June 23, 2009
RECENT NEWS
My new CD, Different Stones: Canadian Music for Multiple Flutes, is now available! This album features music for ten flutes by Christopher Kovarik, Jennifer Butler, Gregory Lee Newsome, James Beckwith Maxwell, Marci Rabe, Tudor Feraru and Jordan Nobles. This CD was produced by Redshift Records, with generous assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Different Stones is available through the Canadian Music Centre (and will soon be available on iTunes). You can listen to samples of it here, or on my website, www.markmcgregor.ca . Please give it a listen, and let me know what you think!
Other news: I've recently returned from the Aventa Ensemble 's 2009 Tour of New York City, Munich and Copenhagen. This tour featured new music by Canadian and Scandinavian composers, including Jeffrey Ryan, Paul Frehner, Poul Ruders, and a new work for solo flute, Turmalin, by the Danish composer Anders Nordentoft. This virtuosic, nine movement work received its world premiere (by me) on June 11, 2009, at Scandinavia House in New York City.
BIOGRAPHY
Hello! And welcome to my myspace site. I had originally set this site up so that it was almost identical to my "official" site, but this seemed redundant. I decided to go for a more informal, less stuffy approach, so here goes...
I'm a Canadian flutist, born and raised in Vancouver, B.C. My tuition includes study at the University of British Columbia, as well as an artist diploma from le Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, and a Masters degree from the Sydney Conservatorium, where I studied with, among others, Margaret Crawford -- a veritable Yoda of the flute. I was also fortunate enough to play for two years in the World Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales, through which I got to see a large chunk of the world I wouldn't have otherwise been privy to. I'm presently back in Vancouver, muddling my way through the Doctor of Musical Arts programme at UBC. On a less musical note, I've had a geriatric pet newt named Smokey for over 26 years. I suspect he'll bury us all.
I love all kinds of music, but I confess that I'm absolutely passionate about the music of our time. I think it's thrilling to be able to work with composers, and to create music that's not been heard before. To this end, the past couple years have been really exciting: I've been performing with Aventa, a Victoria-based new music ensemble. This group rocks my world: they're fantastic musicans, lovely people, and they attack some of the most daunting war-horses of the avant-garde with dedication and a great sense of humour. Aventa just recently released its first CD and completed a tour of Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and New York City. Around the same time I began working with Aventa, composer Jordan Nobles and I started up (or actually resuscitated, to be precise) Redshift , a music society dedicated to the promotion of Canadian composers and unusual public music events. Finally, I'm one-half of Tiresias , my duo with pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa -- truly one of the most sensitive and gifted musicians I've ever worked with. In 2007 Tiresias recorded its first CD, "Delicate Fires," an all-Canadian album featuring the music of Barbara Pentland, as well as new commissions by Rodney Sharman, Jennifer Butler and Jocelyn Morlock. This disc can be purchased through the Canadian Music Centre .
