Women From Space’s 2025 stunning edition is fast approaching with a(n inter)stellar lineup that includes acclaimed local Toronto artists alongside revered international experimentalists.
Courtesy of Riparian Media
Established in 2019 Toronto’s Women From Space Festival has become one of the city’s ultimate destinations for adventurous listeners, with each subsequent edition boasting yet another ravenously eclectic cast of cutting-edge performers from across various music genres and beyond. The festival has previously featured such celebrated artists as Mali Obomsawin, Matana Roberts, Amirtha Kidambi, Susan Alcorn, Patricia Brennan, Lina Allemano, Lotte Anker, Eve Egoyan, Kris Davis, Nicole Mitchell, and Judith Berkson.
As a celebration of music innovation and of gender diversity, the festival traditionally spans the weekend closest to International Women’s Day and this year is no exception. From March 7th-9th, 2025, Women From Space will inhabit the 918 Bathurst Centre, the venue which also serves as the home of local experimental music institution the Music Gallery.
Revered Toronto composer and improviser Allison Cameron kicks things off with an enigmatic solo performance entitled Small Scale Experimental Machine that promises to employ electronics and feld recordings in surround sound plus video and even audience participation. Reviewing Cameron’s latest recording, veteran writer Julian Cowley aptly noted “the more cryptic the puzzle, the more palpable its beauty.”
Trio Plastic Babies returns to the festival that first night as well. A longstanding collaboration comprising acclaimed vocalists Laura Swankey and ” national treasure” (according to Exclaim!) Christine Duncan plus the guitar wizardry of Patrick O’Reilly, the band will be launching their debut recording at the festival, which was producedby Jean Martin (of Barnyard Records, collaborator to Frank Lozano, Veryan Weston, and Tanya Tagaq)
Following their homage to Björk in 2024, the festival’s in-house large ensemble BIG BANG! will turn their attention to another towering innovator, Nina Simone, in the evening’s closing set. Simone’s songbook will be treated to arrangements by Vanese Smith (AKA Pursuit Grooves), Mingjia Chen, Madeleine Ertel, Olivia Shortt, Tania Gill and Alexa Belgrave and performed by Tara Kannangara (voice/trumpet), Shn Shn (voice/guitar/synth), Elisabeth Dorion (voice), tUkU (voice), Atcheleh Aryee (trumpet), Rebecca Henessey (trumpet), Heather Saumer (trombone), Naomi McCarroll-Butler (alto sax/bass clarinet/clarinet/futes), Bea Labikova (alto sax /bari sax/clarinet/bass clarinet/fute/fujara), Nirvana Sagar (tenor saxophone/clarinet), Pursuit Grooves (electronics/beats) Mira Riselli (upright bass/electric bass), Racha Moukalled (vibraphone/piano/malletstation), Diane Roblin (piano), Carolina Lopez (guitar), Yang Chen (vibraphone/percussion/drumset), Angelica Zavala (drumset), Kayla Milmine (conducting).
Night two begins with one of the festival’s characteristic unique curations. The set offers a cross-pollination with Toronto Dance Theatre, and presents a spontaneous encounter between electronic pop experimentalist shn shn and Rosina Kazi (of longtime Toronto duo LAL) alongside waacking specialist Chantelle Mostacho and TDT stalwart Erin Poole.
The New York-based multihyphenateYuniya Edi Kwon has been making waves over the past few years with her singular blend of voice, violin, composition, improvisation, ritual, and movement. An avid collaborator to a vast assortment of top creative musicians, she has variously been described as “absolutely stunning” by the Wire Magazine and listed as one of the Washington Post’s “22 for ‘22: Composers and performers to watch this year.”
Fresh off of an appearance at 2024’s Le Guess Who? the evening’s fnal act is Yuka Honda’s EUCADEMIX. Co-founder of beloved 90’s underground popsters Cibo Matto, she has subsequently delved into other collaborations such as CUP with guitarist Nels Cline, and Mycorrhiza alongside the multi-faceted phenom YoshimiO of Boredoms and OOIOO infamy. Honda is joined by fellow New York resident azumi OE, a fascinating artist born in Kyoto, Japan with roots in the butoh dance tradition. Azumi is known for her curious-minded approach, expanding butoh foundations with aspects of performance art, music, as well as light design and video projection. She was the principal dancer of New York-based Butoh company Vangeline Theatre for 8 years, served as an Assistant Choreographer/Principal Dancer for Butoh master Katsura Kan, with whom she has completed several world tours. In 2024 she was a NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography and was a resident artist at the John Hopkins University Peabody Institute in 2023 and 2024.
March 9th begins with a performance of Meara O’Reilly’s hypnotic work Hocket For Two Voices by Mingjia Chen and Linnea Sablosky. Pitchfork’s review of the piece’s original recording (by the composer) called it “intricate and organic, like a cluster of bursting bubbles…” inviting “us to investigate the endless potential of our individual perception.”
Arusha Jain (AKA @modularprincess) deploys the sounds and aesthetics of contemporary experimental electronic music to channel, celebrate, iterate upon, and interrogate traditional Indian idioms. She has released two acclaimed recordings on Leaving Records—most recently last year’s Delight—and has been featured favourably by high-profle outlets such as Pitchfork, Bandcamp, The Guardian, Boiler Room, Ableton, Resident Advisor, FACT, Crack, and DJMag.
The festival wraps up with legendary pianist and composer Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Trio which also features fellow out-jazz travellers Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones) and Lesley Mok (drums, percussion). Melford was dubbed “a stalwart of the new-jazz movement” by the New Yorker and has spent the last three decades making original music that is equally challenging and engaging. She’s appeared in the Down Beat Magazine and Jazz Journalists Association polls numerous times since 1990 and has also received a Fulbright Fellowship (2000), the Alpert Award in the Arts for Music (2012) a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2013-16) and the Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts (2013).
Her bandmate Ingrid Laubrock appeared at the 2020 edition of Women From Space and is one of improvised music’s most in-demand artists. She has performed alongside Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jason Moran, Kris Davis, Nels Cline, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Mary Halvorson, Zeena Parkins, Tom Rainey, Tim Berne, Dave Douglas, Wet Ink and many others, while winning numerous awards and also maintaining a vibrant compositional career.
Percussionist, composer, and interdisciplinary artist Leslie Mok has a practice that spans numerous realms from Free Jazz to electronic music, installation to film and theatre. They are a recipient of the 2024 ASCAP Fred Ho Award, 2022 Resident Artist at Roulette Intermedium, 2021 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, Hermitage Fellow, and the 2021 Van Lier Artist at the Asian American Arts Alliance.
TICKETS/ PROGRAM/ OFFICIAL WEBSITE : https://www.womenfromspace.com/