Christopher Willes

Biography

Christopher Willes (b. 1986) is an artist, composer/musician, and researcher based in so-called Canada. He is interested in practices of listening and how they can effect change. Working with people, sounds, musical instruments, places and embodied practices, his work researches forms of participation and cooperative action in art making. He creates music, interdisciplinary performances, audio artworks, recordings and publications, and he regularly organizes workshops, curatorial projects, and other experimental gatherings.

Christopher’s work has been presented in festivals, galleries, theatres, museums, and public spaces across Canada, the USA, the UK, in Europe, and Asia. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto and an MFA from Bard College (USA). He is a Chalmers Arts Fellow (CAN), a MacDowell Fellow (USA), and an affiliated researcher at the Milieux Institute (Montreal). From 2017-2024 he worked as an associate artist and company producer with Public Recordings in Toronto. He is currently completing studies in Conflict Mediation at the University of Waterloo.

With Adam Kinner he co-created MANUAL, a covert one-on-one performance staged in public libraries, which premiered at OFFTA (Montreal) in 2022 and has since toured internationally. Since 2014, he developed numerous projects with Public Recordings, including Resonance Gathering, a collectively authored publication on Pauline Oliveros (Art Metropole, 2023). He’s worked in dance and theatre for over a decade as a dramaturge, composer, and sound designer, with numerous projects presented worldwide. Active in experimental and improvised music since the mid-2000s, he performs on wind instruments, synthesizers, and electronics, and composes with various groups.

A significant part of Christopher’s practice is dedicated to organizing educational workshops, community-engaged projects. He has taught courses on collaborative practice, performance creation, and experimental music at institutions including Studio 303 (Montreal), the Toronto Dance Community Love-In, the University of Toronto, Concordia University (Montreal), Tramway (UK), Betonsalon (France). From 2017 to 2023, he was a recurring artist-in-residence at the Toronto Public Library, creating performances and workshops with teens and seniors. With Public Recordings he developed What’s Collective?, a workshop series shared internationally from 2019 to 2024. He also leads Asking Through Scores, an annual intensive at Studio 303 exploring the role of scores in collaborative processes.

Contact:
info@christopherwilles.com
Instagram: @christopherwilles