From now until Friday, Sept. 20, the Salt New Music Festival will host a series of concerts that showcase experimental music.
“[Salt is] an exploration of sound ... from various genres that results in a unique, sometimes challenging, but always rewarding adventure,” said Ajtony Csaba, an assistant professor at UVic’s music school, who helped found the festival in 2011.
Despite the adventurous nature of the festival's lineup, it still draws crowd. The first performance saw 220 attendees.
Monday’s performance featured electronic arrangements from Canadian composers.
On Saturday, Sept. 14, five groups of musicians will gather in UVic’s Finnerty Gardens to perform German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1971 composition Sternklang, which was inspired by the constellations. Before the concert, Kim Venn, a professor of physics and astronomy at UVic, will discuss recent scientific discoveries about constellations to pull attendees into the world the composition depicts.
On Monday, Sept. 16, four Canadian composers will perform Tierkreis, another of Stockhausen’s works – 12 pieces that were originally composed for musical boxes.
And to cap off the festival, a workshop on Friday, Sept. 20 will give attendees an inside look at music inspired my Indigenous knowledge.
As for the festival's name, Csaba said it relates to food because, just like cuisine, without experimentation, music would be boring.
“Any good meal needs a little bit of salt,” he said.
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