Timothy Wesley John Brady (born 11 July 1956) is a Canadian composer, electric guitarist, improvising musician, concert producer, record producer and cultural activist. Working in the field of contemporary classical music, experimental music, and musique actuelle, his compositions utilize a variety of styles from serialism to minimalism and often incorporate modern instruments such as electric guitars and other electroacoustic instruments. His music is marked by a synthesis of musical languages, having developed an ability to use elements of many musical styles while retaining a strong sense of personal expression. Some of his early recognized works are the 1982 orchestral pieces Variants and Visions, his Chamber Concerto (1985), the chamber trio ...in the Wake... (1985, 1988), and his song cycle Revolutionary Songs (1994).Timothy Brady, Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, by James Hale, 30 August 2019
He is internationally recognized as one of the world's leading experimental/new music guitarists (1997, Guitar Player: "One of the 30 Most Important Guitarists for the Future of the Instrument"), and in recent years has gained a strong reputation as one of Canada's leading composers of chamber, orchestral and music theatre works (2003 Prix OPUS Composer of the Year award, given by the Conseil québécois de la musique; 2006 Jan V. Matejcek award, given by SOCAN).
Biography
Early years and studies Brady was born in Montréal on 11 July 1956. He began playing guitar at age eleven and was largely self-taught until the age of nineteen, with the exception of 18 months of basic beginner guitar lessons (chords and strumming, playing acoustic folk music). He switched from acoustic to electric guitar at sixteen, and started his own rock band soon after. The band (going under the names Tosh and Mystrale) quickly became a vehicle for not only playing, but also for composing music and by nineteen his interest in jazz and other instrumental music had eclipsed the abilities of the rock (now almost jazz-fusion) group.
Brady studied music at Concordia University in Montreal (1975–1978, composition with Alan Crossman, guitar with Claude Dyotte), followed by graduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (1978–1980, composition with W. Thomas McKinley and guitar with the legendary Mick Goodrick).
The Toronto period (1980–1986) In 1980 Brady moved to Toronto where he began working both as a contemporary classical composer and as a jazz guitarist. In Toronto his work as a composer was still strongly influenced by modernist tendencies (i.e.: Elliott Carter, Anton Webern, Pierre Boulez), including his earliest professional chamber piece for voice and ensemble, 4 Songs and an Intermezzo, and other early works such as his String Quartet #1, the chamber work Five Settings (1983, commissioned by Arraymusic), and the Chamber Concerto (1985, commissioned by New Music Concerts). A series of imaginative but conventional modernist chamber and orchestral works would start to make Brady's reputation as a composer across Canada, and would win him 5 composition awards from CAPAC (now SOCAN) from 1982 to 1986, and he was a finalist in the 1986 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Young Composers' Competition, with the work Visions. His most ambitious and complex modernist work, the 1982 orchestral score Variants, was premiered by the Esprit Orchestra in Toronto in the 1987–1988 season, recorded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as a result of winning the 1986 Micheline Coulombe St-Marcoux Prize (CAPAC).
However, two works of the Toronto period point to the future vision of music as a more unified means of expression, without stylistic boundaries: SOUND OFF (1983), for 40 saxes, 30 trombones, 30 trumpets and 8 bass drums (an outdoor performance piece – unperformed until 1999) and Visions (1984), for improvising soloist and string orchestra. This latter work was to become his first CD release in 1988, in a remarkable performance by trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, with the Orchestre de chambre de Montréal.
First recordings, first productions Brady also recorded and produced his first 4 records in Toronto – an ECM-influenced jazz trio set of original tunes called Chalk Paper, a recording of 3 chamber works for solo piano (performed by Marc Wider), and two digitally recorded LPs of music for solo guitar and electronics: dR.E.aM.s (1985) and The Persistence of Vision (1987). These two solo recordings began to make his reputation as a guitar innovator both in Canada and internationally.
Brady's Toronto years also mark the beginning of his work as a concert producer. In 1982 he founded the production company Contemporary Music Projects, and he would produce and perform in major jazz orchestra events with iconic American jazz arranger Gil Evans (1984) and maverick Canadian trumpeter/composer Kenny Wheeler (1985).
During this period his various jazz groups/big bands performed in clubs and concerts in Toronto and Montréal, and did recordings of his original jazz works for the CBC Radio programme Jazz Beat, as well as for the new music/contemporary classical programme Two New Hours. Brady had his first major international collaboration in 1983, performing a duo concert at the Edmonton Jazz City Festival with the Hungarian bass virtuoso Aladar Pege.
London interval (1986–1987) From 1986 to 1987 Brady lived in London, England, studying conducting privately with Odaline de la Martinez, playing jazz gigs with well-known UK jazz musicians such as Clark Tracey and Guy Barker, and recording a studio concert of originals for the BBC.
