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Olivia Block
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Sound artist Olivia Block presents a rare pipe organ performance, exploring the instrument’s vast acoustic and spatial possibilities through subtle textures and sustained tones.
A Collection of Crossings emerges from Block’s interest in knot formations and braiding patterns. Thinking about these universal concepts, she attempts to translate them into a nonlinear, overlapping musical structure. The multiple organ manuals and timbral groups unique to pipe organ architecture naturally express this compositional language. A series of intervallic and melodic strands can cross over and under one another on the different manuals, changing slightly through subtle sound-color differences. This eternal knot-like formation ties itself together over time through crossing clusters and motifs.
1974, 20 minutesOrganist, pianist, and continuo player Angelique Po performs Gmeeoorh, the legendary Greek-French composer/architect Iannis Xenakis' only work for organ, which was commissioned by the 1974 International Contemporary Organ Music Festival at the Hartt College of Music in the University of Hartford, Connecticut.
Xenakis describes Gmeeoorh as "a free anagram of ORGANON", and a piece that "pursues the research of a generalisation of the melodic principle, by using linear arborescenses (clonings) undergoing various transformations such as homothetic, rotations, distortions, expansions, etc..." The resulting music stretches the sonic capabilities of whatever organ it is played on, and is not entirely playable by a single person without assistance. The composer suggests tools such as planks of wood for playing the wide spans of notes required in certain parts of the piece, assistants for "passages that are too difficult", and "ignor(ing) the notes which are off the keyboard." Sonically, Po describes the piece as the deep primal growl of a long-forgotten creature rising from the depths.
Olivia Block is a composer and performer based in Chicago. She is the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2026 Alvin Lucier Award for Music. For 30 years she has been a pioneering force in the world of experimental music. Her discography is published on Another Timbre, Black Truffle, Erstwhile, Glistening Examples, ina GRM, NNA Tapes, Room40, Sedimental, and Touch, among other labels.
She performs live experimental music in festivals and concerts around the world including Rewire, Ina GRM, Sonic Light, and Moog fest. In concert she performs with piano, voice, organ, synths and amplified objects. In addition to her recorded and performed music, Block creates sound/media installations and composes for large and small ensembles.
Angelique Po is an organist, pianist and continuo player living and working in Vancouver, BC. Her versatility and interest in a broad range of music styles have led her to collaborate with a variety of ensembles and soloists, as well as perform world premieres of many new works. This includes the world premieres of organ works by Joël Tibbits in 2024 and 2025, the world premiere of Fernande Decruck's 2nd Sonata for Organ (written in 1948), Scottish premieres of Claude Vivier’s Les Communiantes and Jocelyn Morlock’s Premonition in 2022 at the University of Glasgow, and the world premiere of David Millard’s Requiem with Vivaldi Chamber Choir, also in 2022, for mezzo-soprano soloist, large choir, organ and string quartet. As the featured artist with trombonist Jeremy Berkman for Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom 2021, she premiered ten new works written for trombone and organ by BC composers in an online concert in March 2021. She was featured again in Vancouver Pro Musica’s A Little Further Series in October 2021, playing eight world-premiere solo organ pieces.
Angelique has performed with numerous ensembles, including the Vancouver Bach Choir, Phoenix Chamber Choir, Laudate and Paragon Singers, United Voices Choir, Vivaldi Chamber Choir, Vancouver Oratorio Singers, Abendmusik, Sakura Singers, and the Church Music Ministry of Canada, and has served in organ appointments at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Central Presbyterian Church and First Baptist Church in Vancouver. She is currently the Director of Music and Organist at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in Vancouver. As a composer, she has written for various small ensembles, including pianist Michael Park, PEP (Piano and Erhu Project) with Corey Hamm and Nicole Ge Li, and has written a number of art songs. At the University of British Columbia, she studied piano with Sara Buechner and harpsichord with Doreen Oke. On the organ, her mentors include Kevin Bowyer, Michael Murray, and Edward Norman. In addition, she has received valuable coaching from Ton Koopman, Marnie Giesbrecht, Wendy Markosky, Jonathan Moyer, Christa Rakich and David P. Dahl.
