TIKI TIME AND MOZART We opened the inaugural season of the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival (TSMAF) in Summer ’06 with four world premieres! Following its recent preview, Bill Cahn had been able to put the finishing touches on his new work “Night Ride” so it received its official premiere here. The piece was… Read more »
THE ABILITY TO BREATHE TOGETHER We were honoured to have our Drumtalker album nominated for a Juno, the Canadian equivalent of the Brit Awards of Great Britain or the Grammy Awards in the USA. The reviews were in: Payton MacDonald (American Record Guide) said, “Nexus remains one of the great percussion groups in the world…. Read more »
WHEN KRONOS MET NEXUS The Globe & Mail: “Thirty years ago, 2 ensembles were born – one American, one Canadian – as avant-garde music moved its locus of operation from Europe to North American. The Kronos Quartet from San Francisco soon became one of the leading new-music ensembles in the world…At almost exactly the same… Read more »
#NEXUSat50 1984 FOUR MONTH WORLD TOUR: CHINA! In May we embarked on a tour that would take us to 10 countries. This meant putting a great many other things in Life on hold – but what an opportunity! We began in China where we were the first Western percussion group to perform in the People’s… Read more »
#NEXUSat50 1982 PLAYING WITH POETRY We spent 3 days at Toronto’s McClear Place with 78-year-old poet Earle Birney, recording a 3 volume set. Released in LP and audio cassette format, they have never been re-issued as CDs, but 2 of the poems were included in our later “The Best of NEXUS” CD. We had… Read more »
1977: FIRST NEXUS COMMISSION Bob Becker tells us that “The first piece commissioned by NEXUS came from the Canadian composer Bruce Mather in 1977. (We would premiere it in April ’78.) At that time, Bruce’s music was known only vaguely by most of us, but Robin Engelman had become an admirer. He made the commission… Read more »
GUESS WHAT! NEXUS is celebrating its 50th season! To celebrate, over the coming year we’re going to bring you snapshots of each year in our career. We have been posting weekly on our Facebook and Instagram feeds: Fifty years, fifty weeks! Every now and then, we will amalgamate the latest posts and place them here… Read more »
To see a complete listing of performances by NEXUS from 1968 to 2018 – including dates, venues, programs – click on the links below: History of NEXUS 1968-1989 History of NEXUS 1990-1998 History of NEXUS 1999-2018
