STILL LOVE LP

Now Available

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) is one of the world’s leading animation events providing screenings, exhibits, workshops and entertainment since 1976. OIAF is an annual five- day event bringing art and industry together in a vibrant hub, with a total attendance of 28,000 artists, producers, students and animations fans from around the world.

This year, the Ottawa International Animation Festival received a total of 2033 entries from 70 different countries. Of those, 101 short films and 5 feature films were chosen for competition. 'Unity', an animated choral work by Avant-Garde composer Christopher Bono and acclaimed animator Tobias Stretch won for BEST MUSIC VIDEO! 

'Unity' is an epic journey through time, spirit and mind. Surreal time-lapse worlds and intense life-size stop-motion animated characters converge to tell the story of a wandering being's transcendence to an otherworldly dimension beyond. Constructed from over ten thousand pictures and created largely outdoors over the long 2013-2014 winter, 'Unity' was made for an original choral work by composer Christopher Bono.

The techniques that filmmaker Tobias Stretch (Radiohead, Esterklang) used were all stop-motion animation with some software tweaks, while working with large, life-sized armatures as much as 10 feet tall. Tobias drew inspiration from Science, Expressionism and Life, all ideas that could be animated to show different states of mind, being and time as it related to the lyrics of 'Unity'.

Composer Christopher Bono  based 'Unity' on some of the musical and philosophical concepts of Plato's Republic. The chosen text was taken from a section of the Republic in which Plato discusses the power of mathematics.

Text from Plato's 'Republic':

“What is absolute unity?
This is the way, In which the study of One
has the power of drawing and converting the Mind
to the contemplation of True Being.”

A recording of Unity paired with Bono’s The Unexcelled Mantra, is available in 7” vinyl on Our Silent Canvas distributed digitally by Naxos.

New surreal, ambient-orchestral concept album "BARDO" is now available  on iTunes!

Our Silent Canvas is excited to announce the iTunes pre-order of Christopher Bono's upcoming album "BARDO".

With free streaming and the degradation of recording budgets, it has become much more difficult to produce detailed recordings featuring so many great artists. Our Silent Canvas believes the best way to contribute as fans and music-lovers is to support the artists who still believe that studio recording is a valid and serious art form. Please consider pre-ordering this album and sharing the news with your friends, supporting Christopher Bono, the non-profit label Our Silent Canvas, and all the great artists who contributed to this remarkable project. With your help, Our Silent Canvas will continue to bring captivating work to you in the near future.

"After working on this project for three years, I am elated to share it now with the world. It's been quite an amazing and unique journey, and you'll be hearing and seeing more about the details soon. This album was an engineering feat, and featured some of the world's greatest musicians (47 of them!) It was produced by myself, with the orchestral sessions produced by Grammy award winning and classical music legend, Adam Abeshouse. It features the playing of members of the Czech Philharmonic and Prague Philharmonic Orchestras conducted by the phenomenal young conductor Teddy Abrams. The lovely and incredibly talented singer and composer, Bora Yoon shares her ethereal vocals as one of the 'Voices of the Bardos'; and one of the world's greatest percussionists, Javier Diaz, played numerous Orchestral and ambient percussion instruments over four intense days of tracking at Our Silent Canvas' studio in Woodstock, NY. I composed the work, and contributed guitar, vocals, ambient instruments, electronics and co-mixed it with my dear friend, multi-grammy award winning engineer, Silas Brown. The album also is accompanied by the incredible artwork of my brilliant friend DZO Olivier, whom I worked with previously on the 2013 choral works. The iTunes version is accompanied by liner notes featuring six of Olivier's images offering an illustrated story of the Bardo Epic along a detailed description of the narrative."               

~Christopher Bono, composer/multi-instrumentalist

Voces Musicales will be performing Unity and The Unexcelled Mantra, two of Christopher Bono's mesmerizing choral works. Inspired by Christopher Bono's work, the concert entitled ,'Unity', will be performed in Estonia, a country rich with tradition of vocal music and 'classical' concert performance.

“Unity”
Kammerkoor Voces Musicales
David Puderbaugh, dirigent
July 1, 2014
Tallinna Õpetajate Maja
Tallinn, Estonia
8:00pm