Haitham Haidar: Zaytoun
Featured UBC Alumni: Zaytoun by UBC Music alum Haitham Haidar (BMus‘13) Release: August 2025 on Athene Description: Tenor Haitham Haidars debut solo album Zaytoun (meaning Olive in Arabic) is a captivating collection of beautiful Baroque and Arabic songs, interlaced with poetry and musical improvisations, an exploration of the intersection between Baroque and Arabic music. Whether […]
Beethoven, Medtner & Schumann: Piano Works
Featured UBC Alumni: Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, piano (MMus ’23) Label: Steinway & Sons Description: Steinway & Sons is proud to present an album by one of Canada’s most exciting young talents, pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko. Winner of the 2022 Hilton Head International Piano Competition and the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition, Izik-Dzurko’s playing has been praised for its exemplary precision […]
Entangled Histories: Opera and Cultural Exchange Between Vienna and the Italian States After Napoleon by Claudio Vellutini
The role of opera in the patterns of cultural exchange across the Austrian Empire in the decades following the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
French Reflections, vol. II: Vienna to Paris (2024)
Featured UBC Faculty Artist: Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet Label: Music@Menlo LIVE Featured Tracks: 8,9,10- L’heure du berger for Winds and Piano, op. 20 by Jean Françaix Recording details: Vienna and Paris have long been cultural powerhouses across art forms. Haydn, the founder of the Classical style, and Mozart, who refined and augmented it, are represented in this volume by […]
Understories
Ensemble: Dálava Featured UBC Students and Alumni: Julia Úlehla (PhD ’21) and Aram Bajakian (PhD Candidate) Recording details: Pi Recordings, April 25th, 2025 Dálava, the genre-defying ensemble led by vocalist Julia Úlehla with guitarist Aram Bajakian (Lou Reed, John Zorn, Diana Krall), returns with Understories, a deeply evocative new album that explores uncharted territories of […]
Mourning for the Death of a Political System: Cantonese Opera and Cantopop in 香 • 夭 Requiem HK (2017)
Author: Hedy Law Publication details: In East Asian Voices of Resistance Against Racism in Music, edited by Maiko Kawabata and Ken Ueno, 138–149. Cambridge: Ethics Press, 2025. Weblink: ethicspress.com/products/east-asian-voices-of-resistance-against-racism-in-music Abstract: The negative racialization of East Asian musicians in Western classical music manifests through tropes of othering such as “Yellow Peril,” Orientalism, and various harmful stereotypes. This volume centers […]
Acoustic Alloy
Ensemble: Vancouver Brass Collective Featured UBC Alumni: Jaelem Bhate (conductor, artistic director, and featured composer), Matheus Moraes (trumpet), Albert Wu (horn), Emily Daily (horn), Maddie Davis (horn), Tyrell Loster (horn), Alan Li (tuba), Jacob Kryger (percussion), Kaiya Gazley (percussion), Chris Baldwin (trumpet), Duane Kirkpatrick (horn), Albert Wu (horn), Marina Antoniou (trombone), Kevin Jackson (trombone), Nick Francis […]
The Influence of Dissonance on Listeners’ Perceived Emotions in Rhythmically Complex Musical Excerpts Copy
Author: Poudrier, Ève & Daniel Shanahan Publication details: Journal of New Music Research, Volume 52, Issue 5 Weblink: doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2025.2453697 Abstract: Although a great deal of research has delved into the perception of rhythm and metre, relatively few studies have focused on how listeners perceive and aesthetically evaluate complex musical rhythms. Here, we ask what it […]
Inventions
Composer/Performer: Jack Campbell, violin (alumni, BMus ’24) and Hank Bull, piano Recording details: Engineer: Kris Fearon; Recorded At: Hipposonic Studios, Vancouver, CA Notes: Jack and Hank’s philosophy as a musical duo can be summed up in a comment by Hank: “we never perform, we only rehearse.” Jack is a classically trained violinist, but it is […]
Space fantasy: Nagaoka Shusei’s contributions to Afrofuturist visual culture
Author: Nathan Hesselink Publication details: Hesselink, Nathan. 2024. “ Space Fantasy: Nagaoka Shusei’s Contributions to Afrofuturist Visual Culture.” The Journal of American Culture 00(0): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13598.