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Kara-Lis Coverdale
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Kara-Lis Coverdale (Montreal) is a composer and musician who creates immersive and layered compositions within unique sonic landscapes that challenge conventional perceptions of organ music. She will perform new work that will be presented on the Pacific Spirit United Church’s magnificent Casavant Frères pipe organ, the largest of its kind in Vancouver. With an opening set by Immix, a new solo project by Robyn Jacob (Vancouver) featuring sonic experimentations with natural and synthesized voice through vocal harmonizer, MIDI keyboard and pipe organ.
Driven by a patient devotion to sonic afterlife, memory, and material curiosity, Kara-Lis Coverdale’s dynamic work occupies new planes built upon a borderless understanding of electronic music with roots in several interlocking musical systems and languages. Her album Grafts is a set of three pieces in long form that highlight the composer’s distinct approach to digital-based ratio tuning. Previous releases are Aftertouches, a series of narrative-rich experimental miniatures that focus on the composer’s distinct penchant for holographic timbres (named a top album of the year by The Wire and NPR) and A 480, a set of studies accompanied by .nfo scores sourced entirely from the data rendered voice to explore the sonic impermanence of identity signatures. Coverdale has worked with David Sutton (LXV) on their collaborative album Sirens and Tim Hecker (Love Streams, Virgins, Konoyo). She has also written music with the artist and writer Kara Crabb on several projects, including the writing of the score for Royal Jelly and The Reproductive Life Cycle of a Flower.
Immix’s songs ricochet within the bounds of limited tools to expand the possibilities of natural and synthesized voice. Balanced with intricate sound design made in collaboration with Nancy Tam, Immix’s sound world embraces the magnetism of bodies, the emotions of late-capitalist hearts, and the dreams of ghosts and angels. Accompanying her original songs are collaged videos made by the artist. Compositionally, the project finds varieties of textures using a basic vocal harmonizer, creating a dynamic instrument out of the software, a midi keyboard, and her voice. For this performance, Robyn will expand her exploration of the synthesized voice to include the 74 stop Casavant Frères organ.
Kara-Lis was born in Burlington, Canada, and began studying piano with the Royal Conservatory of Music from age 5. Her grandparents from her mother's side were immigrants from Estonia, and her father's side were Quarter Horse breeders. Kara-Lis has held positions as organist and music director at several churches across Canada since age 13, where she has also served as choir conductor. She later went on to complete with degrees in musicology and composition, for which she wrote a Masters thesis on the construction of timbral realism in mediated and recorded musics. She studied composition and media with David Myska, Omar Daniel, and Jay Hodgson, and piano with Ken Gee and Gwen Beamish. She is recipient of a “promising young artist” award by Canadian new music composer Ann Southam, has held residencies with GRM Paris, EMS Stockholm, FUGA Zaragoza and others, and presents original performances, commissions, collaborations, talks, and installations all over the world including The Barbican, Theatre du Chatelet, AGO, MAC Montreal, Teatro Circo, Kraftwerk, and Elbphilharmonie. She currently resides in Montreal.
Robyn Jacob is a composer, performer and educator living on the unceded Musqueum, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish territories. In her composition practice she has worked with Grammy winning Third Coast Percussion, So Percussion, Chor Leoni, and others. Crafting emotive narratives using the voice and electronics, Immix is Robyn Jacob's burgeoning solo project. Using voice and harmonizer, her songs dance between the vulnerability of the human instrument and the possibility of sonic experimentation.
