Alumnus brought experimental music experience to Hart House as part of Toronto Biennial of Art

This fall, Hart House hosted Six Turntables as part of the prestigious Toronto Biennial of Art. Artist, musician/composer, dramaturge and U of T alumnus Christopher Willes, who led the workshop and culminating performance, discusses the value of listening and collaboration in experimental music and beyond.

Hart House encourages students to explore who they are and who they aspire to be through the arts. This fall, the House played host to an incomparable experience for both audience members and participants: the Six Turntables Workshop and Performance.  

During the three-day workshop, facilitated by the Hart House Student Music Committee, student participants used turntables, amplifiers and custom-made vinyl records to develop techniques for transforming fragments of archived music into new sonic compositions. In a November 7 performance, they reconstructed scores and soundscapes devised through the highly inventive process.

This was the brainchild of artist, musician/composer, dramaturge and Faculty of Music alumnus Christopher Willes (BMus 2008), whose work has been shown across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Japan. He sat down to chat about what promised to be an unforgettable experience.

Concept evolved from ‘listening sessions’

The ideas behind this endeavour began percolating in 2018. The Toronto Public Library had an artist-in-residence program in which Christopher participated. “I was interested because there’s a rare vinyl records collection at the Toronto Reference Library. I thought it would be interesting to borrow some objects from this archive to be used in the residency program.”

At the time, he was working in Scarborough, organizing performances and workshops for members of the public who use the library. In this context, he first devised what he called ‘listening sessions,’ using materials from the archive. “We created a space where you could come, listen to records and talk about them with me and guest artists.”

Christopher homed in on recordings of experimental music from the 1970s in Canada. “Some of these musicians are still around – I know a few. So, we would bring them in and to talk about their music.”

He was particularly interested in working with young people, recognizing that some of them might not have ever listened to a vinyl record and some may not know what experimental music could be. “I wanted to see what they thought was interesting and avant-garde.”

So, he created a workshop where young people could play with those materials from the archives. “We took excerpts from the collection and created cheaply made plastic records that participants could manipulate. We brought multiple turntables and began remixing the sounds that we found in the collection.”

Christopher asked his friend and fellow artist Akash Bansal to help him conceptualize the project. This rewarding collaboration continues to this day.

How did the workshop come to Hart House?

The Toronto Biennial of Art approached Christopher to recreate his workshop at Hart House. “Everyone on the Hart House team has been really great, super supportive,” he says. This initiative was also supported by Public Recordings, the Canadian Music Centre, Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council – Artists in the Library Program (2017-2023).

Christopher is no stranger to Hart House. When he was an undergrad in the Faculty of Music, in the early-to-mid 2000s, he would play concerts in The Arbor Room.

“It was very cool getting out of the faculty and showing up in another space to play a concert … learning what it means to be a musician, so to speak. I have a lot of nice memories of Hart House,” he says, adding, “It’s personally touching to have done this project in that building. I was excited to offer this project back to that space in which I had a lot of formative experiences as a young artist and musician.”

Workshop creates experimental soundscapes

The workshop had two main components: The first part was about creating a welcoming space. This involved movement-based practices intended to create awareness of space. 

In the second half, the group worked with vinyl records and six turntables. They used techniques of audio mixing, like layering and blending sound, to build experimental soundscapes.  

November 7 performance: Collective exploratory DJing

A two-hour performance on November 7 was the culmination of the workshop.

Christopher described this in detail: “There were chairs where audience members could watch the workshop participants, myself and Akash practising sound-making scores that we've invented in the workshop. This involved six turntables playing six different recordings at the same time. It’s exploratory DJing as a group, you could say, mixing the sounds together to create a new sonic composition.”

Also, since the speakers could be moved around the room, audience members experienced the performance from different angles. “Visitors found their way through this evolving sound environment ... It’s a way of making process visible. We invited the public to think about the layered process of creation and the history of experimental music.”

Clearly, audience participation is a huge part of Christopher’s work. “I'm interested in how the structure of artistic events can invite the agency of the audience or participant and how that infuses meaning,” he says adding, “These are scenarios where you can decide how to participate; there are multiple ways to engage.”

Obsessed with ways of listening

At the core of it, Christopher is passionately interested in the overlap between forms of collaborative artistic creation and forms of research, practice-based research and learning ‒ pedagogical methods and research methods. “I'm obsessed with different kinds of gatherings where people can listen and how we listen.”

Interestingly, Christopher’s focus on listening transcends academic disciplines. He is currently studying conflict mediation at the University of Waterloo. Here, he delves into how different forms of listening can alter how we see the world.

Take-away message is collaboration

The key thing Christopher wanted audience members and workshop participants to take away is an interest in collaborative forms of working. “Yes, we’re experimenting with sound and experimental music, but what are we really exploring? New and different ways of collaborating.

“My hope was that participants get excited about how they could develop or refine their own ability to listen to other people, listen to their environment and therein imagine new ways of working with people.”

Originally published by Hart House