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Six Turntables
Workshop and Performance

Six Turntables is a project that brings together groups of young people to listen to and remix audio archives of experimental music. Led by multidisciplinary artists Christopher Willes and Akash Bansal, the project has taken shape in various contexts in Canada since 2017. Each iteration centers on a unique collection of sound recordings — always connected to the place where the workshop takes place — and culminates in a public performance and publication.

Blending sound-making, somatic practice, writing, and dialogue, the workshops explore experiences of collective listening. In the process, participants learn about historical avant-garde music/sound practices, and speculate together about new forms of musical experience. Records are approached not as commodity objects, but as shared experiences, reactivated through embodied listening practices and creative reuse. Each session involves practicing listening exercises that cultivate sonic and spatial awareness, followed by sound making scores that invite participants to manipulate custom-cut vinyl records using turntables and audio amplifiers. Through the process, they develop an experimental form of group DJing, transforming archival fragments into new sonic compositions. Each workshop concludes with an experimental concert in which participants share soundscapes they've created together and a publication documenting the process. The result is a performance in which archival audio is reimagined as emergent musical forms.

The audio recordings used in the workshops include sounds created during past workshops and archival materials specific to each new presentation context. For example, at the Toronto Public Library we worked recordings of experimental music made in Toronto in the 1970’s found in the TPL’s vinyl record collection, and at the Music Gallery we worked with recordings from the Music Gallery Editions label. In 2025 we’re planning a new iteration with the Guelph Jazz Festival, reworking their archive of past festival performances with a particular focus on solo improvisational concerts.

Six Turntables has been shared in a variety of contexts in Canada since 2017. For more information you can read this call for workshop participants from a previous iteration at the Toronto Biennial of Art in 2024.

Presentation History:

Guelph Jazz Festival, TBA 2025
Toronto Biennial of Art, October 30 - November 7 2024
The Music Gallery, X Avant Festival, October 3 - 11 2023
Toronto Public Library (Albion), February 11- March 4 2023
Toronto Public Library (Cedarbrea), October 1 - November 15 2019
Toronto Public Library (Scarborough Civic Centre), October 12-29 2017

Credits

Project by Christopher Willes, created in collaboration with Akash Bansal (dramaturge). Workshop co-facilitated by Akash Bansal and Christopher Willes. Photo by Kendra Epik.

Toronto Biennial of Art (2024) participants/performers: Aliyah Aziz, Aileen Kim, Eejin Choi, Gail Angella Ledesma, Grace McHugh, Jada Flemming, Julianna Angheloni, Ky Gray, Nikki Gilani, Ximena Garcia Soto, and Yihang Xu. Music Gallery (2023) participants/performers: Aliyah Aziz, Jada Fleming, Julianna Angheloni, Ky Gray, Nikki Gilani and Will Carriere. Toronto Public Library workshop participants (2017-2023): Gian Caracciolo, Gianluca Occhipinti, James Wells, Jason Li, Lucas McCarten, Maria Patricia Abuel, Nanthini Namasti, Taggart Quinn, and Ximuna Diego.

Special thanks to Jenn Goodwin, Roxanne Fernandes, James Baily, Gayle Young, Sanjeet Takhar, Matthew Fava, Max Halparin, Mitchell Akiyama, Seika Boye, Jim Lewis, Michelle Brownrigg, Emerald Ekong, Olang Cerda-Moesker, Joseph Glaser, Keith Stratton, Ellen Furey, Claire Harvie, Joe Strutt, Anne Bourne, Ishan Davé, Kendra Epik, Philip Nozuka, Erika Hennebury, Beau Levitt, Bill Vrantsidis, Radha Shilash, Liz Hysen, and Raymond Bai for helping us to develop this project through it’s various stages.

Photographs by Kendra Epik, Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias

Custom vinyl records cut by Jackson Darby (Personal Touch Vinyl).

Developed with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council - Artists in the Library Program (2017-23). Produced by Christopher Willes, in partnership with Public Recordings.