M C Maguire is a composer/producer who has created a very quirky post-modern hybrid that combines classical, pop, jazz, electro-acoustic, and world music traditions. He works primarily in his studios’ multi-track environment (up to 400 tracks) combining live recording, sampling, synths, exotic plugins, and digital editing possibilities. The finished product usually consists of a rigid, hierarchical, multi-layered construct, which is mathematically proportioned to reflect the philosophical / psychological thrust of each individual work’s raison d’être.
He is currently working on a new untitled 2019 CD consisting of two new electronic works for solo cello (‘Sade auf Kashmir’) and solo piano (‘a dark, teenage Bonfire’). His third CD Nothing Left to Destroy, was released on Innova/Naxos, in the fall of 2011 while his second CD, Trash of Civilizations was released on Innova/Naxos in 2009 ( nominated in the Grammy ¼ finals for Best Classical CD and Best Chamber Music Performance). Finally, his first CD, Meta-Conspiracy, was released on John Zorn’s label, Tzadik, in 2007.
Reviews of his work include: “it sounded as though Conlon Nancarrow had lived to re-imagine his impossible piano pieces in the sampler age“, “the most irritating and spellbinding composer since Philip Glass”, “the most original Canadian composer since R. Murray Schafer “, “Roll over Claude Vivier”, “will likely attract the same kind of cult following as Frank Zappa”,” brushes away the dust from all classical music”,” New Music got newer”, “it destroys all the accepted ideas about aesthetics and beauty in Art”, ”one of the most astonishing CDs I’ve ever heard”, “a daunting brilliance exploding from the music”, “a long punch to the plexus that opens up your ears and saturates your brain cells”, “Guru of electronic manipulation”, ”This is music to completely drown yourself in and then end with a quiet ‘Amen’ “, “sprinkles a gleeful pee all over the world of genteel music-making”, ”Welcome to the future?”,” the supreme postmodernist”, ”we stand in awe of these mammoth constructions”, ”the music brims with ideas and abundant pleasures”, ”on the edge of a damaging collapse of the senses”, “teaches us something about ourselves and our culture”, “indescribably awesome stuff”, “absolutely nuts”, and “works to be heard to be believed”.
His work has been performed at Lincoln Center, the Victoriaville Festival in Quebec, the Stone and the Bang on a Can Marathon in NYC (4 times). Many performances have also occurred in his native Vancouver and his current residence, Toronto. Recently, Pianist Keith Kirchoff toured ‘Short History’ through England, the U.S., and Mexico.
MC Maguire received his bachelors and Masters from UBC, Vancouver and did post-graduate work at Guildhall, London, and private study in Heidelberg, Germany. He also did Doctoral Studies at Eastman School of Music.
