SEA/SKY

OUT NOW! Trio album with myself, Josh Zubot (violin) and Katie Rife (vibraphone). There are four accompanying music videos on my YouTube channel. The project was designed to include visuals from its conception, so please take a look at those!

Bandcamp Link (Currently available in Digital form only. Vinyl will be ready to ship in the coming weeks or can be purchased in person at a show.

Sea/Sky is a set of music and video that evokes the pristine beauty in parts of Greater Vancouver, the almost spiritual impact it has on me and the community, and the immediate challenge we face in protecting it from the threat of climate change. In August 2018 I hiked more than 40km over two consecutive days to get footage that Chris Gestrin masterfully manipulated into four music videos. I hiked to Lynn Lake with a black dress in my pack, and the next day up the Lions Binkert Trail with a white dress (my Mother-in-Law’s wedding dress) in my pack and filmed on location. I captured more footage at sea-level over the following winter and spring. The compositions feature myself on piano, Josh Zubot on violin, and Katie Rife on vibraphone. They aim to capture the same indescribable feeling I get in these significant places and invite the listener into a shared experience.

Cat Toren
Vinyl Pre-Sale On Now!

Many listeners have been asking if I’ll produce vinyl. I’ve teamed with Diggers Factory in France who launched a pre-sale campaign. If successful, we’ll manufacture vinyl in the Spring of 2021! Vinyl is quite costly to make, I understand it’s not the same as purchasing in it and having it right in your hands. I appreciate the support, if you love vinyl and you love our music, order Here: https://www.diggersfactory.com/.../cat-torens-human-kind...

To my Canadian fans: I see that the exchange rate from Euros to CAD isn't fantastic. Let's help each other and help others. For any Canadian who pre-orders Scintillating Beauty on vinyl, I will donate a portion to a Canadian charity. This is in the spirit of the band (HUMAN KIND), we started the group by donating album sales to the American Civil Liberties Union. $12 from each preorder in Canada will be split between the Atira Women's Resource Society & Ancient Forest Alliance (I couldn't decide!)

The Atira Women's Resource Society is a non profit working to end violence against women and children through direct services and increasing community awareness. Based in Vancouver. Ancient Forest Alliance is a British Columbian organization protecting endangered old growth forests. The donations will be made whether or not my vinyl campaign is successful. I will always be transparent, I'll circle back at the end of the campaign with details on the donations.

Here's the preorder link. https://www.diggersfactory.com/.../cat-torens-human-kind...

Cat Toren
Order Scintillating Beauty!

Cat Toren’s HUMAN KIND released our sophomore album, Scintillating Beauty on Panoramic Recordings.

“This is the sound of an artist coming into a next level.”
~ Stuart Derdeyn, The Vancouver Sun

Cat Toren
Scintillating Beauty PRESS RELEASE

Pianist/composer Cat Toren conjures music as healing force and hope for the future on the second album by her exploratory quintet Human Kind Scintillating Beauty, due out September 11 on Panoramic Recordings, evokes 60s spiritual jazz, sound healing techniques and positive activism 

If it hadn’t already been claimed by Albert Ayler, “Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe” might have been an ideal title for the second release from Cat Toren’s Human Kind. Over the course of the album’s four exploratory pieces, the Vancouver-born, Brooklyn-based pianist and her adventurous, deeply attuned quintet tap into the profound tradition of spiritual jazz exemplified by pioneers like Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders while offering a visceral balm for today’s turbulent reality.

The ultimate effect is vividly captured by the album’s actual title, Scintillating Beauty. Due out September 11, 2020 via Panoramic Recordings (an imprint of New Focus Recordings), Toren’s fifth album possesses a uniquely enthralling and invigorating kind of beauty. A practitioner of sound healing, Toren creates music that soothes the soul while quickening the pulse.

Scintillating Beauty illustrates how musical improvisation is a form of conscious communication,” Toren writes in her liner notes. “This album is being released during a time where voices who have been in the foreground instead amplify voices that have been kept in the background, so we may achieve a more perfect harmony going forward.”

Three years after its self-titled debut, Human Kind reconvenes with the same stellar line-up: Toren, saxophonist Xavier Del Castillo, oud player Yoshie Fruchter, bassist Jake Leckie and drummer Matt Honor. The group initially formed during the 2016 election season, as the mood of the country was turning decidedly bleaker. Scintillating Beauty was composed and recorded as Toren was feeling a glimmer of hope arising from that contentious period. Though its release coincides with an uncertain future marked by quarantine and mass protests, the pianist continues to feel a cautious optimism as another election cycle nears.

“I was feeling a surge of hope until very recently,” Toren says. “With everything we’re going through now, I honestly feel a little conflicted, but I don't want to diminish the fact that hope is something that we need and that was what was in my mind writing the music. The music is definitely tinged with some darker tones, but I meant for it to ultimately be uplifting and cathartic.”

Toren’s sense of optimism has been sustained in recent months by the birth of her first daughter. Though the album was already finalized by the time she arrived, the newborn helped to reinforce many of the ideas and emotions that Toren was already pouring into her music. The epic-length opening track, “Radiance in Veils,” for instance, travels metaphorically through progressive stages of human life, from innocence through struggle. 

