Matt Rogalsky

Composer, Sound Artist and Musicologist from Kingston Ontario

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Matt Rogalsky

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Bio (from website)

As a settler-identifying Canadian, I live in Kingston Ontario Canada, also known as Katarokwi, on territories of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee which were stolen by earlier generations of settlers. I am grateful to have received a lot of insight and understanding from Indigenous friends and colleagues, into principles of ethical living and making, and I am doing my work in light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report and action items.

My background is quite international so I often have trouble saying where I am from. Born in Umuahia, Nigeria in 1966 at the cusp of the Biafran War, I was taken back to Canada where Ottawa was home base, but then moved to peninsular Malaysia as a 5 year old. Returning again to Canada, I had Southern Ontario and Manitoba summers and winters, and then moved with my family to Nairobi Kenya, as a teenager. Returning to Canada we relocated to the Vancouver area. Since then I have lived in the USA and England for extended periods, but the last 20 years I have been based in Kingston/Katarokwi with my partner of 37 years, raising a son who was born in England and is now in his twenties and making great music of his own.

My academic background includes undergraduate studies in experimental music at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver with Martin Bartlett, Barry Truax, Pauline Oliveros and George E Lewis from 1985-1991; MA studies 1993-95 in the Department of Music at Wesleyan University with Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton and many others; and a PhD (1999-2006) from City University London focusing on the history of David Tudor's Rainforest, supervised by Simon Emmerson.

I have been a participant in Composers Inside Electronics presentations of Rainforest and other David Tudor works since 1998, and collaborated on development of Rainforest V, which was acquired in 2017 by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for its permanent collection.

I teach at Queen's University (Canada) as Professor in the departments of Drama and Music, Film and Media, and the Cultural Studies Graduate Program. I am Director of the Sonic Arts Studio, originally named Queen's Electroacoustic Music Studio, founded by David Keane and later run by Kristi Allik.

I am currently collaborating with Geographer Dr Laura Jean Cameron, mentioned above as my partner of 37 years. In 2023 Cameron and I are completing an experimental monograph and radio documentary about Canadian field recordist William WH Gunn. In 2023 I will also begin publishing electronic compositions from a series entitled Revisitations, with a new release on XI Records. These pieces began as studies on the work of other composers, and exist as works which pay hommage to their continuing resonances.

My approach to performance has been greatly influenced by mentors who insisted on liveness and unpredictability in their electronic music practices, especially Martin Bartlett, George E Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, Ron Kuivila and Alvin Lucier.

I make live performances with a diversity of analog and digital resources using both improvisational and scored approaches, and a focus on the "homemade", whether in hardware or software. I do a lot of field recording and use many soundscape elements in performance. You may find some documentation here, and listen to some recent items below.

I also play electric guitar and other stringed instruments, and record and produce albums, with the "folkestra" known as The Gertrudes.

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