Biography

Christopher Willes (b. 1986) is an artist, composer/musician, researcher, and facilitator based in so-called Canada. His artistic work focuses on practices of listening, and is developed through an approach that blends sonic, material, embodied, and collaborative processes. He has created interdisciplinary performances, concert music works, sound installations, exhibitions, print works and publications, web-based projects, while also organizing community arts projects, workshops, and other experimental gatherings. His work has been presented in festivals, galleries, concert halls and public spaces across Canada, in the USA, UK, Europe, and Japan. 

Christopher completed a Bachelor of Music at the University of Toronto and an MFA at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College (USA). He studied as a dance dramaturge through a Metcalf Foundation apprenticeship at Dancemakers (2010/11). He is a Chalmers Arts Fellow (CAN), a MacDowell Fellow (USA), and an affiliated researcher at the Milieux Institute of Concordia University, and is currently completing studies in Conflict Mediation at the University of Waterloo.

Christopher’s projects are generally developed through careful collaborations with other artists and contributors. His works are often presented outside of traditional art venues and formats, and sometimes involve the direct participation of audiences. With artist Adam Kinner he created MANUAL—a one-on-one performance that is staged covertly in public libraries. MANUAL premiered in 2022 at OFFTA (Montreal) and has since toured extensively in Canada, the UK, and Japan. He is also an associate artist (and former producer) with Public Recordings, a collectively run non-profit in Tkaronto-Toronto that develops interdisciplinary performance works. With Public Recordings, he has created numerous projects since 2014, including Resonance Gathering—a publication on the work of Pauline Oliveros (Art Metropole 2023).

He has worked in experimental dance and theatre as a composer, sound designer, and dramaturge for over a decade. From 2011-2015 he regularly collaborated with the contemporary dance company Dancemakers (Tkaronto-Toronto). His numerous collaborations in the performing arts have been presented at Festival TransAmériques, OFFTA, PuSH International Performing Arts Festival, ImPulsTanz (Vienna), The National Arts Centre (CA), Sound Live Tokyo (Japan), and elsewhere. He has also been active in experimental and improvised music since the mid 2000’s, performing on wind instruments, synthesizers and electronics as well as composing with various groups.

A large part of Christopher’s practice is invested in organizing and facilitating educational workshops, peer-based learning events and community arts projects. He has taught at places like Studio 303 (Montreal), the Toronto Dance Community Love-In, the University of Toronto, Concordia University (Montreal), The Music Gallery (Toronto), Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Take Me Somewhere (UK), Betonsalon (France), MOCA (Toronto). 2017-2023 he was a recurring artist-in-residence at The Toronto Public Library where he produced performance projects and experimental music workshops with teenagers and seniors. And, with Public Recordings, he devised What’s Collective?, an itinerant workshop about collective practices that has been shared in Ontario, Quebec, and Scotland.

Contact:
info@christopherwilles.com
christopher@publicrecordings.org
Instagram: @christopherwilles