Solo Works

In the Fall of 2020, I invited Lief Hall and Josema Zamorano to co-create an improvisational music-video performance as the final part of my artist residency at Western Front. The collaboration converged, looking for an immersive dialogue between aural, visual, and spatial experiences, reflecting on migration and the living transformations that are a part of it: sound becoming body movement, voice becoming ocean waves, music becoming awareness of space, wind becoming texture, the forest becoming cellular copulation, colour becoming mood, perception becoming the environment itself.

The audio is performed live on an octophonic surround sound system and consists of live acoustic and processed violin, which is also being fed through the octophonic speakers, field recordings by Meredith Bates, live acoustic and processed voice, and octophonic manipulation by Lief Hall.

Written By: Like the Mind

Like the Mind is a new instrumental ensemble led by Meredith Bates made up of six award-winning female musicians from Canada and Sweden. Peggy Lee (cello), Lisa Ullén (piano), Meredith Bates (violin), Lisen Rylander Löve (saxophone), Elisa Thorn (harp), and Emma Augustsson (cello).

Written By: Pugs and Crows

On their fourth full-length album UNCLE!, JUNO Award winning Vancouver indie rock jazz art folk instrumentalists Pugs & Crows join forces with vocalist Marin Patenaude. Patenaude’s earthy, soulful voice coupled with the band’s trademark cinematic pacing, melodicism, and gritty elegance transports the music to new heights.

Showcasing the 10 year long collaboration between an ensemble of individually accomplished and highly sought after players, Pugs and Crows has emerged as one of Vancouver’s most prominent instrumental bands, earning a rabid following of fans from all corners. Their third release, Everyone Knows Everyone, snagged a 2016 West Coast Music Award for Best Instrumental Album, adding to momentum that has been building since their 2013 JUNO win and this year’s nomination to the 2016 Polaris Prize Longer List. Praised for their “music of great strength and beauty” by The Georgia Straight, and as “rejuvenating, visceral and absolutely stunning” by the CBC, Pugs and Crows continues to bring new fans into the West Coast’s rich tradition of creative music.

Written By: Gentle Party

Gentle Party is an avant chamber pop ensemble that pioneers a unique, expansive sound distinct to the quartet’s West Coast roots. The hauntingly evocative voice of Jessicka rests on a bed of luscious strings from Meredith Bates (violin), Shanto Acharia (cello) and Elisa Thorn (harp). The music conjures images of pandemonium and playfulness contrasted with stark heartbreak.

Their debut album, Jouska, was recorded with award winning producer Chris Gestrin with the support of the Canada Arts Council.

Written By: Alvaro Rojas

This album features Alvaro Rojas’ Afro-Peruvian influenced modern jazz compositions being performed by an all star group of some of Canada’s finest musicians, and features a guest vocal by Grammy award winning Peruvian icon, Susana Baca.

Written By: Tom Wherrett

ElkHorn creates compelling music inspired by guitarist/composer Tom Wherrett’s Nebraskan childhood. Elements of Americana, jazz, post-rock, and folk make for a sublime and imaginative trip to where the west begins. With Meredith Bates violin/viola, Russell Sholberg bass, Sam Davidson bass clarinets, Mike Magnusson drums.

If I Could Keep It With Me

Written By: Ford Pier

Vancouver guitar icon and composer extraordinaire, Ford Pier, unleashes his latest project, Strength of Materials, introducing his ear-astounding canon of rock-meet-art-songs. Backed by a quartet of Vancouver's finest string players (Violinists Elyse Jacobson & Meredith Bates, Violist, John Kastelic, and Cellist, Peggy Lee), the ensemble is ready to rock.

Written By: Peggy Lee

The idea, says Lee, was “to bring together some of my longstanding band members with some of the younger players that I had recently begun to collaborate with. I wasn't thinking about specific instruments really, just the players that I was excited about working with. The name to me simply speaks of our efforts to make sense of our world through artistic practice. And of course there are echoes of much of the music that has been meaningful to me over the years.” (She cites Carla Bley and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra as inspirations.) With many colours to draw upon, the music is multi-layered and texturally varied, featuring driving rhythmic vamps, incendiary improvisation and sometimes achingly beautiful melodic compositions.

Written By: Tony Wilson

Guitarist/composer Tony Wilson is one of the most important figures in Canadian Jazz, and has been a staple of the Vancouver/Pacific Northwest music community for decades, bringing an instantly-recognizable atmosphere and melodic sense to any music he is involved in creating. With his new project, Burn Down the Cornfield, Wilson layers intricate melodies and polyrhythms with a jazz trio of bass/drums/guitar that has been augmented by a string quartet and vocals: with Joshua Zubot and Meredith Bates violins, John Kastelic viola, Peggy Lee cello, James Meger bass, Dylan van der Schyff drums, and Patsy Klein vocals. This concert celebrates the release of their debut CD, This Way Through The Forest (2019).

Written By: M. Bates

This international Sextet (with members from Canada, USA, Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland) met in Spring 2009 in the Rocky Mountains during the "Banff international Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music", led by world-renowned trumpet player and composer Dave Douglas.

Sound Circus creates music which is the sum of all its parts. Each member of the ensemble infuses their personality and cultural background into the music and the result is compositions that are layered and rich in vivid imagery.