Futureproofing

Violinist Dr. Arlan Vriens presents the world premieres of five newly commissioned works for violin and obsolete electronics at Walter Hall, University of Toronto. This concert, the culminating event of Vriens’s ongoing Futureproofing project, brings together five Canadian composers whose new pieces engage the violin in dialogue with technology that the modern world has largely left behind. 

The programme features brand-new works by 2026 JUNO Award winner Amy Brandon, Wesley Shen, Lily Koslow, Robert Humber, and Steven Webb, each scored for solo violin and a distinct piece of vintage or obsolete technology. Audiences will encounter clicking printing calculators, a glitchy slot machine, noisy cassette tapes, a bouquet of radios, and the iconic ARP synthesizer — objects both nostalgic and yet ripe for continued sonic experimentation. 

This concert is anchored in Dr. Vriens’s SSHRC-funded research at OCAD University and the University of Toronto’s TAPiR Lab, which investigates how musical scores involving technology can be documented so that works remain performable after their original technologies become obsolete. Vriens’s work sits at an intersection of performance practice, musicology, and preservation, considering what it means to resurrect familiar machines made strange by time, while also considering how new electroacoustic pieces can survive long after the original machines gone quiet. 

Programme

Amy Brandon — Arp Speed (2026) 
Wesley Shen — 𝑒 is for irrational (2026) 
Lily Koslow — RADIO SILENCE II (2026) 
Robert Humber — Flailing Lights in Rabid Time (2026) 
Steven Webb — P@ch$nk0 (2026) 

Dr. Arlan Vriens is a violinist, scholar, and artist with established practices in new music, early music, and encounters between classical music and performance art. He is an adjunct professor at OCAD University, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, and conducted his doctoral studies at the University of Toronto and Cambridge University. 

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