Nothing To Say And Saying It: Queer Silence In New Music

The Music Gallery, Canadian Music Centre and the Arquives present

Nothing to Say and Saying It: Queer Silence in New Music

Jerry Pergolesi interviewed by Sara Constant

part of the Music Gallery History Series

Jerry Pergolesi is well known to Music Gallery audiences over the years as the founder of Contact/ContaQt, an ensemble at ground zero of queerness and new music in Toronto since their inception nearly 20 years ago. Beyond making space for queerness in the concert hall, Pergolesi has been tracing queer histories in new music over the decades. This edition of the History Series will see Pergolesi interviewed by journalist and Emergents curator Sara Constant about his research and musical experiences.

This interview will examine trajectories of the gay rights movement within music in Toronto; changing issues of legitimacy, hierarchy, and access within local classical and new music scenes; and recent artists and works that centre queerness and the queering of physical and social spaces—including Darren Creech and Queer Percussion Research Group.

Additionally, Pergolesi will premiere an audio installation commenting on queer life in Toronto. Using audio from the Canadian Lesbian + Gay Archives’ Foolscap project and tapes from the Body Politic, Pergolesi will transform the source material into a collage and chorale of voices that speak their own truth and tell their own stories.