For over a decade Boston-based contemporary duo Transient Canvas has been thrilling audiences with their “engaging musicality and easy sense of ensemble" (Cleveland Classical) and “superb” performances (Boston Globe). Bass clarinetist Amy Advocat and marimbist Matt Sharrock relish the creative potential of working with living composers, with the San Francisco Chronicle lauding “the versatile imagination they both display and inspire in others.” With a commissioned repertoire of over 90 works, they have released three albums on New Focus Recordings: Right now, in a second, named a top-ten local album of 2020 by The Boston Globe; Wired, “a must-add to any new music lover’s library” according to I Care If You Listen; and Sift, which KLANG New Music called “one of the more refreshing things I’ve heard in recent years.”

Highlights of their 2022-23 season include collaborations with composers Matthew Evan Taylor, Yoon-Ji Lee, and the world premiere of Elliott Miles McKinley’s Pale Blue Dot for bass clarinet, marimba, and string quartet; concerts at the Vienna Summer Music Festival (Austria), Alba Music Festival (Italy), Dancz Center for New Music (Georgia), North Carolina NewMusic Initiative, ICA Low Clarinet Festival (Arizona), and New Music at the Short North Stage (Ohio); residencies at Penn State, Kent State, East Carolina, and Cleveland State Universities, the University of Georgia, the University of North Texas, and the University of Northern Iowa. Past seasons include featured performances at Music on the Edge, Composers, Inc., Charlotte New Music Festival, FeNAM, New Music Miami, SoundNOW Festival, Music at the Forefront, Outpost Concert Series, New Music Nights at Spectrum, the Corwin Chair Concert Series, Nevermind the Noise, Ethos New Music, New Hampshire Music Festival, Re:Sound, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and the Guerrilla Composers Guild, among others. They have performed and presented at several professional conferences including PASIC, ICA Clarinetfest, SEAMUS, SCI National Conference, and two New Music Gatherings. In Boston, they have been featured on the Equilibrium, Original Gravity, Opensound, New Gallery, Lowell Lecture, and Times Two concert series.

Equally dedicated to educating the next generation of performers and composers, Transient Canvas has presented masterclasses and composition workshops at colleges, universities, and conservatories across the U.S. including the University of Southern California, Oberlin Conservatory, Baldwin Wallace, Chapman, James Madison, Kennesaw State, Kent State, Lawrence, New York, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Otterbein, Rutgers, St. Lawrence, and San Jose State Universities, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, University of Maine, Cal Poly Pomona, UNC Pembroke, University of the Pacific, University of Southern Maine, UW Green Bay, UW Madison, and Virginia Tech. They have also held residencies with the composition departments at Harvard, Northeastern, Brandeis, East Carolina, and Tufts Universities, CCM, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, the University of Miami, Mizzou, UMKC, the Vermont College of Fine Arts, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Divergent Studio at Longy School of Music, the Alba Music Festival Composition Program, and the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers, among others. Since 2017, they have hosted their annual paid Composer Fellowship Program that is free and open to composers of all ages.

Transient Canvas proudly endorses Henri Selmer Paris clarinets and Marimba One marimbas and mallets.

For more information, visit www.transientcanvas.com.

Short Bio (183 words)

For over a decade Boston-based contemporary duo Transient Canvas has been thrilling audiences with their “engaging musicality and easy sense of ensemble" (Cleveland Classical) and “superb” performances (Boston Globe). Bass clarinetist Amy Advocat (she/her) and marimbist Matt Sharrock (they/them) relish the creative potential of working with living composers, with the San Francisco Chronicle lauding “the versatile imagination they both display and inspire in others” and a commissioned repertoire of over 90 works. Since 2017, they have hosted their annual paid Composer Fellowship Program that is free and open to composers of all ages. They maintain an active touring schedule with recent performances at the Alba Music Festival, Festival of New American Music, Music on the Edge, New Music Miami, and Red Note New Music Festival, among others. Recent educational residencies include the University of Southern California, University of Miami, New York University, and Longy’s Divergent Studio. They have three albums - Right now, in a second; Sift; and Wired - released on New Focus Recordings. Transient Canvas proudly endorses Henri Selmer Paris and Marimba One. For more information, visit www.transientcanvas.com.

