Cello-centricity!: Matt Brubeck with Lisa Conway-Bühler and Marilyn Lerner
Cello-centricity! continues with Matt Brubeck with Lisa Conway-Bühler and Marilyn Lerner. These two duos explore the broad range of possibilities in the timbre and expressive possibility of the cello.
Doors at 7:30, music at 8:00
Coming to multiple Cello-centricity! concerts? Consider a series pass!
All tickets are PWYC & NOTAFLOF (Pay What You Can & No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds). If you want to come to a Cello-centricity! concert but are concerned about finances, reach out to us at info@silencesounds.ca and we’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Music is for everyone.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Tivy Harris Foundation.
Lisa Conway/Matt Brubeck Duo
Matt Brubeck first improvised with Lisa Conway when she was an undergraduate at York University. They have subsequently kept in touch, and they last performed in Guelph together in 2022. In their performance practice Matt improvises on the cello, sometimes employing looping and other pedals, while Lisa takes the unprocessed cello sounds and manipulates them with her computer. As Matt describes it “I had never improvised in a situation before where I was, in effect, relinquishing control of my timbre. In Lisa’s capable hands, certain cello sounds flew around the room, broke into shards, or stretched like molten glass. Occasionally, a phrase I played five minutes earlier returned wearing an auditory disguise.”
Time’s Ripples – Marilyn Lerner/Matt Brubeck
Master musician improvisors Marilyn Lerner and Matt Brubeck have been performing together since 2007, mostly as the Ugly Beauties trio with drummer Nick Fraser. They’ve established a new duo and now have a recording in the works. In the music of this programme are compositions with elements of jazz and contemporary chamber music. Delicate, intimate and exposed, theirs are songs of the heart.
Matt Brubeck
Matt Brubeck is a JUNO award -winning performer/composer/educator specializing in improvisation on the cello. Raised on jazz and classically trained at Yale, Matt is at ease in multiple genres and has taken his cello improvisation skills into diverse musical territories. Matt has collaborated with more artists than he can remember, including Marilyn Lerner, Nick Fraser, Kevin Breit, Caylie Staples, and David Braid. In addition to his jazz/improvising work, Matt has had many eclectic musical adventures including touring and/or recording with Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow, Dixie Chicks, Natalie McMaster, and Yo-Yo Ma.
Lisa Conway
Lisa Conway is a sonic adventurer, songwriter, composer, researcher, recordist, and mixer based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Her work is often minimalist, and blends analog synthesizers, tape machines, and electronics with acoustic instruments. Lisa is an alumni of the final Red Bull Music Academy (Berlin 2018), and the Canadian Film Centre’s Slaight Music Residency. She has received press from publications like Musicworks (cover fall 2025), The Fader, the CBC, BOMB Magazine, Exclaim, and Earmilk, and has collaborated on works presented at TIFF, the D’Haus (Dusseldorf), MaerzMusik (Berlin), The Harbourfront Centre, Hot Docs, and the Inside Out Festival. A graduate of the MA in Sonic Arts from Queen’s University Belfast, she is currently pursuing a SSHRC-funded Individualized PhD in Fine Arts (sound studies) at Concordia University.
Marilyn Lerner
Internationally renowned composer pianist Marilyn Lerner is a prolific recording artist and performer. Her work, always utterly recognizable, is a singular expression of her passion and deep commitment to a lifelong study of modern jazz, creative improvisation and klezmer. Marilyn has produced over 25 recordings. Highlights include Birds Are Returning/Marilyn Lerner in Cuba, (featuring Dafnis Prieto, Jane Bunnett and Yosvany Terry), Special Angel with Sonny Greenwich, Luminance, (experimental solo piano) and Romanian Fantasy, (interpretations of Ashkenazi klezmer and folk tunes).
Ongoing jazz/improvised projects include the Lerner/Brubeck duo, Ugly Beauties (with Nick Fraser and Matt Brubeck), Lerner/Filiano/ Grassi, and Brass Knuckle Sandwich with trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud, and the duo Queen Mab, with clarinettist Lori Freedman.
Lerner is also active in the New York Klezmer revival scene, teaching and performing at Yiddish New York and KlezKanada. In 2025 Marilyn was recently awarded the Ontario Arts Foundation’s prestigious Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Keyboard Artistry.