The SALT New Music Festival and Symposium in Victoria, BC, has been organized since 2011 by Tsilumos Ensemble and lead Ajtony Csaba “Salt is necessary not only for taste but for survival, so think of that in the aesthetic realm: it’s a matter of taste, but we do need it for our own survival.” The Tsilumos Ensemble is a new music ensemble based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Formed in 2011, the ensemble is co-directed by members David Shively, Ajtony Csaba, Marie-Chantal Leclair and Joanna Hood. The ensemble performs chamber music ranging from solos to large instrumental combinations. Its main objective is to give new works an optimal performance regardless of technical difficulty, intellectual demands or compositional style. Since its inception the ensemble has brought high quality, challenging new music to the larger Canadian community and beyond. The Tsilumos Ensemble has commissioned works from Steven Kazuo Takasugi (USA), Wolf Edwards (Canada), Bernhard Gander (Austria), and Gianluca Ulivelli (Italy). Commissioned works from Canadian composers Charles-Antoine Fréchette, Annesley Black and Justin Christensen were premiered in the 2014/2015 season. New Canadian and international works were presented in the Tsilumos Ensemble’s 2016 Composers’ Reading Session. Passionate about creating new opportunities for new music performances and discourse in Canada and abroad, the ensemble has presented innovative new music nationally and internationally and has organized the SALT New Music Festival and Symposium in Victoria, BC annually since 2011.
