INTERSECTION MUSIC & ARTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CANADA BLACK MUSIC ARCHIVES PRESENTS:
Intersection Festival 2025 Day 3.1: A Radio Active Community Panel Discussion
918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education
3-5pm
ALL AGES
FREE
A Radio Active Community is a personal journey back to the heady days of Toronto's campus radio in the early 1990s. David Dacks, who volunteered at the University of Toronto’s CIUT-FM for 25 years, digs deep into his digitized cassette library of his own and his colleagues’ airchecks from all three Toronto campus radio stations to create a sound collage of music, commercials, custom station IDs, interviews, technical bloopers and above all, many voices making radio history in defining and unifying the city’s underground sounds. While CBC’s Brave New Waves has been rightly chronicled for its influence in bringing emerging music to a national audience, Toronto was paced by “the golden age of” campus radio which not only brought new sounds but up and coming culture - especially Afrocentric culture - social trends, politics and artists to as many as six million people within a listening range covering the GTA and New York state. A Radio Active Community addresses this somewhat overlooked time in Toronto and Canadian media history.
This special panel discussion at 918 Bathurst Centre will dive into the context, conflicts, triumphs and legacy of the era explored in the Dacks’ installation. Co-presented by the Canada Black Music Archives, the panel will be moderated by CIUT radio veteran Judy Perry and also include Phil Vassell (CBMA) and DTS (The Masterplan Show).
DAVID & SYDNEY DACKS:
David Dacks is a Toronto-based advocate of creative music in all its forms. He is currently Executive Director of Labyrinth Music Workshop Ontario and was previously Artistic then Executive Director of renowned experimental venue the Music Gallery from 2011-23. Previously, David was an editor of Exclaim Magazine’s coverage of jazz, R&B, experimental music, reggae, and music from around the world. His has also written for Spinner.com, The Grid, Weird Canada, BlogTO, Paste Magazine, The African Drum and Musicworks. He was a programmer and host at CIUT-FM for 25 years, and produced four documentaries for CBC Radio. As a musician and DJ, he recorded eight albums featuring wild combinations of electronics with dub, cumbia and improvised elements, and ran his own record label. David served on the Toronto Arts Council’s Board of Directors from 2017-23, and was a juror for Polaris Music Prize (Grand Juror, 2011), and Polaris Music Heritage Prize. He currently serves on the board of New Feeling Writers Cooperative.
Sydney Dacks is a Toronto and Montreal-based student and up-and-coming video game developer, completing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Sociology at McGill University, graduating this fall. Sydney is passionate about investigating the creative potential of the computer and about using technology for storytelling, and helping artists to execute their creative vision. They have built six video games in Unity and have another two under development. They have participated in several hackathons and Game Jams, winning the best VR Game award in the 2024 McGameJam. They have designed and taught curriculum for childhood coding education, centered on fun and engagement while providing IT support. Sydney is also interested in and has conducted responsible AI research with a focus on algorithmic fairness and data privacy.
https://intersectionfestival.org/2025-festival/day-3
Promotional Designs by Andrew Zukerman
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