Research

Ellen Waterman: Learning New Ways to Listen, and Listening for New Ways to Learn

Dr. Ellen Waterman is a full professor and Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada at Carleton University. She is a music scholar and improvisor who has done, and continues to do, a variety of interesting work focused on Canadian music. She has a long list of career accomplishments, including her role as Dean of Memorial University’s School of Music, her work in the field of Critical Improvisation Studies, and her work with the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) project, a digital instrument which uses the camera on an iOS device or on a computer to track movement and translate it into sound.

Through the READi program, I had the opportunity to interview Professor Waterman about her ideas and her work related to Deep Listening and music accessibility. Click here for a link to the blogpost describing this interview.

Kessler recently graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, with an MA in Music and Culture. His thesis focused on the relationship between the concept of music notation, digital audio workstations, and musical creativity. This research-creation thesis work is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program. Kessler is also a graduate of the Research and Accessibility in Education, Design, and Innovation (READi) program and a is a research assistant with the Jazz Theory Bibliography Project. He holds a BMus in Jazz and Contemporary Popular Music (Double-bass performance) from MacEwan University in Edmonton. Kessler’s research interests include improvisation studies, digital music, extrasonic musical communication, arts accessibility, and philosophy of music.

International Artist Habitat (IAH)

Kessler works as a participant-observer/musicologist on the International Artist Habitat project, documenting cultural interchange and emerging digital music practices. He is working towards presenting and publishing findings of the ongoing pilot of the project, based in Benalto, Alberta and Gudalajara, Mexico

A New Language: Composing for Expressive and Free Improvisation