About
In co-production with the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.
What if our lives were nothing more than a network of invisible clocks, synchronized by the echoes of emotions, memories, and human connections?
Every human being carries within them an internal clock, a mysterious mechanism that not only measures the passage of time but also reveals the very essence of their life. This clock doesn’t merely count seconds; it beats to the rhythm of our interactions, our choices, and the mysteries that define us. It reflects the fragility of existence and the depth of human connections.
Our lives are shaped by interactions, by moments when our clocks resonate with those of others. But what happens when these rhythms fall out of sync?
Can we truly understand or be understood if our clocks beat at different cadences?
This search for meaning takes on a new dimension here: can we master time, or are we merely its spectators?
WARNING: Strobe lights are used during this performance
About New Music Concerts
New Music Concerts (NMC) is a leader in curating, performing, and promoting innovative and cutting-edge music by Canadian and international composers. Founded in 1971, NMC is an internationally renowned leader and unique in Toronto as the foremost champion of contemporary works for large chamber ensemble, often performing alongside cutting edge technology.
For NMC adventurous music is any music that, when heard at any stage of your listening journey, you learn something new, it ignites a spark, and you become inspired. We believe that the ability to appreciate adventurous music is a skill that can be learned, practiced, and acquired. Achieving this expands listeners’ horizons, unveiling a new world of composers, ensembles, and fresh concepts.
NMC offers its audiences engaging and transformative experiences of New Music Now!
No matter where you come from, if you love adventurous music, you will always have a home at NMC.
About University of Toronto Faculty of Music
Experience a breadth of possibility in music studies. U of T Music fosters artistic and academic excellence in a wide range of musical disciplines. Our offerings encompass music composition, performance, education, musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, music technology and music and health. Our faculty consists of internationally active researchers, educators, composers, and performers who are committed to supporting students in pursuit of their artistic and academic goals. U of T Music draws on the vast holdings of the Music Library and the resources of the University of Toronto, Canada’s largest and top-ranked university and one of the world’s leading universities.
About the Artists
Aiyun Huang:
Aiyun Huang enjoys a musical life as soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer. Globally recognized since winning the 2002 First Prize and Audience Prize of the Geneva International Music Competition. She is a champion of the existing repertoire and a prominent voice in the collaborative creation of new works. Huang has commissioned and premiered over two hundred works in her three decades as a soloist, chamber musician, and producer. The Globe and Mail critic Robert Everett-Green describes Huang’s playing as “engrossing to hear and to watch” and her choice of repertoire as capable of “renovating our habits of listening.” Born in Taiwan, Aiyun holds a DMA degree from the UC San Diego. She currently holds the position of Professor of Music at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto where she heads the percussion area and directs the University of Toronto Percussion Ensemble. She is the director of TaPIR Lab at the University of Toronto and soundSCAPE Festival at the Hindemith Music Centre in Blonay, Switzerland. Aiyun was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024.
Mark Fewer:
In a career that now spans over three decades, violinist Mark Fewer has been an interpreter of music past and present in virtually every genre and setting you will find a violin in. From appearances at famed concert halls such as Carnegie, Wigmore and Salle Pleyel, to venues such as Bartok House (Budapest), the Forum (Taipei) and Le Poisson Rouge (NYC), Fewer has appeared as featured guest soloist with ensembles ranging from the Zapp Quartet of Amsterdam, the Fodens-Richardson Brass Band (UK), the Chieftains, Stevie Wonder and his band, and the major symphonies of Toronto, San Francisco, Melbourne and more.
He has held the positions of Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony, Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University, William Dawson Scholar at McGill University, and Artist-in-Residence at the Glamorgan Festival of Music in Cardiff, Wales. As a chamber musician he was a founding member of the Duke Piano Trio, violinist with the SuperNova and St. Lawrence String Quartets, and was an original member of the ARC Ensemble. He is currently first violinist of the Axelrod String Quartet at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, where the group performs and records exclusively on Stradivari and Amati instruments from the museum’s famed collection.
After 16 years as the founding artistic director of the SweetWater Music Festival, he is now in his seventh season at the helm of Stratford Summer Music. He is an Associate Professor of Violin at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto.