Blair Mackay (Artistic Director), Hudson resident (1966), began his career in 1976 in Montreal playing, jazz and fusion music, while studying classical percussion with Pierre B?luse, and Robert Leroux. Since then, his eclectic performance career as percussionist and drummer has been highlighted in a wide range of musical contexts. In 1988 Blair completed his Master of Music degree in performance at the University of Toronto. Blair is frequently performing for radio, television, and film soundtracks, as well as performing and recording with many orchestras and small ensembles in Toronto, such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, Nexus percussion ensemble, and Hemispheres ( an ensemble that combined jazz with contemporary western music). Blair is also the principal percussionist with the Esprit Orchestra, an orchestra dedicated to the performance and recording of contemporary orchestral music, and a member of the contemporary music ensemble, Arraymusic.
As a soloist, Blair has premiered new works for drumset and percussion in a variety of contemporary, instrumental contexts and has been a featured soloist at festivals in Mexico, Europe, and Canada, as well as on CBC national radio. From 1994 to 1998, Blair toured and recorded with the Dangerous Kitchen Ensemble, performing the music of Frank Zappa in Europe, United States and Canada.
Since 1992 Blair has been artistic director of the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, who specialize in the development, performance, and recording of contemporary music for gamelan. Under Blair’s direction, Evergreen Club has: produced seven critically acclaimed CDs, that feature music written specifically for the ensemble by composers John Cage, Lou Harrison, Gilles Tremblay, James Tenney, John Wyre and Walter Boudreau as well as many others ; toured Japan,Indonesia, Europe, Canada and the United States; commissioned an extensive library of contemporary music for gamelan, and gamelan-plus (extending the gamelan to include guest soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestras, solo and ensemble dance, and auxiliary media).
Blair is committed to the development of his musical expression not only as a director and performer, but as a composer and co-leader for the septet Mosaic, and the trio, Pirate Jenny, which features vocalist Jennifer Moore and guitarist Bill Parsons, performing contemporary arrangements of works from the cabaret repertoire as well as original material.
