Listening to Snow

Michael Snow’s seventy years of internationally acclaimed experimentation and innovation in diverse media offers sound in multiple forms – composed and improvised music, sound installations, sound recordings, as well as visualized sounds in formats of sculptures, paintings, and experimental films. In an interview with Annette Michelson, Snow described his diverse interests in working with sound as ‘departments of interest’: “[M]y background is partly in jazz, so that’s a certain lineage. But then there are other things that really were more related to the way I’ve made films or some of the multitrack recordings that I’ve done that really don’t have any improvisation. They are compositions that use the possibilities of multitrack: of layering, of superimposing one element of music on the other, and so on. And it’s a compositional tool.”

Listening to Snow is a devoted-to-listening space, a music box, focusing on ideas and thoughts arising from a selection of Snow’s sounds. Composed and tuned, the exhibition manifests as one sonic experience from three sound installations [Diagonale (1988), Waiting Room (2000), Tap (1969-1972)], one screening [Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids) (2002)], two recordings [Falling Starts, W in the D (1975)], and a piano for Snow’s performance – all sharing the same acoustic space.

The exhibition is part of the Hart House’s centennial programming recognizing the special place the institution holds in Snow’s biography.