
New Music Concert’s Composer-in-Residence Rashaan Allwood’s piece Black Ice will be premiering at NMC’s next concert on February 8. It’s part of their concert titled Schnee: A Window into Winter.
Schnee means ‘snow’ in German, and the music celebrates the season with sound. The program includes two premieres, Allwood’s and Linda Catlin Smith’s We’ve gone forth for dancing.
We spoke to Rashaan about the piece, and working with NMC.
Rashaan Rori Allwood
Rashaan recently received his PhD in Composition from Western University. He earned a Bachelor’s in Pano Performance from the University of Toronto, and a Master’s degree in Organ Performance at McGill.
He won the 2022 Marilyn Mason Award in Organ Composition from the American Guild of Organists, along with a commission for a work for solo organ that premiered in Washington in 2022. He is the former director of music at St. Ansgar Lutheran Church in Toronto, and has has toured Europe as an organ soloist, including performances at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, UK, St. Nikolai-Kirche in Leipzig, Germany and St. Pierre’s Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland.
“I did a Bachelor in piano first, and then a Master’s in organ at McGill,” he says of his musical trajectory. It was while studying for his Masters that he discovered new music. It led to a desire to write his own.
“I started doing some composition.” That led to completing his PhD at the University of Western Ontario.
“I guess I was so inspired by the composers as a pianist,” he says. “How can I be more like them?” he wondered. His first forays into writing music were for his amusement only; it gradually grew into a serious endeavour. Allwood says he wanted to take his time, and mature as a musician.
Today, he plays organ at a small downtown church. “I would say most of my time now is spent on my social media,” he says of his performance. He’s grown his Instagram account to more than 30K followers performing largely on historical instruments.
“I like to do all styles,” Allwood says of his own listening and performing tastes. “I love everything, exploring music.”

NMC Composer-in-Residence
His piece Black Ice for Nine Instruments was written in 2024. “I wanted to explore the most contemporary sounds,” he says. “I was looking for something that pushes the boundaries of the [piano],” he says, “like Beethoven, using every key. That’s the energy I have now for composition.”
He greatly appreciates the opportunity that being Composer-in-Residence affords. “Just knowing that you can write something that professional musicians can play [is great],” he says.
That’s important when your music offers advanced challenges from notation to performance. He creates soundscapes, and uses the instruments in more complex ways. As an example, he says he’s sourced an old upright piano online that will be played by a percussionist. “Playing the wood of it with drum sticks and much more,” he explains.
“The whole piece is kind of about fragility and danger.”
Black ice is treacherous because it’s largely unseen. He likens it to the position of marginalized communities, who deal with processes and systems that are invisible, yet have an enormous impact on their lives.
“The piano is kind of a representation of that,” he says. “At one point, it gets stabbed by a knife.”
Naturally, the sounds produced are equally unconventional. Rashaan tends to employ densely layered techniques that are developed over the course of the piece. He cites Stockhausen, and French pianist-composer Raphaël Cendo as influences. “They prioritize meticulously crafted textures,” he adds. “The music is saturated — mirroring our lives in this world.”
The score calls for the musicians to vocalize at some sections. Because they’re not singers, as Rashaan points out, he has to take a different approach. He incorporates whispers, even shouting and other techniques into the score. “I also experimented a little with vocal fry at the end of the piece.”
It’s part of the flow of the worke.
“The first movement is like a car crash on the black ice,” he says, “absolute chaos. The second movement is like the same thing, but when you feel it in slow motion.” Vocalizations come into the piece as the main feature, along with the electronics he’s developed for the Moog Matriarch analog synthesizer.
“I also want to combine it with samples,” he says, “to make the piece feel like an out of body experience.” He’ll be performing the electronics live. “That’ll be fun.”
Rashaan gave the musicians a manuscript with a lot of direction, and his own take on notation. “A lot of it is proximate, densely notated,” he says. There are passages, in contrast, where he calls for their improvisation.
“I found it was a way to free the performers.” Adding improvised sections, albeit within specific parameters, gives the musicians more freedom, while other parts are to be played specifically as written.
“It was fun working with that kind of aleatoric approach too,” he says.
Schnee: A Window into Winter (February 8)
The concert begins at 8, with doors open at 7 p.m.
- 7:15 p.m. Pre-Concert Talk with Rashaan Allwood and Dr. William Gough (Professor of Climatology, University of Toronto).
- 7:45 p.m. Young Artist Overture — Norma Beecroft (CAN) Jeu III (1987) for Viola and Tape, performed by Mary Deck (The Glenn Gould School).
The full program:
- Linda Catlin Smith (CA) We’ve gone forth for dancing (2023 World Premiere) for Trumpet, Horn and Trombone
- Rashaan Allwood (CA) Black Ice (2024 World Premiere) for Nine Instruments and Electronics
- Hans Abrahamsen (DNK) Schnee – Ten Canons for Nine Instruments (2008)
Linda Catlin Smith will also be on hand for her own world premiere.
The performers include: Amahl Arulanandam (cello); Gillian Chreptyk (trumpet); Stephanie Chua (Piano 2); Olivia Esther (horn); Catherine Gray (viola); Leslie Newman (flute); Gregory Oh (Piano 1); Clare Scholtz (English horn); Ryan Scott (percussion); Cathy Stone (trombone); Anthony Thompson (contrabass clarinet); Andréa Tyniec (violin).
- Find more details about the February 8 concert, and tickets, [HERE].
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