August 2025

New music for flute inspired by Canada's wild spaces.

Calling

Dancing With Love artfully showcases a spectrum of 12 unique shades of love, ranging from the earthy and grounded to the divine and transcendent. Each track weaves together a distinct musical style with the poetry of Eastern Mystic Masters, including two inspiring female spiritual leaders. Over the past few years, Dr. Afarin Mansouri has composed an outstanding collection of arias and duets for her various operas while drawing inspiration from these literary poetic works. This album is the result of a successful collaboration between esteemed Iranian-Canadian artists, including Mansouri (compositions and lead vocals), Milad Bagheri (tenor), Padideh AhrarJejad (Tar) and Ali Masoudi (Percussion) with Thin Edge New Music Collective- one of Canada's foremost ensembles, presenting new music. The album has been made possible through the kind support of the Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council, as well as the production work of Cultureland.

Dancing With Love (Danser avec amour) présente avec brio un spectre de 12 nuances uniques d’amour, allant de l’amour enraciné et terrestre à l’amour divin et transcendant. Chaque piste tisse un style musical distinct tiré de la poésie des maîtres mystiques orientaux, y compris celle de deux incroyables femmes chefs spirituelles. Au cours des dernières années, la Dre Afarin Mansouri a composé une collection d’arias et de duos tirés de divers opéras. Cet album est le résultat d’une collaboration fructueuse entre d’éminents artistes irano-canadiens, dont Afarin Mansouri (compositrice et chanteuse), Milad Bagheri (ténor), Thin Edge New Music Collective et bien d’autres. L’album a été rendu possible grâce à l’aimable soutien du Conseil des arts de l’Ontario et du Conseil des arts de Toronto, ainsi qu’au travail de production de Cultureland.

11 Alchemy M03

10 Severance M03

This two hours of relaxing music was mixed by Jaycee Gelderbloom

Ce deux heures de musique de détente sont mixées par Jaycee Gelderbloom

Méditation Nouvel Âge / DJ Jaycee Gelderbloom / New Age meditation

Caprice for solo cello performed by Bryan Holt

Caprice for unaccompanied solo cello

A Stack of Human Dilemmas for violin and cello by Coreen Morsink with art by Judith Morsink
I) contemporaneous dilemmas web myriad
II) holding the weight of the world
III) mound
Performed by Saba Yousefi, violin and Dobrochna Zubek, cello
May 25, 2025 at the David De Simone Performance Hall, Aurora, Canada as part of the Women. Art, Resilience. Concert Series 

Photo: Mound by Judith Morsink (photo credit to Judith Morsink) 



A Stack of Human Dilemmas by Coreen Morsink Iive performance by Saba Yousefi violin and Dobrochna Zubek cello

Her Shore - Linda Catlin Smith

This piece was performed at the Laurier New Music Festival on January 30th, 2016 by the Penderecki String Quartet. 

The Honey Badger

Performed by the University of Toronto Wind Ensemble in MacMillan Theatre at the University of Toronto, March 2016.

“amok as a syndrome” is very tangibly related to Romitelli’s 1991 piece “amok koma” – its opening is almost identical. However, seeing as the original piece is scored for a small chamber ensemble with electronics, this piece exists in a very different sonic landscape, sharing signs (symptoms) with the original that correlate to a shared musical influence (condition). Romitelli’s piece shared a name with a 1980s punk album, so it only makes sense that my title would also integrate the name of the original. Interestingly, “to run amok” is a common expression that actually refers to behaviour that has been classified as a “culture-specific explosive behavioral disorder” related to psychopathic violence. 

Musically, the piece alternates between grungy, chaotic sections and more subdued, lyrical moments. The opening figure produces the majority of the material, especially the intervallic content, with minor thirds and seconds playing a major role.  Ultimately, “amok as a syndrome” is an homage, but not one of the sentimental variety – it’s a grateful thank you to the current musical landscape and composers like Romitelli, where dozens of wild influences coalesce into a singular output…a condition whose manifestation is strongly shaped by cultural factors…

amok (wind ensemble)

"A term first hypothesized by experimental psychologist Endel Tulving, Chronesthesia is a fancy term for the concept of ‘mental time travel’ – the ability to be constantly aware of both the past and the future. It seemed appropriate as several of the ideas that went into this piece – mainly those pertaining to overall form as well as to specific pitch selection - were ones that had been kicking around in my head for sometime, but for whatever reason, had not been deployed in practice. Furthermore, these ideas themselves reflect a certain ‘why not’ or ‘because I can’ attitude – both of which are attitudes we would often associate with children, or childish behavior. "

The piece was written for the Caution Tape Sound Collective, and premiered in March of 2016. 

Performers: 

Amahl Arulanandam, cello
Branko Džinović, accordion
Wesley Shen, Piano

Chronesthesia

Chamber piece written for Ensemble Atlantica.

Wind (Live Moncton Recording)

Commissioned in part to acknowledge Canada 150, the country's sesquicentennial; however, being from Newfoundland where a strong regional identity prevails, I found it challenging to ruminate on Canada's confederation, especially when Newfoundland had joined less than 70 years ago (and with considerable consternation.) 

Instead, I took this opportunity to write a piece that reflected my own regional heritage, one that has become stronger since moving away. I engaged with this by creating a type of setting of a Newfoundland folk song, one of our most famous: "She's Like the Swallow." However, the song is fragmented and distorted as though with distance - it's the ghost of a song, only becoming clear at the very end.

"swallow/breathe" was produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.

Premiered (in full) May 5, 2017, at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Tartini," Trieste, Italy.

Snezana Acimovic....Violin I
Işınsu Ermiş..............Violin II
Liubov Zuraeva.........Viola
Sercin Yatkın.............Cello

swallow/breathe (string quartet)

Performed by...
Jonathan Russell MacArthur, tenor
Evan Bowen, percussion

Recorded and mastered by Paul Talbott at Revolution Studios, December 2017.

"scherzo"
if you want to offer some advice
on:
how to work harder
how to work smarter
better, faster, stronger
how to put your phone down and look UP
how to buy instead of rent because you're throwing your money away that way
how to invest in more education to achieve your goals (fucking debt!)
how to propose when you are still young but secure enough to provide financial stability
how to keep up with your peers / how to get ahead of your peers
how to get to that next milestone as fast as you can -
how to fix it up / how to fix it all 

I have some tips
On:
how to smile and nod
how to adapt

                    (how to feel a deep sadness for just how different our worlds are)

how to ignore advice
Text by Monica Pearce
June, 2017
Reprinted with permission of the poet.

How To... (tenor and percussion); text by Monica Pearce

Performed Oct 10, 2019 by the University of Toronto Wind Ensemble.
Gillian MacKay, conductor
Jonny Smith, soloist

Concerto for Percussion and Wind Orchestra, I: Awakening

Mouth Dreams

composer / creator / pianist / noise maker

Association of Canadian Women Composers

The ACWC is a professional organization for Canadian women composers, their supporters, and the performers of their music.

Concerto for Percussion and Wind Orchestra, I: Awakening

stephanieorlando

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