Spotlight on Chris Elson

Chris Elson has been on the Upstream board in one capacity or another since 2005 with a couple of breaks for sabbatical years. As a listener, the relationship is even longer: he attended some of the first concerts of the Upstream Ensemble and also reviewed their first CD in The Paris New Music Review (which evolved into the online new music site, Paris Transatlantic: paristransatlantic.com )

He’s involved with Upstream because he’s committed to supporting all forms of improvised music, to helping develop the community of players and the audience, and, as he describes, ‘selfishly’, as he just wants to have more opportunities to hear new and challenging music.

Born in Halifax, he lived here about 2/3 of his life. He’s a French professor,cross-appointed in Canadian Studies and a member of the King's-Dalhousie joint faculty. He works in the area of contemporary literature and culture with a recent book entitled In the Name of Friendship: Deguy, Derrida and Salut (Brill/Rodopi 2017).