Liminal spaces : a study in five acts (2026) is a mixed media work featuring saxophone quartet, immersive audio, synchronized video, and an array of found objects. The objects—walkie-talkies, a music box, an incandescent work light, and a rotary-dial telephone—are all iconic “retro” devices from the twentieth century and are intended to evoke a sense of nostalgia often associated with liminal spaces. 
Liminality refers to the ambiguous "betwixt and between," a transitional state that exists on the threshold between two different stages, conditions, or spaces. Beyond this general meaning, the concept of liminality has expanded to include the internet-born aesthetic wherein empty or abandoned places are not only ambiguous and transitional, but also eerie, forlorn, surreal, and nostalgic. In blending the four saxophones with old and new technology, I seek to express broad notions of liminality and the emotional states associated with it. 
The work comprises five movements, each exploring a different manifestation of liminality through sound and image—airports, malls, hospitals, parking lots, and the concept of heterotopia (distinct, parallel spaces that function as “worlds within worlds”).
 

 With support from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council