RETURN SIGNAL - CLUSTER 2026

RETURN SIGNAL
Osmanthus | Mas Aya | Savant Flaneur, Chimwemwe Undi + Zoë LeBrun 
Saturday, May 30, 2026
The West End Cultural Centre, 586 Ellice Avenue
Doors/Show: 7:30/8:00pm

Mas Aya, the solo project of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, brings together traditional Latin forms and contemporary experimental sound in a live performance shaped by rhythm, voice, and ancestry. Rooted yet forward-reaching, Mas Aya merges jazz, electronic, and Latin influences into a fluid, unclassifiable sound that feels both familiar and newly imagined—intimate and expansive.

Blending acoustic, electronic and digital sources, Lanie Wosku shifts and morphs through a variety of forms. The immediacy of a violin, the versatility of a synthesizer, and the detachment of an algorithm interact and intertwine throughout the duration of this performance by Calgary’s Osmanthus, allowing the duo to respond, ignore, contrast, or coalesce

Slip into a confession booth, speak into a listening ear, and listen as your voice dissolve into a shifting chorus. With Psst! Savant Flaneur, Chimwemwe Undi and Zoë LeBrun host an evening of agnostic confession, avant-garde communal choristers, and ritual.

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Mas Aya is the name of drummer and multi-instrumentalist, Brandon Miguel Valdivia’s solo project, merging jazz, electronic and Latin traditions creating an eclectic, unclassifiable music teeming with subtle contradiction and restless intrigue. He has worked with artists such as Polaris Prize Winner Lido Pimienta, Polaris Prize Winner Jeremy Dutcher, U.S. Girls, Not the Wind, Not the Flag, Laaraji, Arnold Dreyblatt, amongst others.

Starting as a one-off pairing for a small gallery show in early 2019, the Calgary based duo of Laura Reid (violin) and Krzysztof Sujata (synthesizer and keys) quickly grew in activity. From starting recording in the summer and a mini-tour that fall, to an abrupt hiatus in the fall of 2020 amid life changes and a global pandemic, Osmanthus felt like the right project that began at the wrong time.

Savant Flâneur is an experimental music collective working on Treaty 1 Territory. Often referred to as “chamber punk,” Savant Flâneur expels the dichotomy between western art music and colloquial music scenes. Savant Flâneur is the idle virtuosi, ambivalent wunderkind, aimless and gifted.

Chimwemwe Undi is a poet, writer and editor based on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her debut full-length collection, Scientific Marvel (House of Anansi Press, 2024) won the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award in Poetry. She is Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate for 2025 and 2026.

Zoë LeBrun (she/they) is an emerging multidisciplinary artist of settler descent from and practicing on Treaty One Territory. LeBrun’s process-based practice is rooted in the exploration of video, installation, sound art, and painting.