Psychedelic-modernist easy listening

James Lowrie pens experimental chamber-pop new-music epics. As a composer he both celebrates and interrogates genre conventions, putting commonly found musical material under the microscope.

James is the creator, host, and writer of CBC’s composer brain, short videos humorously dissecting pop music from a composer’s perspective. He has contributed to CBC’s “In Concert” as a featured guest. He is the creator, host, and curator of Radio Haha, an experimental music-comedy talk show with live electronic processing at Toronto’s Tranzac Club.

Freesound, Current Resonance, The FAWN Chamber Creative, The Berrow Duo and Soundstreams have all performed his works in concert. In 2020, his “Chainsmoking;Index” for solo piano premiered to great acclaim at ArrayMusic, an organization that has been commissioning Canada’s most legendary experimental artists for decades. In 2022 he participated in the Bozzini Quartet’s Composers Kitchen residency.

James’s instrument is the classical guitar. A student of the great Eli Kassner for over a decade, James has performed at numerous events in Toronto including the Guitar Society of Toronto and solo recital tours in South Eastern Ontario. Though he is loath to admit it, the guitar is central to how he thinks about harmony and texture.

James is currently in the second year of his DMA at University under the supervision of Dr. Kotoka Suzuki. He is on a research stay at IRCAM in Paris in music and humour as of September 2024.