Newfound Music Festival XXII
Newfound Music Festival XXII
Guest artists Keith Hamel and Megumi Masaki
January 30-31, 2025
Newfound Music Festival, now in its 22nd year, is an annual festival that invites students, alumni, and faculty to share their "Newfound ideas" with the School of Music community. Join us for workshops, a symposium, special guests, concerts, and a final gala performance. This year's guest artists will be Keith Hamel and Megumi Masaki. Read more about them below.
Newfound Music Festival XXII Schedule
Symposium
Thursday, January 30, 12pm-4pm
Suncor Energy Hall
FREE and open to the public!
Hear presentations and performances from School of Music faculty, students, and alumni. View the 2025 Symposium program here.
Newfound XXII Gala
Thursday, January 30, 7:30pm
D.F. Cook Recital Hall
Join us for the Newfound Music Festival gala performance featuring School of Music faculty, students, and alumni. The list of gala performers include Liam Kovich, Zaynab Wilson, Olive MacPhail, Genevieve Walsh, Duo Concertante, Bruce Smith, Elizabeth Johnson, Mado Christie, Vitalii Irkha, Dylan Maddix, Alan Klaus, Serhii Tsymbal, Liza Konstantinova, Julia Perry, Emily Pynn, Elena Vigna Sanchez, Natalie Finn, Rosaura Aguilar, Nulibeth Ortiz de Domínguez, Noel Gutierrez, and Nick Leblanc.
Pre-Concert Pizza Party
Friday, January 31, 6:30pm
D.F. Cook Lobby
For MUN students only (valid student ID required)
Mainstage Concert with special guests Keith Hamel and Megumi Masaki
Friday, January 31, 7:30pm
D.F. Cook Recital Hall
Join us for an exciting program entitled HEARING ICE featuring our special guest artists Megumi Masaki and Keith Hamel.
Megumi Masaki’s HEARING ICE project seeks to mobilize positive social and environmental change through the sharing of personal stories, scientific facts, and interactive artistic works. We aim to raise awareness of climate change on ice and amplify voices of impacted communities through the research, development and creation of new substantial piano+multimedia narrative works. This process has many layers, uncovering personal stories, scientific facts and the synergy that translates into sonic and visual results.
While each work brings together different artists, scientists, and communities to explore distinctive perspectives of climate crisis, dynamic interactions throughout centres a common environment where all voices have equal weight.
HEARING ICE connects us with our environment and provides hope in a time of crisis.
Newfound Post-Concert Party
Friday, January 31, 9:30pm
Bannerman Brewing Co (Upstairs)
FREE! All are welcome.
About the Newfound Music Festival XXII guest artists
Keith Hamel
Keith Hamel is both a composer and computer music specialist. He writes acoustic and electroacoustic music, and has been awarded many prizes in both media. Many of his recent compositions focus on the interaction between live performers and computer-controlled electronics. Keith has been commissioned by many national and international ensembles and organizations, and his works have been performed in Canada, the U.S., Asia and Europe. As an active computer music researcher, Keith is the author of the NoteAbilityPro music notation software used for music engraving and publishing. He is an associate researcher at the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC) and at the Institute for Computing, Information & Cognitive Systems (ICICS).
Megumi Masaki
Megumi Masaki is a pianist, multimedia artist, educator, conductor and curator. For over forty years, she has established an international reputation as a leading interpreter of Canadian and new music, and as an innovator that reimagines the pianist, piano and performance space. Her work explores new models of interaction and integration of sound, image, text and movement in multimedia works through new technologies, including hand-gesture-motion tracking to generate and control live-electronics and live-video, 3D visuals, piano controlled video game, e-textile sensors and artificial intelligence. This expands the possibilities of human expression and its capacity to shape our sense of identity, and strengthen our sense of belonging and understanding of the wider world. As a Japanese Canadian artist, her work is also connected deeply to building community, acting on Truth and Reconciliation calls to action, and how human rights and environmental issues can be communicated through music and multimedia performances to create narratives that speak truth to power.
Her collaborations with composers, visual artists, writers and choreographers have resulted in the creation of 82 original works and she has premiered over 180 works worldwide. She has released three documentary films and fifteen CD, DVD, LP and digital recordings that include solo piano, chamber music, electroacoustic and multimedia works. Her album and documentary film TRANSFORMATION with T. Patrick Carrabré, Keith Hamel, Bob Pritchard under the Centrediscs label was released on March 3, 2023. For both TRANSFORMATION and MUSIC4EYES+EARS albums, Megumi was nominated as Classical Artist of the Year (WCMA) and T. Patrick Carrabré and Keith Hamel for Classical Composer of the Year (WCMA). Megumi’s latest album HEARING ICE will be released in 2025.
Megumi is featured at major festivals and venues across Canada, as well as Japan, China, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea, Mexico, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, USA and the UK. She is a Full Professor at Brandon University and director of the New Music Ensemble and New Music Festival. A highly regarded teacher, Megumi is regularly invited to give lectures and masterclasses, to such international institutions as the Royal Academy, Oxford University, University of York, Trinity Laban, Shanghai Conservatory, Beijing China Conservatory, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, as well as to universities across the USA and Canada. She is also on faculty at Chetham's International Piano Summer School in Manchester UK, Musiktage am Rhein Germany, and the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival in Italy, where she also curates the CIME contemporary music concert series.
Committed to an inclusive Canadian music community and to centre people from equity-seeking groups, Megumi is an invited member of the National Witness Structural Change Group convened by Stó:lō scholar Dylan Robinson, and is an elected member on the boards of the CMC Prairie Region, Canadian Music Centre (CMC) National as a director-at-large and Advocacy for Change Council.
In recognition of the significant impacts of her achievements, Megumi was appointed as a Member of the Order of Manitoba and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.