music — BLOG — Megan A. Johnson

Really happy to have started the year off performing in an intimate house concert in Parkdale, Toronto. The performance was the first in the new COMPOSITIONS series that I am helping to produce through Sesquisharp Productions. Curated by Shalon T. Webber-Heffernan, this series of micro-performances explores a whole host of performative and musical work and plays with issues of scale.

COMPOSITIONS #1 featured myself, pianist Jon McSpadden, and performance art duo xLQ. We also screened short films by Brian Johnson and Valerie Calam and Paul Shepherd. Despite the frigid temperatures (temperatures in Toronto dropped to a low of -20 degrees celsius!) , we had a great crowd brave the weather to join us. Despite the business of doing a PhD, I am always reminded how rewarding performing can be—sharing some wild contemporary music with people on a cold, snowy night does the soul good!

My work as a producer and performer is picking up again, as my company Sesquisharp Productions (which I co-founded in 2012 with Jacob Caines) has emerged out of hiatus. Jacob and I had hit 'pause' on things for a few years as we were living in different cities and focused on different projects. But now, despite still being separated by a few hundred kilometres, we're relaunching Sesquisharp with renewed enthusiasm.

Based across Halifax and Toronto, Sesquisharp is an arts collective that is rethinking the concert experience--programming classical and contemporary music in innovative ways and with interdisciplinary collaborations.

We just performed an amazing sold-out run of Let Evening Come the MacPhee Centre in Halifax; a show all about experiences of night, darkness, and catharsis. It was truly a joy to develop this show with a group of amazingly talented performers and creators and I can't wait to announce the other exciting projects we have lined up!

Head over to www.sesquisharp.com for more info, or check out some of the photos from the show below (all photo credits to MJ Photographics)