Gayle Young Becomes ACWC / ACC Honorary Member

Gayle Young has been awarded an ACWC/AFCC Honorary Membership in November, 2019 for her exceptional accomplishments as an innovative composer, instrument creator/inventor, writer, feminist and administrator.

She has been an ACWC member since the very beginning, serving on the ACWC Board for many years. For decades she has edited Musicworks (Canada’s leading publication on new and unusual music). As well she has written extensively on tunings, wrote the definitive biography on Hugh LeCaine (Canada’s principal inventor of electronic instruments), written for our ACWC Journal, and was recently featured in a CMC Presents Concert, along with jaw-harp virtuoso Chik White on November 21, 2019 at Canadian Music Centre, Toronto. Young’s compositions, many of them electroacoustical and/or soundscape oriented, rank among the most highly esteemed Canadian works today. CMC suggests her tonal soundscapes “link natural sound with the musical worlds of tuning and harmony.” (CMC post). A 2018 recipient of the ACWC Roberta Stephen Award, she was able to present her compositions with her new 9-stringed instrument, the Allium, at Visiones Sonores, an annual festival of electroacoustic music held in Morelia, Mexico. (ACWC Journal Spring/Summer 2019, 38-40). All along Gayle Young has championed women’s music as part of her ongoing life work.