The Drop and the Turning
Hosted by Rebecca Bruton
The Drop and the Turning is a music podcast exploring the unpredictable magic of change – change we didn’t anticipate, change we shape, change we deeply long for.
We initiated The Drop and the Turning Season 1 (Episodes 1 through 7) as a response to the cessation of live music during the COVID19 Pandemic. The success of Season 1 inspired us to create a second season - we will release one episode of this new season monthly via CJSW Campus and Community Radio, starting in June 2022.
We turn to artists, mainly soundworkers*, who touch and shape change** as a primary, invisible, spellbinding material. How are they noticing and creating small actions and connections in response to crisis? How might tiny reverberations be a part of the complex patterns and systems that become ecosystems and societies? What is most necessary, and what must we pay attention to, now, so that it might grow?
*Musicians, Composers, Sound Artists, Noisemakers, Sonic Dreamers, Acousticians, Witches and Magicians.
**The ideas presented in this podcast owe great debt to the Black Feminist visionary writers Octavia E. Butler and adrienne maree brown, whose intergenerational, collaborative ideas on change and emergence offer critical philosophical groundwork for my approach as a producer and host. I am also deeply inspired by the work of Donna J. Haraway, most notably her books When Species Meet, and Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. For more information please visit www.adriennemareebrown.net and www.oebsociety.wordpress.com/
episodes
Episode 15: Tona Walt Ohama - That Sky That You Have Here
Tona Walt Ohama has lived many lives. Born on a potato farm in Southern Alberta, he has spent the past forty years making passionate, deeply personal music while forging friendly connections with anyone who enters his orbit. Since his debut album, the 1982 cassette release Midnite News, Ohama has become a prolific producer and sound-art composer, as well as a community advocate for Calgary’s most marginalized people.
Episode 14: Lou Sheppard - This is The Place I Love
Mi’kma’ki / Nova Scotia-based interdisciplinary artist Lou Sheppard speaks with NWC Artistic Director Rebecca Bruton about his radical collaborations with rivers, choirs, and more-than-human bodies. We celebrate his complex relationship with the place he calls home.
Episode 13: Caitlind RC Brown & Wayne Garrett - Sometimes All You Need To DO Is Go Outside And Listen
Calgary artists Caitlind RC Brown and Wayne Garrett speak with NWC Artistic Director Rebecca Bruton about their Feb. 26th 2023 event 'Device for Listening to Snow Falling'.
Episode 12: Jonathan Kawchuk - Everything You See Was Once Alive
A conversation between New Works Calgary Artistic Director rebecca bruton and Nelson-based, Alberta-born composer & Jurassic Park enthusiast Jonathan Kawchuk.
Episode 11: Mutual Agency, Machinic Bodies with Xuan Ye 叶轩
A conversation between New Works Calgary Artistic Director rebecca bruton and Toronto-based object-prototype Xuan Ye 叶轩.
Episode 10: just ordinary things - crys cole
a conversation between NWC Artistic Director rebecca bruton and Berlin-based Canadian Sound Artist crys cole
Episode 9: Bongga Bongga - April Aliermo
A one-hour interview with Filipina-Canadian bassist and sound artist April Aliermo (Toronto ON).
Episode 8: feeding the marsh - chik white
A one-hour interview with experimental jaw-harpist, actor, and writer Darcy Spidle, who releases work under the name chik white and is based in West Chezzetcook.
Episode 7: As everything returns to soil - Caroline shaw and vanessa goodman in conversation with rebecca bruton and nicole mion
As we at last return, slowly and with care, to a renewed version of public life, we’re excited to share this rich and eerily timely conversation, in advance of Vanessa and Caroline’s upcoming live performance of Graveyards and Gardens at The Grand - April 15th and 16th, 2022)
Episode 6: seth cardinal dodginghorse – Wild strawberries on the ground
An interview with seth cardinal dodginghorse - an experimental musician, cultural researcher, and multidisciplinary artist working within performance, printmaking, installation, sound and film.
Episode 5: Robyn Jacob – An Estuary; A Border
Robyn Jacob is a pianist, singer, composer and educator who lives and works on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples– Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səlíwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam) Nations.
Episode 4: in concert: Shumaila Hemani and Arts&Crafts (Lydia Pineau with Chris Dadge)
A pre-recorded concert broadcast from cjsw studios on january 5th, 2021.
Episode 3: Kathleen Yearwood – A Perfect Blood Sacrifice
Kathleen Yearwood is a visionary vocalist, electric guitarist, and composer working in the experimental-folk tradition. She is also a writer, watercolour painter and printmaker.
Episode 2: in concert: FOONYAP & Mustafa Rafiq with Ethan Bokma
live in-studio concert, broadcast from cjsw campus and community radio on october 6th, 2020.
Episode 1: Nathaniel Robin Mann – The Responsibility to Transform
Mann’s compositions probe history, politics and audio culture, resisting established formats and frameworks for creating music. Each work is crafted, adapted and nuanced towards its setting, fuelled by continued dialogue and collaboration with professionals and enthusiasts from varied fields.
The Drop and The Turning is produced in partnership with New Works Calgary and CJSW Radio, and made possible with generous support from Calgary Arts Development and the Department of Canadian Heritage.
