One night only – on Monday, January 19, 2026 – Soundstreams presents Transoceanic as part of their ongoing TD Encounters series. In this Encounters, works from diasporic* composers Corie Rose Soumah, Kotoka Suzuki and Anthony Tan reimagine sound and light through science-fiction visions that shift Eurocentric narratives of progress. Presented as a free concert at Hugh’s Room Live.
Tracing the intersections between technology & diasporic experience
Curated by Haotian Yu, winner of the 2025/26 Soundstreams New Voices Curator Mentorship Program for the Encounters Series, Transoceanic traces intersections between technology and diasporic experience.
Cultural perceptions continue to position “world” artists as preservers of tradition, and artists of the Global North as the source of innovation. Diasporic artists, entangled with the global flow of technology and resources, challenge this divide. Like technology, diaspora is both geographically fluid and regional – flowing everywhere, yet still carrying the culturally specific traces of places it has lived.
About the concert program
Soumah’s Limpidités VI layers saxophones, cowrie shells and electronics into a sonic archaeology of the Black Atlantic. Tan’s Horizontal and Vertical Forces reimagines virtuosity through complex electronic sound, pushing the act of listening itself into overdrive, and reappropriating labour and excess as stereotypes of the Asian performing body. Suzuki’s Delicate Anticipation repurposes electric lighting to cast delicate silhouettes, drawing on Japanese aesthetics of shadow to question Western ideals of dominating light and progress.
Featured performers include Bea Labikova and Jeffrey Leung on saxophones, and Michael Murphy on percussion.
A discussion and audience Q&A with Yu will follow the performance.
* Diasporic refers to the situation of people from ethnic or religious groups living far from home, dispersed across other parts of the world.
About the TD Encounters series
Soundstreams’ TD Encounters is a free event series that always offers something different. These events are equal parts performance, artist discussion and Q&A, and give audiences the opportunity to engage with artists and their work in an intimate and relaxed setting.
Soundstreams Founding Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney shares, “Encounters is truly a voyage of discovery, an unparalleled opportunity to engage with both the mystery and the joy of the creative process. Not only are audiences invited to discover fresh, new works inspired by a spectrum of themes, but they’re offered a rare chance to engage directly with the artists that created and performed those works in an intimate setting. Encounters is a chance to gather in-person as a community, with curiosity and a spirit of adventure, and be completely absorbed by music that reflects the beauty and complexity of our city, our country, and our world.”
About Soundstreams
Founded in 1982, Soundstreams is a global leader in the presentation of innovative, carefully curated and immersive musical experiences. It is committed to showcasing the work of living Canadian and global composers/musicians, bringing to focus contemporary conversations to its communities. Since its inception, it’s introduced audiences to works from some of the finest and most groundbreaking composers of our age, from R. Murray Schafer to Nicole Lizée.
(Photo credits: Soundstreams.)
Event details
Presented by: Soundstreams
Type of event: sound & light concert
Curated by: Haotian Yu
Performers: Bea Labikova (saxophone), Jeffrey Leung (saxophone) & Michael Murphy (percussion)
Performed works & composers:
- Limpidités VI by Corie Rose Soumah
- Horizontal and Vertical Forces by Anthony Tan
- Delicate Anticipation by Kotoka Suzuki
Date: Monday, January 19, 2026
Start time: 7:30 PM ET
Duration: 90 minutes
Cost: Free – reservation required (please see the booking link below)
Location: Hugh’s Room Live, 296 Broadview Ave, Toronto, ON, M4M 2G7
Booking link: Reserve your free ticket here.
Contact Details: Soundstreams, 20 St. Joseph Street, Toronto, ON, M4Y 1J9, Canada; info@soundstreams.ca, soundstreams.ca
Accessibility: Hugh’s Room Live is not currently fully accessible. There are steps into the venue and a small staircase from the lobby into the main hall. The staircases are wide, with railings. The washrooms are a full flight of stairs to the lower level. More info here.