The Players
The Silence Collective is:
Matt Brubeck
Matt Brubeck is a JUNO award -winning performer/composer specializing in improvisation on the cello. Raised on jazz and classically trained at Yale, Matt is at ease in multiple genres and has taken his cello improvisation skills into diverse musical territories. Matt’s current projects include Stretch Orchestra (with Kevin Breit and Jesse Stewart), Ugly Beauties (with Marilyn Lerner and Nick Fraser), and Brubeck Braid (with David Braid). Matt has collaborated with more artists than he can remember and has had many eclectic musical adventures, including touring and/or recording with Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow, Dixie Chicks, Natalie McMaster, and Yo-Yo Ma. (For more information, visit www.mattbrubeck.com).
Gary Diggins
Gary Diggins has maintained a private practice as an expressive arts therapist for over three decades. He teaches in Fleming College’s Expressive Arts Department and leads interactive workshops in music as medicine. His book, Tuning the Eardrums – Listening as a Mindful Practice draws on a decade of experience working in Africa and inner city schools for Mindfulness Without Borders. Gary plays a wide range of acoustic instrument collected from around the world. His musical collaborations have taken him to India, Africa, Israel, Europe, South Korea, and throughout North America. Gary and his family live in Guelph, Ontario where he is actively involved in Silence, a not-for-profit collaborative devoted to live music and deep listening.
Check out his website.
Daniel Fischlin
Guitarist, multi-instrumentalist Daniel Fischlin is a core member of the Silence Collective, the group of improvisers associated with the independent music venue Silence, and a founding member of the Canadian improvising band the Vertical Squirrels. In those roles he has played with a range of performers including Douglas Ewart, Jesse Stewart, Jane Bunnett, Larry Cramer, Dong-Won Kim, Il-Dong Bae, Jeff Cairns, Jeff Bird, Matt Brubeck, Ben Grossman, and Ken Aldcroft, among others. Fischlin was especially active in the early music scene in Montreal, as a founding member of the acclaimed group Musica Secreta (along with Hank Knox,Valerie Kinslow, Suzie Leblanc, and Betsy MacMillan), and as an occasional player in the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal (SMAM) under Christopher Jackson and Réjean Poirier. During this period he was heard as both a performer and composer on CBC, and was a founding member, with composer Alan Belkin, of the Composer’s Concert Society, devoted to promoting new music by young Canadian composers played by young Canadian musicians. As a classical guitarist he performed world premieres of work by Andrew P. MacDonald and Chan Ka Nin.
Lewis Melville
Lewis Melville is a Guelph, Ontario multi-disciplinary musician and artist. His work has taken him on numerous adventures throughout Canada, South and North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. A veteran of the Canadian alternative music scene, he has performed or recorded with iconic Canadian bands (Skydiggers, Rheostatics, Grievous Angels, Pat Temple and the High Lonesome Players, Cowboy Junkies, Bird Sisters, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Waltons, Kim Stockwood, 13 Engines, Tannis Slimmon, and others), including the multi-million selling album Gordon by Barenaked Ladies. He has maintained a keen interest in progressive music since the early seventies, and is an original member of the Woodchoppers Association, a Toronto-based free-style jazz orchestra, and Guelph’s Vertical Squirrels quartet. Lewis also performs with the Hoofbeats, the Banjo Mechanics, and Guelph singer-songwriter Tannis Slimmon. Lewis has produced numerous recordings in Canada, as well as for artists in Bhutan, West Africa, Germany, Cuba, and refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border. His work with Malian musicians is the subject of a documentary film on the role of music in development (The Road to Baleya, 2008) by Canadian filmmaker Bay Weyman.
Joe Sorbara
Canadian drummer and percussionist Joe Sorbara has spent nearly two decades developing a reputation as an imaginative and dedicated performer, composer, improviser, organizer, and educator throughout the extraordinary creative music communities in and around his home in Toronto. Sorbara is a highly inventive musician who has played and recorded with the AIMToronto Orchestra, Ken Aldcroft, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, and Friendly Rich as well as with his own projects including The Imperative, Other Foot First, Remnants Trio, My Misshapen Ear, Mars People, and the Imaginary Percussion Ensemble. He is equally comfortable playing jazz, free improvised music, indie rock, and chamber music; but is most at home when playing them all at the same time. Sorbara is a long-time student of master drummer Jim Blackley. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music from York University in Toronto and a Master’s degree in English from the University of Guelph where his work focussed on critical improvisation studies, literary and cultural theory, and pedagogy. Joe has worked extensively as a workshop facilitator and guest lecturer and began teaching in the Music Department at the University of Guelph in 2007.
Check out his website.