How to inhabit these different temporalities? with Śabdagatitāra

Date: Sunday, April 28, 10 am–5:30 pm
Location: Aga Khan Museum Atrium
Price: This program is free to experience throughout the Atrium. Regular Museum admission applies for gallery entry.

The Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) has joined forces with New Music Concerts (NMC) and the Aga Khan Museum to present a performance installation by internationally renowned composer Sandeep Bhagwati and his ensemble Śabdagatitāra. Dive into a phenomenal musical and visual adventure with an immersive and participatory experience that blurs the lines between space and time, tying music and visual art together through composition and improvisation.

Presented as an improvisational performance installation throughout the Museum's Atrium, ten soloists from various backgrounds and traditions will experiment with music, poetry, and visual art to stimulate your eyes, ears, mind, and heart. Conceived and created by internationally renowned composer Sandeep Bhagwati, this immersive event transcends all temporal, artistic, and cultural limits. This activation forms part of New Music Concert's 2024 Future Resonance Festival, as well as Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ)'s Homage Series (2023/2024).

From 10 am–5:30 pm, performers will spend the day on an archipelago of five musical islands, relaying music back and forth with each performer contributing according to their own temporality, tradition, emotion, rhythm, and score. Meanwhile, performers will weave a captivating musical landscape where you can wander and listen.

Included as part of the installation are twelve postcards, each bearing a different poem and tempo, that visitors are invited to place in front of a chosen performer. The postcard will then be added to the score, and performers will slowly alter the tempo and style of their music in response.

Featuring seven performers from Berlin’s Śabdagatitāra ensemble:

Lucy Zhao | Pipa
Deniza Popova | Bulgarian Voices
Eva Glasmacher | Soprano
Murat Gürel | Turkish Violin
Klaus Janek | Double Bass
Gebrüder Teichmann (Andi & Hannes) | Ready-made instruments

And three soloists from Quebec:

Terri Hron | Recorder and Objects
Reza Abaee | Gheychak
Valentina Plata | Voice

SMCQ's Homage Series to Sandeep Bhagwati

Every two years, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) celebrates a Quebec composer by inviting the national and international musical and cultural community to incorporate the artist's works into its programming throughout an artistic season. This eighth edition honours Sandeep Bhagwati, a multi-faceted composer of international renown. Also a poet, teacher, researcher, media artist, conductor stage director and theatre director, Sandeep Bhagwati transcends all boundaries: musical, artistic, cultural, natural, technological and geographical. His repertoire is vast and diverse ranging from orchestral composition and comprovisation to multimedia concert-installations, music theater, opera, chamber and computer music. He has created and led several trans-traditional ensembles in cities such as Berlin (Extrakte/Śabdagatitāra), Montréal (Sound of Montréal), Toronto (Swara Sutras), Pune (Sangeet Prayog), Oslo (Oslo Musics). His works are performed worldwide at prestigious festivals and venues by leading orchestras and music ensembles. Learn more about SMCQ's Homage Series.

About Śabdagatitāra

Śabdagatitāra is the name of a musical network. This unusual name comes from a new concept introduced into musicological discourse in 2021 by Sandeep Bhagwati. Śabdagatitāra means, in Sanskrit: "the crossing ("tāra") of methods of making ("gati") sound ("śabda")."

Śabdagatitāra refers to a trans-traditional approach to music-making and artistic research that perceives and experiences the musics of the world, regardless of where and in what context they originated, as being deeply and profoundly connected to one another. Their projects seek to explore these cross-connections through artistic musical making. 

About the SMCQ

At the heart of musical creation for nearly 60 years, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) is dedicated to promoting the work of composers. Over the years, it has made its mark on the cultural scene through the quality and scope of its concerts and activities, which stand out for their unifying aspect.

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. NMC is internationally renowned and unique in Toronto as the foremost champion of contemporary works for large chamber ensemble. We are committed to a diversity of rigor and excellence in the programming and performance of adventurous contemporary chamber music from Canada and around the globe. We continually experiment with new modes of presentation, a creative selection of venues, and with its own dynamic online presence. NMC offers its audiences engaging and transformative experiences of New Music Now!

This event is presented by New Music Concerts (NMC) in partnership with the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) and the Aga Khan Museum

The Museum’s Performing Arts programming is generously supported by the Nanji Family Foundation.