Allison Cameron & Ben Grossman (Ontario)
Allison Cameron is based in Toronto and best known for her wonderful and prolific composing, which dates back to the mid-1980s and for which she has been commissioned by ensembles and festivals throughout North America and Europe. However, improvisation has also been at the core of her practice for almost twenty years, where she applies an uncommon instrumentation filtered through a radical imagination: Electronic keyboards, ukulele, banjo, piano, mini amplifiers, radios, crackle boxes, cassette tapes, miscellaneous objects and toys all play a role in her subtle and mysterious sound world. Allison is paired with Guelph’s own Ben Grossman, one of the world’s finest exponents of the hurdy gurdy (vielle-à-roue) in a creative music (or indeed any musical) context, and an accomplished percussionist and electronic musician in and across many styles. Cameron and Grossman are masters of understatement, of nuanced timbres, and of deep rapport through improvised form-making. Their intimate duo concert will be an apt finale for this year’s festival.
Sunday, 16 September, 8pm, Silence, $15/$10