{"id":47872,"date":"2024-03-29T15:57:13","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T15:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=47872"},"modified":"2024-08-09T07:40:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T11:40:52","slug":"celebrating-music-creativity-and-community-with-artist-in-residence-olivia-shortt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2024\/celebrating-music-creativity-and-community-with-artist-in-residence-olivia-shortt\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Music, Creativity and Community with Artist-in-Residence Olivia Shortt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Celebrating Music, Creativity and Community with Artist-in-Residence Olivia Shortt\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

By Emily Putnam<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artist-in-Residence Olivia Shortt<\/a> has closed their residency at Carleton with two student-led performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortt is a storyteller and performing artist working across Turtle Island and internationally. They are a vocalist, saxophonist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, video artist, curator, administrator, and producer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortt has been on campus since January 2024. While here, they’ve taught a course called Music Producing 101<\/em> (MUSI 4200) and ran the Performer-Composer Lab<\/em> ensemble. They also gave a masterclass, presented a concert at Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, and took part in music auditions and juries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say Carleton\u2019s music program hosts a uniquely diverse range of musicians in study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe program here is really great because I’m meeting students from a plethora of genres. I have metal guitar players, I have singer-songwriters, I have classical musicians and jazz musicians, people who are self-taught, and people who have had lessons their whole life. I think it creates a really interesting dynamic that’s fun to work with.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo taken by Alejandro Santiago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shortt says the students they\u2019ve worked with have been open and eager to the new challenges they\u2019ve been assigned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudents here are super keen. They have been absolutely amazing to work with. I don’t think I’ve met that many people who are just happy to try things out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortt focussed on teaching students how to prepare artist bios, build their resume, and send email pitches in hopes of helping artists become more well-rounded experts of their craft.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI’m trying to give more agency to the students. A lot of them have bits of experience in the different parts of putting a concert together, but not necessarily start to finish \u2014 from figuring out what the concept is, to stepping in the venue and playing, you end up learning that there are 100 million little details in between that don’t seem exciting \u2014 but they are very important little cogs of the whole machine of the concert.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Carleton Music Showcase concert<\/a> that occurred on April 1 took place at local venue Live on Elgin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The showcase featured the music of ABBA, Gotye, Andrea Bocelli, and several original compositions from Carleton music students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ensemble also collaborated with Carleton\u2019s radio station CKCU<\/a> where students Robyn Lichaa, Sarah Peters and Anastasia Wasylinko talked about their experiences as music students<\/a> and performed pieces that will be featured at the showcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo taken by Alejandro Santiago and edited by Heshaka Jayawardena.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shortt says connections and community can be one of the keys to success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it’s the advice everyone gives, and not everyone takes \u2014 which is: ask the local artists you’re interested in for coffee, because you learn so much from these conversations. I’ve done that so many times. I still do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortt also advises aspiring artists to refrain from being discouraged when things don\u2019t go according to plan.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cSometimes you’re going to go in a way that is not always expected, and sometimes you’ll love that random zigzag to the left, or to the right, or backwards or forwards. It’s important to remember that not everything that happens to you that feels bad is necessarily a bad thing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

They say Ottawa\u2019s community has welcomed them with open arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really like that Ottawa seems to have specific communities. And while maybe if you look statistically, there’s less, it’s almost like there’s more, because you’re really focusing on specific places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortt says they particularly connected with Debaser<\/a>\u2019s work, one of Ottawa\u2019s leading independent and underground music and arts presenters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found people really want to connect with you. Even if they don’t have the time, even if time\u2019s not available, they’re like: I’ll find time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo taken by Karen E. Reeves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another focus of Shortt\u2019s teaching was improvisation and interpreting music beyond traditional notation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did all this training for so long, and then someone introduced me to improvisation. It really opened my eyes and reshaped how I looked at my previous training and classical music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s now these different ideas and ways of approaching improvisation, but they all coalesce, and they all come together. I just think it’s good to make sure you’re working all the different parts of your brain. I think they all work together in the end, and I’m just hoping that I can help make people into full and complete musicians, so that they’re not just only looking at music one way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortt\u2019s most recent artistic expression-of-choice is creating videos<\/a> that encompass all components of their creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really like video art because it kind of became a substitute for theatre, which I had really fallen in love with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI essentially look at my work of storytelling in whatever medium or format it takes, and then there’s some kind of story even if it’s fragmented, or super abstract, or experimental. I bring together the theatre and the sonic musical aspect, and then the visual fashion, or makeup, or drag elements, and I get to mix them all together to make this very giant project that exists in such a small way. That’s where my heart is at the moment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The second student-led performance<\/a> will be taking place on Friday, April 5 at the Kailash Mital Theatre<\/a> at Carleton University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist-in-Residence Olivia Shortt is closing their residency at Carleton with two student-led performances the campus community won\u2019t want to miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51,622,52,90,1,97,27],"tags":[352,356,199],"class_list":["post-47872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-news","category-event-story","category-events","category-fass-news","category-general","category-music","category-news","tag-artist-in-residence","tag-music","tag-upcoming-events"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47872"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47945,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47872\/revisions\/47945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}