Montreal, part 1: Bradyworks (1987–1997) Upon returning to Montreal in 1987, Brady founded his own chamber group and production company in order to have some control over his work, and his new vision of creative music. The group was named simply "Bradyworks".
The first major Bradyworks project was Inventions, a 90-minute music and dance collaboration, created in conjunction with Ottawa choreographer Julie West. The work included the 5 musicians of Bradyworks plus the jazz soloists Barre Phillips (bass) and John Surman (saxophones). A CD of the project was released in the autumn of 1991, to coincide with the groups' first major tour, including 13 concerts across Canada, plus a performance at Roulette, New York's well-known experimental music space. The tour featured a chamber work entitled The Songline, which had been commissioned by and premiered at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV).
This project, as with almost all of his recorded productions since 1988, was produced in collaboration with engineer and producer Morris Apelbaum, who also works as live sound engineer for the Bradyworks ensemble.
1992 saw the release of his landmark solo guitar and electronics CD Imaginary Guitars. This was followed by several other solo guitar CDs, all focusing on composing new music for guitar with electronics and tape: Scenarios (1994), Strange Attractors (1997) and the double CD 10 Collaborations (2000). All these recordings were on the Justin Time Records label, out of Montreal. Brady toured extensively in the 1990s as a solo guitarist, including performances at the 1993 Printemps de Bourges music festival, the 1993 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival (with his first electric guitar concerto, LOUD), the 1993 Bang on a Can Festival, a 1994 collaboration with the Relâche ensemble in Philadelphia, a 1995 UK tour for the Sonic Arts Network with a performance for the BBC at The South Bank (London), a commission and a solo performance at Maison Radio-France (INA-GRM, Paris) in 1996 (and again in 2001), the 1997 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and the 1999 Strange Attractor's world tour, with 23 concerts in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong, including a performance at the Festival international de Jazz de Montréal.
The Body Electric Festival (1997) Since 1994 Brady had been running the concert production company Innovations en concert, producing many different events in Montreal, some with his music, but also producing concerts by many touring and local musicians as well. In 1995 Brady had the idea of producing the first-ever international festival of contemporary chamber and orchestral music for electric guitar.
In collaboration with partners in Toronto, Jonquière, Winnipeg, Victoria, Vancouver, and New York City, he created the festival The Body Electric / Guitarévolution, which was held in 1997, presenting a total of 23 concerts. The event featured performances by David Torn, the Fred Frith Quartet, Elliott Sharp, René Lussier, Ron Samworth, Greg Lowe, John Oliver, Kapser Toeplitz, Scott Johnson and Paul Dresher. Brady also premiered his second electric guitar concerto, The Body Electric (1997), on the closing night of the event, a work commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and performed by the Esprit Orchestra. A second, somewhat smaller version of the festival was held in 2002.
Bradyworks – vocal music (1997–2000) Parallel to his work as a guitarist, his interest in opera, music theatre and vocal music had become one of his main artistic preoccupations. From 1989 to 1992 he worked on a chamber opera version of the Man Booker prize-winning novel The Bone People, by New Zealand author Keri Hulme. The project was never completed due to difficulties in working with Hulme, but it sparked a keen interest in vocal music and music theatre which continues in his current works.
Out of this failed opera experience came his first major song-cycle, entitled Revolutionary Songs (1993), based on a variety of poems in English, French and Spanish. Sung by soprano Nathalie Paulin, and scored for Bradyworks, the work was premiered at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and later released on CD in 1996, supported by a 5-city Canadian tour. The work combines pulsing, jazz and minimalist inflected harmonies with distorted rock guitar and a large range of electronic tape sounds to create a 40-minute portrait of the experience of political revolution. The work had three American performances in 2001, at The Kitchen (New York City, performed by Bradyworks), in Kansas City (New Ear Ensemble), and in Boston (Auros New Music Ensemble).
A second Bradyworks song-cycle followed, entitled The Knife Thrower's Partner (1997), using only a quartet of acoustic instruments in setting a text by Canadian poet Douglas Burnet Smith (whose work Brady would use again in 2009). Bradyworks toured this piece across Canada in 2000, giving 8 performances with mezzo-soprano Anne-Marie Donovan.
Montreal, part 2: operas, Ambiances magnétiques, CNMN (2002–2005) In 2002 Brady parted company amicably with Justin Time Records and began working with Ambiances Magnétiques based in Montreal. The first release was of his work 20 Quarter Inch Jacks, a piece for 20 electric guitars, commissioned by the Festival Les Coups de Théâtre. In 2003 he released Unison Rituals, a CD of his music for saxophone and chamber ensemble, including the first of many collaborations with the Quasar saxophone quartet, and an overdubbed and reduced performance of the 1983 work SOUND OFF, for 100 winds and 8 bass drums. Later in 2003 Bradyworks performed its first European tour, with concerts in London (for the BBC at Maida Vale), Aberdeen University (Scotland) and at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin (Ireland) as part of the Crash Ensemble's New Music Festival.