"They were all involving, well-crafted works, played with great confidence by Advocat and Sharrock." — The Boston Globe

"Ever so soft throbs from a marimba synced with gentle soundings from a tantalizing bass clarinet. Every so often, an angular fragment of melody would surface. Halfway through this enchanting duet piece, more pointed, synced syncopations 'excited' though always in a much toned down way. ... Amy Advocat, bass clarinet, and Matt Sharrock, marimba were nothing short of fabulous continually leaning on the threshold of discernibility." — The Boston Musical Intelligencer

True to their name, Transient Canvas — the Boston-based duo of bass clarinetist Amy Advocat and marimba specialist Matt Sharrock — capture the spirit of today’s visual art scene in their performances, curating pieces and assembling them into diverse yet coherent collections. — Cleveland Classical

"In the informal atmosphere, seriousness of the music never wanted. Two friends set up their instruments in a room full of more friends, gathering around to listen to boundless sounds." — The Boston Musical Intelligencer

 

"Sharrock and Advocat played with intimacy and keen attention to one another, even as the music itself kept them in separate worlds, alienated but not alienating." — The Boston Musical Intelligencer

Advocat and Sharrock made for disarming presenters, sharing sophisticated thoughts even as they reset and readjusted between pieces. They acknowledged and took full advantage of the venue’s inherent intimacy on Tuesday, speaking with casual intelligence. Transient Canvas also excelled at musical communication.  — Cleveland Classical

"Featuring bowed marimba, brushed percussion, and clicks and blows of the clarinet, Lubkowski’s piece offered debilitating, staggering contrasts, though a fair match for the likes of powerhouse Advocat and steady-handed Sharrock. The duo does not shy away from extended techniques and experimental sounds; instead, they invite new sounds, fearless and unapologetic."  — The Boston Musical Intelligencer

"Steam Man of the Prairies brought together Sharrock and Advocat, although an unfortunate turn of the weather caused Advocat to stay in the bar, else her clarinet production would not have survived the wind. That did not much stop the ever communicative and poignant duo from performing beautifully, although the usual thrill of seeing the two in proximity went missing."  — The Boston Musical Intelligencer

"Your session on "Learning to Learn" could not have been any more on the mark... My only regret was that we only had one hour to give you." — John Lawless, Director of Percussion Studies, Kennesaw State University

"Before we met, and without any direct coaching from me, Transient Canvas created definitive interpretations of my music. In “Small World,” clarinetist Amy Advocat mastered the stop-and-go alternation of drunken bent notes and virtuosic display, all the while intuiting the zany sensibility I sought. I first heard Matt Sharrock play in my percussion quartet, where he effortlessly grasped the subtleties of attack and inflection I imagined. Both musicians went far beyond accuracy to create distinctive realizations of my ideas. At Transient Canvas’s recent duo recital, I was taken with their ensemble precision, with their capacity for technical and expressive extremes, and with their adventurous spirit. They work intensively together as an ensemble, as well as with their composer colleagues. Such attentiveness and enthusiasm are as important to me as is performance expertise. These two have it all." — Barbara White, Composer, Professor, Princeton Universtiy

Amy Advocat

bass clarinet/executive director

Hailed as “dazzling” by the Boston Globe, Dr. Amy Advocat, clarinetist, is an avid performer of new music having performed with Guerilla Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, [sound icon], Firebird Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, The New Fromm Players at Tanglewood, Boston Microtonal Society’s NotaRiotous, Glass Farm Ensemble, and the Second Instrumental Unit. 

Ms. Advocat is a founding member of the bass clarinet and marimba duo, Transient Canvas, with whom she has commissioned and premiered over 75 new works, including pieces by Marti Epstein, Curtis Hughes, and Osnat Netzer. Their recording of Andy Vores’ Fabrication 10: Itch appears on his latest CD One Head, released in January 2013. 

