School of Music

Dr. Both has been involved in a variety of innovative and educational initiatives. As founder and director of Acadia University’s post-secondary degree in Music Technology, for which he received the President’s Award for Innovation, he established support structures and attracted significant music industry funding ($125,000) towards the foundation of the Acadia Digital Recording Studio. Collaboratively with Prof. John Hansen, School of Music, a Yamaha Keyboard Studio ($25,000), a Yamaha Disklavier grand piano ($50,000) and a Kawai Digital grand piano ($35,000), alongside a substantial upgrade to the School of Music New Technology classroom and design were funded with assistance from Acadia University, and music industry partners such as Long & McQuade, Yamaha Music Canada and Roland Canada.

As researcher, Dr. Both has been a principal investigator, inventor and research collaborator in new media technologies, supported by external collaborative SSHRC/INE ($250,000) and CANARIE ($365,000) institutional research grants. Together with Dr. James Diamond, Jodrey School of Computer Science, he is currently holding a US patent (#2,489,256) for MusicPath, a smart phone based online real-time music MIDI instrument / teaching and performance tool, initially promoted at the Canadian Pavilion at the international CEBIT Exhibition Fair, Germany, on invitation of the Canadian International Trade Commission. Presented across Canada, Europe, Australia and the US, MusicPath represents a multi-year collaborative partnership with Acadia University, the Royal Conservatory of Music Toronto, and Yamaha Music Canada for which both principal investigators received the President’s Award for Innovation, were selected finalists for the Innovation Award, Discovery Awards for Science and Technology and received the Nomination Award from the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation.

As a professional cellist he served with the Giessen State Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany, and has performed with the Victoria Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia and PEI Symphony. As chamber musician, he has toured nationally and internationally with the Pacific Arts Trio, the Acadia Trio, the UpStream Ensemble (VICTO Records CD), SubText, and the Jerry Granelli Band (Songline Records CD) at the Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Guelph and Halifax International Jazz Festivals. He has collaborated / recorded with a wide variety of musical artists and ensembles such as the Toronto Evergreen Gamelan Ensemble (Artifact Music Records Canada CD) and toured Japan on a Canada Council Grant with the LeBlanc String Quartet and has recorded for CBC Radio and for the National Film Board of Canada.

His core ensemble Sanctuary Trio (with JUNO and ECMA nominees Jeff Reilly and Peter Togni), supported substantially through Canada Council and MIANS international travel/recording grants, presented over 100 concerts nationally and internationally in Germany, Switzerland, UK, France, Latvia, China and Russia, including prestigious concert venues such as the Shostakovich Hall in St. Petersburg and the Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai. Sanctuary Trio has released music nationally through ATMA, and internationally through Warner Classics UK (“The Heart has its Reasons” CD reached #22 of Top 200 Classical, iTunes Canada in 2017, JUNO Award nomination, MIANS Music Association of Nova Scotia), and Haenssler Classic Germany. Their latest CD, “Estuary”, released 2015 was nominated for ECMA East Coast Music Award.

Dr. Both’s ethno-musicological research has been funded by numerous Acadia University SSHRC Institutional grants, digitizing and designing an innovative online presentation platform of a large archival collection of East African music and media sources (www.missionmusicafrica.com). The fully indexed research-grade ready collection contains to date over 1000 unpublished East African songs and more than 10,000 other media resources. It was presented at the 48th Annual Conference, 2017 International Association of Sound and Audio-Visual Archives (IASA) at the Ethnomusicological Museum in Berlin upon acceptance through the Berlin Phonogramm Archive, Germany, one of Europe’s most recognized ethno-musicological archives.

Since commencement of his position at Acadia University in 1992, Dr. Both has been the founder of several community/public school string programs in the region of the Annapolis Valley and has been widely recognized as string clinician and music festival adjudicator in provincial music festivals. Collaboratively with Dr. Gillian Smith he initiated and is currently serving as president and curricular advisor for the newly created not-for-profit Acadia Regional Youth Orchestra Society (ARYO) community string program. Associated with Acadia University, the program recently received two grants from the Robert Pope Foundation ($14,000) as well as a large collection of 75+ string instruments valued at over $50,000 from String Music Atlantic. Recently, Dr. Both co-founded the Cedar Centre / Acadia Music Outreach Series located Windsor, N.S. in collaboration with the School of Music, Acadia University.

Christoph Both is currently a Professor of Music at the School of Music, Acadia University and has taught a wide variety of courses, including 20th century music history, violoncello, music technology, string methods/pedagogy, music appreciation, and chamber music (two qualifying national music festival student ensembles). In his current position, Dr. Both chairs the Strings program and directs the Acadia University Orchestra.