Opera Singer's Newest Experimental Project Explores Filipina Roots, March 13

NO HAY BANDA has announced its upcoming concert featuring the Canadian debut of Los Angeles-based artist White Boy Scream, alongside opening act Montreal's Wapiti duo in collaboration with Vancouver-based composer-performer Mauricio Pauly, on Monday, March 13 at La Sala Rossa.

NO HAY BANDA Artistic Director Noam Bierstone is eager to introduce White Boy Scream to local audiences, and has also teamed up with Toronto's Women From Space Festival to present the artist there as well. "White Boy Scream is one of the most unique and captivating artists working in the field of new/experimental music today. Her work is haunting, soul-wrenching, and incredibly powerful," said Bierstone. "This show exemplifies our joint role as presenter and performing collective, showcasing artists that we care deeply about alongside our own collaborative projects."

White Boy Scream is the experimental classical project from opera singer and composer Micaela Tobin. She will be performing a live version of her latest release, BAKUNAWA, which pays homage to the pre-colonial mythology of her motherland, the Philippines. A first-generation Filipina-American, Tobin dissects her operatically trained voice, stretching and manipulating it through the use of electronics. Exploring her diasporic identity and ancestral trauma, she incorporates ritualized gesture and symbolism. Part sonic ceremony, part storytelling, BAKUNAWA oscillates between extreme textures of noise, drone, and operatic sound walls. Of the album, Steve Smith of The New Yorker asserts, "opera would do well to pay attention." The Wire magazine ranked the album #9 in their Top Releases of 2020.

Tobin is currently working on the sequel to BAKUNAWA, an experimental drone-opera, APOLAKI: Opera of the Scorched Earth, set to premiere July 2023 through the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Tobin teaches voice and electronics on faculty at the California Institute for the Arts and through her private studio, HOWL SPACE.

Opening the concert, Wapiti (Geneviève Liboiron & Daniel Áñez of NO HAY BANDA) joins forces with long-time NO HAY BANDA collaborator Mauricio Pauly to venture into the realm of electronic chamber music with a unique instrumentation: amplified violin, ondes Martenot, samplers, synth modules, and live processing. The trio's debut EP, A Blooming Routine, is the result of an extended stay in Vancouver in the summer of 2022, and will be performed live for the first time at this show.

Geneviève Liboiron (Canada) and Daniel Áñez (Colombia/Canada) formed Wapiti in 2012 as a violin & keyboard/synthesizer duo dedicated to experimental and contemporary music of the Americas. They have since performed in Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, and have held residencies in Mexico City and Bogotá where they premiered over thirty new works.

Mauricio Pauly (Costa Rica/Canada) is a composer, improviser and producer of hybrid instrumental/electronic/amplified music. As an active cross-disciplinary collaborator, his work includes numerous projects with ensembles, writers, designers, programmers and theatre-makers. Upcoming projects include the debut album release and Canadian tour of his duo with pianist Eve Egoyan. Pauly is Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts in Vancouver. NO HAY BANDA recently commissioned and premiered his work The Difference is the Buildings Between Us, and released it on their critically acclaimed debut album I had a dream about this place.

NO HAY BANDA promotes music born of a generation that sees no barriers between musical genres, theatre, performative arts, and contemporary culture. Productions are designed to broaden and challenge the musical experience of the audience, showcasing the work of the intergenerational avant-garde that takes its roots in pop/rock, DIY culture, and post-war experimentation.

NO HAY BANDA presents: White Boy Scream + Wapiti & Mauricio Pauly

Monday, March 13 - Doors 19:30 / Show 20:00

La Sala Rossa, 4848 boul. Saint-Laurent

Tickets ($15-$20): thepointofsale.com/tickets/czz230313001, 514-284-0122

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