Lithophonica I & II (Bedrock Resonances) by Gayle Young and James Harley on the Farpoint Recordings label in Dublin. 

This CD Release, Concert, and Discussion event will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. Admission is FREE and open to everybody!

More About LITHOPHONICA

Stones, the instruments featured on this album, are joined by sounds of bells, sticks and Young’s stringed instruments as Harley expands their resonance, shaping sounds through granulation, layering, transposition, delays, and spatialization.

Young’s collection of resonant stones from the shores of Newfoundland, resonant sticks from abandoned beaver lodges in Ontario, played with bells and assorted hardware, are combined with stringed instruments she designed and built.

As hex-bolts are rolled over stones resting on strings, their vibrations cause the strings to sound. Bells resonate with stones, stones rock on strings, and resonant sticks bounce on strings.

Signal processing simultaneously expands the depth and frequency range, adding complexity through layering and subtle shifts over time.

Additional details to follow

Free

Audiopollination Guelph

Silence 46 Essex Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Audiopollination Guelph is wrapping up the season with this, its last event before the 3rd annual Audiopollination Marathon in August! Local legends Depression 500 will be closing out an evening of familiar faces and Audiopollination Guelph newcomers alike. Audiopollination Guelph is devoted to being identity-affirming space for all people, so please come as you are…

$20

SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION Book Launch (+ Film Screening)

The Bookshelf Cinema 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Mark the date! You are invited to The Bookshelf Cinema on June 24th for the launch of Soundtrack to the Revolution by Eric Fillion. This scintillating book tells the story of Quebec’s Jazz Libre, a radical experiment in musical activism that reveals the meaningful role that the art of spontaneity played in the turbulent 1960s…

Free

Lancement du Livre: SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION BY ERIC FILLION

Casa del Popolo 4873 Boul. St Laurent, Montreal, QC, Canada

Mark the date! You are invited to Casa Del Popolo on June 26th for the launch of Soundtrack to the Revolution by Eric Fillion (translated by David Homel). This scintillating book tells the story of Jazz Libre du Québec, a radical experiment in musical activism that reveals the meaningful role that the art of spontaneity…

Free

Research Partners

International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation IICSI House,
9 University Avenue East,
Guelph, ON,
N1H 1M8
Tel: 519-824-4120 Ext. 53885 | [email protected]

Send mail to:
IICSI House
9 University Avenue East
Guelph, Ontario
N1H 1M8
improv@uoguelph.ca