Book Description

McGill University's Faculty of Music - now the Schulich School - has been a centre of new music in Canada for decades, helping to shape contemporary composition, electro-acoustic research, performance, and sound recording. Compositional Crossroads focuses on McGill's location in a culturally dynamic city and shows how the interplay between place, community, identity, and memory and individuals, faculty, and students created institutional pathways that have lead to an explosion of new music activity. Visionary deans, composers, musicologists, and students associated with the Faculty of Music between 1970-2004 offer insights into the early contributions of Istvan Anhalt, the birth of the Electronic Music Studio and McGill Records, the importance of visiting composer-teachers, opportunities for composer/performer collaborations, the development of performing spaces and ensembles, and new ways of considering sonic creativity. Several essays are devoted to major composers who taught at the school, including Bengt Hambraeus, alcides lanza, Brian Cherney, Bruce Mather, John Rea, and Denys Bouliane. Contributors include Robin Elliott (Toronto), alcides lanza (emeritus, McGill), John Rea (McGill), Paul Pedersen (emeritus, Toronto), James Harley (Guelph), Laurie Radford (City University, London), Bruce Mather (McGill), Pamela Jones (author, Montreal), Neil Middleton (Montreal), Steven Huebner (McGill), Jérôme Blais (Dalhousie), and Patrick Levesque (Université de Montreal).