“Life is very pure and innocent at the beginning,” Toren explains. “When you’re born you’re a beautiful baby, full of love and radiant. Human existence can put a veil over that light, so the piece is about trying to rediscover that inner radiance. When I look at my daughter I feel that when I see this innocent, perfect being.”

Inspiration for the music also came from two quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. that Toren includes in the liner notes. The first, from Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham City Jail, gave the album its title as well as a pointed social imperative: “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”

The second quote, from the sermon “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” begins, “We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” That thought provided a title for the second piece, “Garment of Destiny,” as well as suggesting a parallel between societal coexistence and improvised music.

As Toren describes, “That idea led me to think about how free improvisation was so related to his words in the way that we all affect one another. If you’re not a musician, free music may sound like cacophony, but it’s very much not. At any moment one musician might have something to say, so the others support that person; then the first person will listen as the next steps forward to say something else. Sometimes you end up talking over each other, but we’re all listening all those voices combine to make the music what it is.”

The term “Ignis Fatuus” is akin to a will-o’-the-wisp, a phantom light glimpsed by travelers at night. In Toren’s mind it references the delusions inherent in the chaos of political debates and social media misinformation, embodied in a bold, Mingus-like romp. Finally, “Rising Phoenix” looks ahead to a restoration from the ashes that can stem from more and diverse voices being heard and changing the world. 

Toren hopes that the music of Human Kind acts not only as a response to the world around it, but helps to exert that healing force that music can provide. She’s pursued that idea in a more formal sense, earning a Sound Healing Training Certificate from the Sage Academy in Woodstock, New York. On “Radiance in Veils,” she pairs with Stephanie Rooker, a professional sound healing facilitator and founder of Brooklyn’s Voice Journey Sound Center, summoning positive forces through drones using chimes, rattles, tuning forks and singing bowls.

“I’m just one person and my music can only do so much,” Toren concludes. “But I think it can be helpful even if it’s just energizing people to be in a certain vibe or mood. I’d like listeners to sit in the feeling that I created. That’s a positive connection we can share.” 

Cat Toren
Int. Songwriting Competition Finalist & People's Choice (Please Vote!)

My composition "Sanctuary City" is a finalist in the jazz category of the International Songwriting Competition - which means I'm also in the People's Choice Awards! You can vote for me once a day! That can really add up! Thanks in advance, xoxo 

Click here to VOTE! (scroll down to Sanctuary City)

Sanctuary City is a track on Cat Toren's HUMAN KIND (2017)

Cat Toren
Bill Evans's Twelve Tone Tune

Here is a rudimentary Post-Tonal analysis of Bill Evans's Twelve Tone Tune I worked out last year. I'll also add an article by a teacher/mentor of mine, Andy LaVerne, which is very informative. In case anyone out there is interested! I was lucky enough to see a copy of the chart in Evans's handwriting, where he dedicates it "for Marc". 

Below you see the Hexachord Analysis. Click here for the Trichord and here for Andy's work. 

TTT Analysis Cat 1.jpg
Cat Toren
New Article published on the online journal "Nothing To Say"

HUMAN KIND: Music for Empathic Activism


Cat Toren writes on the urgency of 'looking people in the eye, with our heart.' In this story of the people affected by her HUMAN KIND  project which toured cities across the political spectrum this Spring, we are challenged to reflect on our interpersonal place in society, both with our audiences and our colleagues.    Read Article

Cat Toren
We Only Have The Right To Our Work

This is a response to a meditation by Ian White Maher in which he discusses chapter 2, verse 47 of the Bhagavad Gita. This meditation can be found on his podcast

We only have a right to our work. We do not have a right to the fruits. The fruits should not be the motivation for your actions and do not shirk your work. — Ch.2 V.47

I don’t have the right to expect my music will touch anyone, help any cause or better anything. There may be no epiphany, no validation of a job well done. Ralph Waldo Emerson says “The reward of a thing well done is to have done it”. Nothing more is required of me. For I only have the right to my work. 

What I also have the right to are my intentions, and in intention lies hope. In Ian’s words, “The work gives the world hope, and in the hope lies the holy”. 

So, I continue writing and producing music, simply because it is the work I have been called to do. 

Does this take a load off? For me, yes! I will work with music simply for the hope that lies in my intention and nothing more. 

The challenge is working even when faced with overwhelming solitude, lack of recognition, unclear focus or depression. Here, my hope is to find the Joy in the work, itself. To simply continue, knowing it is my calling. 

By practicing non-dualism in my work (letting go of positive or negative outcomes), I practice non-dualism on the greatest level; the oneness of all things.

Do you find this verse a relief? Do you find it challenging to act out your calling? What has been helpful or motivational for you? Please leave a comment so we can learn from each other :)

Cat Toren Comments
Thelonious Monk Transcription

"April in Paris (Take 6)" transcribed by Cat Toren as played by The Thelonious Monk Quartet on "MONK" LP, 1964. View

For Monk's Centennial, I delved deep (well, even deeper) into his compositions, style and biography. I just can't get enough of Monk! Here's a transcription of one of my favourite piano intros to April in Paris. As usual, it's done to the best of my ability. It's always useful and important to listen to the recording along with the manuscript. Enjoy! 

Cat Toren