Theatre in Music – Nick Fraser and Justin Haynes

Research focus

Exploration of the theatrical elements of musical performance, and the effect the integration of musical and theatrical improvisation has on an audience. What is the theatre of a musical performance when one is not playing an instrument, and in what ways can this theatre be exploited by a musical group?

About the researchers

Electro-acoustic duo Nick Fraser and Justin Haynes:

Nick Fraser (drums, tapes) has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto new jazz and improvised music community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1995.  Nick is active in the “new jazz” community and is a founding member of the Association of Improvising Musicians of Toronto. He has performed with Mike Murley, P.J. Perry, Phil Dwyer, Anthony Braxton and Bela Fleck among others as well as recording and performing as leader/co-leader of the groups Drumheller and This Moment.

Justin Haynes (guitar, sound processing) was a Toronto-based, Ottawa-raised guitarist usually working in long-form improvisation, composition and/or song forms with musicians of all stripes. In addition to various electric and acoustic guitars he was bent for using other instruments including tenor banjo, soprano ukulele, mbira, melodica, and various electronic noise makers including small lights. As a composer he was concerned with levity, time, space, good humour, and death and plied this trade for several groups in Canada and America. Justin passed in 2019.

Collaborators and credits

Bruce Hunter, with Nightswimming’s Brian Quirt, Naomi Campbell, Megan Hamilton and dramaturgy intern Andrea Romaldi.

October 12-22, 2005 at the Glen Morris Studio, University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Drama.