The Show Goes On: Words and Music in a Pandemic

The SpokenWeb Podcast

How has the reading series been transformed by the Covid pandemic and its accompanying technologies of virtual gatherings? In this episode, Jason Camlot - SpokenWeb Director and Professor of English at Concordia University - takes us on a reflective listening tour through recordings of the Words and Music Show as it has evolved through the pandemic since early 2020. The Words and Music Show has been organized by Ian Ferrier for two decades to bring performances of literature, art, and music to live audiences at the Casa del Popolo in Montreal. Jason assisted Ian with organizing after Covid sent the series online, and this episode takes us into the in-person and virtual sounds of the Show. In this episode, we listen to the journey of one reading series and its co-curator over the past two years. Join us in reflecting on how the pandemic has changed the ways we share and connect to each other through literature, art, and performance.

SpokenWeb is a monthly podcast produced by the SpokenWeb team as part of distributing the audio collected from (and created using) Canadian Literary archival recordings found at universities across Canada. To find out more about Spokenweb visit: spokenweb.ca . If you love us, let us know! Rate us and leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or say hi on our social media @SpokenWebCanada.

Episode Producer:

Jason Camlot is the principal investigator and director of The SpokenWeb, a SSHRC-funded partnership that focuses on the history of literary sound recordings and the digital preservation and presentation of collections of literary audio. His recent critical works include Phonopoetics: The Making of Early Literary Recordings (Stanford 2019), and the co-edited collections Unpacking the Personal Library: The Public and Private Life of Books (with Jeffrey Weingarten | Wilfrid Laurier, 2022), and CanLit Across Media: Unarchiving the Literary Event (with Katherine McLeod | McGill Queen’s, 2019). He is also the author of five collections of poetry, most recently, Vlarf (McGill Queen’s, 2021). Jason is Professor of English and Tier I Concordia University Research Chair in Literature and Sound Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.

Words and Music Shows of the Pandemic Period:

This episode contains sounds from most of the Words and Music Shows held between 29 March 2020, when it was forced to move online, through to the return to a “live” in person show at Café Resonance held on 24 October 2021.

We are grateful to everyone whose words, music, movement, art, ideas, and voices contributed to this episode. This episode features the voices of many wonderful performers who have performed in pandemic period online Words and Music Shows, including Alexei Perry Cox, Ali Barillaro, Angela Szczepaniak, Cole Mash, Fabrice Koffy, Faith Paré, Ian Ferrier, Jason Selman, Jay Alexander Brown, John Sweet, Judee Burr, Katherine McLeod, Kenny Smilovich, Klara Du Plessis, Mike O’Driscoll, Nicholas Beauchesne, Nisha Coleman, Rachel McCrum, Roen Higgins, and Tawhida Tanya Evanson. Many other voices and sounds from the online shows are integrated into short audio-collage portraits of the events that can be heard in the episode.

A full list of the shows and performers that inspired the episode is as follows:

22 March 2020, Ian Ferrier posted this announcement about the upcoming Words and Music Show:

Tonight's show is not canceled, only postponed. We are collecting tracks from all the performers who were scheduled to present, and preparing the way to present them live in this group sometime this upcoming week

Stay tuned and stay safe!

Ian Ferrier

29 March 2020

Brian Bartlett, Lune très belle (Frédérique Roy. Eugénie Jobin), Alexei Perry-Cox. Nisha Coleman, Sava (Dina Cindrić, Sarah Albu, Antonia Branković, Sara Rousseau).

19 April 2020

Liz Howard, Liana Cusmano, Ian Ferrier, Lauren DeRoller, Mary St-Amand Williamson.

17 May 2020

Maureen Hynes, Cassidy McFadzean, John Arthur Sweet, Eryn Dace Trudell, Louise Campbell.

21 June 2020

Moe Clark, Taqralik Partridge, Cara Lessard Cole, David Bateman, Jay Alexander Brown, Angela Hibbs.

23 August 2020

Silvervest, Faith Paré, Cole Mash, Ali Barillaro, S.B. Goncarova.

20 September 2020

Rachel McCrum and Jonathan Lamy, Robin Durnford, Greg Santos, PC Vandall.

18 October 2020

John Arthur Sweet, Carolyn Marie Souaid, Erin Scott, Fortner Anderson and the Growler Chorus, and the winners of the Lawnchair Soirée videopoem contest.

15 November 2020 (“Live” from Sala Rossa)

Fabrice Koffy, Faith Paré, Jason (Blackbird) Selman.

13 December 2020

Roen Higgins, Naomi Steinberg, Klara du Plessis, Angela Szczepaniak,Tatiana Koroleva.

21 February 2021

Roen Higgins, Fabrice Koffy, Faith Paré, Jason Selman.

21 March 2021

Tawhida Tanya Evanson, Emilie Zoey Baker, Raymond Jackson, Marie-France Jacques, Francis Caprani, Kelsey Nichole Brooks, Ramela Arax Koumrouya

18 April 2021

Sarah Wolfson, Geronimo Inutiq, Louise Belcourt, David Bateman, Marie-Josée Tremblay, Ian Ferrier.

23 May 2021 (The SpokenWeb Show)

Oana Avasilichioaei, Klara du Plessis, Ian Ferrier, Shannon Maguire, Cole Mash, Jason Camlot, Kenny Smilovitch, Kevin McNeilly, Erin Scott, Katherine McLeod, Michael O’Driscoll, Ali Barillaro, and other special guests.

1 August 2021

RC Weslowski, April Ford, Natasha Perry-Fagant, Poet Riley Palanca, Nathanael Larochette (of Musk Ox).

22 Aug 2021

Jerome Ramcharitar, Marc-Alexandre Chan, Samara Garfinkle, Shawn Thicke, Tracy Yeung, Hosted by Guest Curator Avleen K Mokha, with backup from Ian Ferrier and Jason Camlot.

19 September 2021

Rachel McCrum, Jay Alexander Brown, John "Triangles" Stuart, John Arthur Sweet, For Body and Light.

24 October 2021 (Back in Person at Resonance Café)

Silvervest (Nicolas Caloia, Kim Zombik), Jason Camlot, Dark Sky Preserve (Ian Ferrier and Louise Campbell), John Stuart.