Rachel Catherine Elliott

From 2014 to 2019 I produced and hosted a podcast about improvised music as a means of developing new forms of sociality. It was called Sound It Out and it can be heard here. Below are some of the interviews that I conducted as part of the podcast.

The Aesthetics of Transparency: Improvising in Toronto’s City Council Chambers

In the middle of February, Toronto-based artist collective Public Recordings staged a performance of Pauline Oliveros‘ score To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation at Toronto’s City Hall, in the Council Chambers. In this episode, we inquire into how artistic collaboration can illuminate what it means to act together in new formations of community.

The Paradox of Silence on the Po River Delta

‘In music, silence is more important than sound,’ says Miles Davis. In April 2018, a multi-disciplinary gathering of musicians, dancers, philosophers, and designers convened in Italy’s Po River Delta to listen to the river in preparation for a performance at the UNESCO International Jazz Day in Padova.

Summer Symphony, St. John’s Newfoundland

This special hour travels through the Sound Symposium in St. John’s Newfoundland with the members of the Summer Institute of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. The theme for this episode is overcoming aversion to discomfort through group improvising. The Summer Institute brought together scholars and practitioners of all descriptions, not everyone skilled in every variety of improvisation. We pushed our boundaries and came face to face with the normative limits of much performance styles.