Always looking for the most innovative projects, Ms. Advocat was recently highlighted in the Boston Globe for her work at the Bohlen-Pierce Symposium in Boston, during which she premiered six pieces on the newly invented Bohlen-Pierce clarinet.  This instrument plays in a non-octave-repeating tuning system which offers an alternative to our own, and was the basis of Ms. Advocat’s studies toward her DMA at McGill University in Montréal.

Equally at home with more traditional classical music, Amy Advocat has also performed with Odyssey Opera, Boston Pops, Harrisburg Symphony, Opera Boston, National Lyric Opera, Boston Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.  Ms. Advocat was twice a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, and has participated at the Spoleto USA Festival, New Hampshire Music Festival, Monadnock Music, Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), New York String Orchestra Seminar, Virginia Arts Festival, and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.

Matt Sharrock

Marimba / artistic director

Matt Sharrock (they/them) is a vibrant musician whose performances have been praised as “eloquent” (San Francisco Chronicle), “sumptuous” (Boston Globe), “gorgeously lyrical” (Pittsburgh Gazette), and they have been hailed one of "Boston's best percussionists" (I Care if You Listen). 

Along with clarinetist Amy Advocat as Transient Canvas, Matt tirelessly champions the music of living composers. Since its founding in 2011, TC has premiered over 80 pieces for bass clarinet and marimba while touring extensively in the United States and abroad. They have also sponsored an annual paid Composition Fellowship Program since 2017 that is free and open to composers of all ages. TC has released three albums on New Focus Recordings: Right Now, In a Second, noted by the Boston Globe for its “assemblage of fresh compositions” that “demonstrates the expanse that this pairing…can afford imaginative composers,” Wired, “a must-add to any new music lover’s library” according to I Care If You Listen, and Sift, which KLANG New Music called “one of the more refreshing things I’ve heard in recent years.”

In demand as a chamber musician, Matt is the resident percussionist with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston and has performed with the Lydian String Quartet, Boston Musica Viva, Sound Icon, the Lorelei Ensemble, and with cellist Andrés Díaz at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. They are also a founding member of the mixed quartet Hinge and the Boston Percussion Group. As an orchestral percussionist, Matt can be heard regularly with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra of Indian Hill, and the Grammy-winning Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and they have performed with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, and Handel & Haydn Society, among others. From 2013-2020 they served as Music Director and conductor for Equilibrium. They have recorded as a soloist, conductor, chamber musician, and orchestra musician on Beauport Classical, BMOP/sound, Innova, Navona, New Focus Recordings, and Ravello Records.

A passionate educator, Matt is an assistant professor of core studies and composition at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a course developer and facilitator for Berklee Online. They regularly present masterclasses across the U.S. with recent engagements at Lawrence University, Chapman University, East Carolina University, University of Missouri Columbia, and the University of Kansas. Dedicated to working with student composers, Transient Canvas has been an ensemble-in-residence with The Boston Conservatory High School Composition Intensive since 2013 and Longy’s Divergent Studio since 2019. Additionally, TC has held residencies with the composition departments at Harvard, Brandeis, Tufts, and Northeastern Universities, the Dancz Center for New Music at the University of Georgia, Vermont College of Fine Arts, the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, North Carolina NewMusic Initiative, Charlotte New Music Festival, University of Miami, and the Alba Music Festival Composition Program in Alba, Italy, among others.

Matt holds an M.M. in Marimba Performance from The Boston Conservatory and a B.M. in Music Performance (Percussion) from Baldwin Wallace University. Their primary teachers include Nancy Zeltsman and Jack Van Geem (marimba); Keith Aleo, Josh Ryan, and Sam Solomon (percussion); John Grimes (timpani), Sharan Leventhal (chamber music), and Dwight Oltman (conducting).

Matt proudly endorses Marimba One and Encore Mallets.

For more information, visit www.mattsharrock.com.