Biography

Christopher Willes (b. 1986) is an artist, composer/musician, performance maker and facilitator based in so-called Canada. His work explores listening as both subject and practice. Working with people, sounds, objects, musical instruments, and embodied practices, his projects research how forms of participation, collective agency and assembly emerge. He creates performance works, music, audio artworks, installation, recordings and publications, while also organizing workshops, curatorial projects, and other experimental gatherings. His work has been presented across Canada, the USA, UK, Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia, including recent presentations at the Toronto Biennial of Art, The Music Gallery, Musée d'art de Joliette, PuSH Festival, Take Me Somewhere (Scotland), Fierce Festival (England), BIPAM (Bangkok), and Bétonsalon (Paris).

Christopher holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto and an MFA from Bard College (USA). He is a Chalmers Arts Fellow (Ontario), a MacDowell Fellow (USA), and an affiliated researcher at the Milieux Institute (Montreal). He is a former associate artist and producer with Public Recordings (2016–2024) and previously worked with the contemporary dance company Dancemakers (2011–2015) as composer and dramaturge. He is currently studying Conflict Mediation at the University of Waterloo.

Christopher’s projects take unconventional forms and are developed collaboratively through a variety of processes and workshops with other artists and participants. With Adam Kinner he co-created MANUAL, a one-on-one performance that’s staged covertly in public libraries, which premiered at OFFTA (Montreal) in 2022 and has since toured internationally. Since 2018 his project Six Turntables has staged a series noise music concerts with young people that rework audio recordings pertaining to local histories of experimental music. He has created multiple projects with Public Recordings, including Resonance Gathering, a collectively publication on Pauline Oliveros (Art Metropole, 2023). He has over a decade of experience in dance and theatre as a dramaturge, composer, and sound designer, with work presented internationally. Active in experimental and improvised music since the mid-2000s, he performs on winds, synthesizers, and electronics, and composes with various ensembles.

A significant part of Christopher’s practice is dedicated to organizing educational workshops, peer learning events and other community engaged projects. He has taught collaborative and interdisciplinary practice, live-art, and experimental music at institutions including Studio 303 (Montreal), the Toronto Dance Community Love-In, the University of Toronto, Concordia (Montreal) and Tramway (Glasgow). From 2017 to 2023, he was a recurring artist-in-residence at the Toronto Public Library, creating performances and workshops with teens and seniors. With Public Recordings he developed What’s Collective?, a workshop series shared internationally from 2019 to 2024. He also leads Collaborating Through Scores, an ongoing workshop at Studio 303 exploring the role of scores in group processes.

Contact:
info@christopherwilles.com
Instagram: @christopherwilles