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Colin Labadie
Mojave
Colin Labadie is a composer and guitarist based in Edmonton, Alberta. He holds a BMus from Wilfrid Laurier University where studied with Linda Catlin Smith and Peter Hatch. His compositions explore complex rhythm, patterns, repetition, and subtle change, often juxtaposed against spastic improvisation and timbral extremeties. As a guitarist and improviser, his recent interests involve augmenting the electric guitar through the application of emerging technology. He is currently developing an electric guitar prototype that combines sensor technology with computer software to utilize his playing technique and body movements as a means of control over the sound of the guitar.
Elsewhere, Colin’s work has involved interdisciplinary collaborations seeking to raise social awareness. In 2008, he composed the electroacoustic soundscape for Differ/End: The Caledonia Project, an intermedia drama which explored the ongoing land crisis between First Nations reserve and the City of Caledonia, Ontario. He also co-composed Imaginibus Mundi with Peter Hatch and Heather Olaveson, a work commissioned and premiered in conjunction with the Grand Opening of the Laurier Centre for Music in the Community (LcMc), an outreach program aimed at bringing music into high schools.
Currently, Colin is completing a Master’s degree from the University of Alberta, where he has studied with Howard Bashaw, Mark Hannesson, and Scott Smallwood. He continues to compose instrumental works and perform regularly in several ensembles, including MUGBAIT, an experimental electric guitar duo, and the improvisation ensemble XImE.
Mojave
for saxophone quartet
Before my visit to Nevada and California in 2007, I naively assumed that deserts were all the same: flat, hot, sandy, and boring. A drive along Interstate 15—through the heart of the Mojave Desert—revealed a landscape much richer in detail than the stereotypes would suggest. I was surprised by the subtle shifts in topography, the distant mountain ranges, the small desert towns, the incredible sense of vastness, and most of all the Joshua Trees, which begin as the occasional anomaly but eventually dominate the landscape. I was also amused by how the drive was framed on one end by Las Vegas, and on the other Los Angeles, two cities that in many ways are diametrically opposite to the desert. This piece is not intended as a literal depiction of the Mojave but, rather, an exploration of my experience of moving through it, and the inevitable result when traveling in either direction.
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