Exciting new sounds – challenging the boundaries of the expected – will be the order of the day when the Casse-Tête Festival of Experimental Music returns to the Semiahmoo Peninsula.
Four free, all-ages, "come-as-you-are" concerts are set for July 11 to July 13 at the Historic Stewart Farm, 13723 Crescent Rd, Surrey.
The eighth edition of Casse-Tête – as always geared for those ready for something truly adventurous on their musical menu – will highlight improvisation, new music in a classical tradition, post-rock, noise, and other unusual styles.
The title in French means puzzle (literally, a head-breaker) and this year's festival will offer intellectually challenging, outside-the-box appearances by such leading experimentalists as Lori Goldston, Anju Singh, José Delgado Guevara, Cathy Fern Lewis, Danielle Savage, Jonathon Wilcke, Ears of Lead, Christians, Stephen Carl O'Shea, and Matthew Tomkinson.
Festival artistic director Jeremy Stewart – who received the Barbara Pentland Award for extraordinary contribution to Canadian music for his work on Casse-Tête – describes the upcoming event as “a radically creative music experience, and an experiment in music and community.”
Stewart founded the festival in his former hometown of Prince George, where it was held annually from 2013 to 2017.
During that time he gained a certain notoriety not only from the avant-garde nature of the event, but also from a nationally noted stunt designed to raise both awareness and funds, in which he arranged for a damaged-beyond-repair piano to be pushed from a roof, and recorded the sound of the impact.
Latterly he revived Casse-Tête in Surrey and White Rock in 2023, and it has been held here annually since.
Among international and local artists the festival has hosted over the years have been such luminaries of the experimental scene as Catherine Sikora, Susan Campos Fonseca, Stanley Jason Zappa, Jooklo Duo, Olive Shakur, Rodney Sharman, C. Diab, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, and many others.
As in previous years, Casse-Tête is sponsored by the Canadian Music Centre in B.C. and supported by the City of Surrey through a Cultural Grant.
All event details and showtimes will be posted at cassetetefestival.com as they become available.
