Christopher Butterfield
Christopher Butterfield (1952) was born in Vancouver (Canada). As a boy he sang in the King's College Choir (Cambridge, UK). Deciding to be a composer, he studied with Rudolf Komorous in Victoria (British Columbia), and Bülent Arel in Stony Brook (New York). From 1977 to 1992 he lived in Toronto and Montreal, where he played in the rock band Klo, and gave performances of sound poetry and performance art. From 1992 to 2023 he taught composition at the University of Victoria. He has collaborated with, composed for, and performed with choreographers Bill Coleman, Laurence Lemieux, Bill T. Jones, Benoît Lachambre and Jennifer Mascall. His translations of three plays by Paris Dada Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes were published by Wakefield Press in 2015. In 2016 label Collection QB released Trip, a cd of his music for strings performed by Montreal’s Quatuor Bozzini. His sound installation Room for Mystics, a collaboration with visual artist Sandra Meigs, was shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto) in late 2017. He performed on a cd of Dutch artist Greta Monach’s sound poems, Fonerga, released on Edition Wandelweiser in January 2022. In 2023 Redshift Records released Souvenir, a cd of Butterfield’s chamber music performed by Aventa Ensemble (Victoria, British Columbia).
