Sound
Breath
Resonances
The vibrational realm
Ida Toninato is a Montreal-based baritone saxophonist, composer, vocalist, and artistic director. Her work unfolds at the threshold between acoustic breath, electronic textures, and spatial immersion. Guided by a practice of deep listening, she approaches architectural space as an active collaborator: from abandoned industrial buildings to massive silos, she channels the acoustic memory of forgotten sites into expansive sonic environments where the body, the instrument, and the architecture breathe as one.
While her former professional years have been dedicated to written and improvised contemporary music, her solo path took root in her own daring musical intuition with her first solo album Strangeness is Gratitude. She gained international reputation with We Become Giants, recorded inside a former water reservoir.
For the sonic documentary called Le rêve d’Ida , she explores her relationship with sound and resonance through a dialogue with film maker Frédéric Dallaire and a team of sound engineers, amongst them Chantal Dumas and Ariel Harrod.
Continuously probing the interplay between physical resonance and virtual realms, she created the VR experience Listening to the Walls (a NUMIX Award finalist) in which the user is invited to co-create the soundtrack by exploring a virtual rendering of a real physical space.
Throughout the years, the low, resonant growl of her baritone saxophone started to meet with her ethereal voice: an encounter between transformative vulnerability and an assertive, physical force. Lately, Toninato has been exploring acoustic feedback as a practice mirroring her compositional approach of reverberant spaces: tiny jars become giant silos that are orchestrated by Toninato’s sheer attention to tension.
A prolific composer, she has written commissioned works for acclaimed forward-thinking ensembles including the electric guitar quartet Instruments of Happiness, improvisers Ensemble SuperMusique, and No Hay Banda. In parallel, she cultivates long-standing artistic partnerships: she shapes an intimate, experimental chamber-pop with violist Jennifer Thiessen. Their dialogue, sparked on the JUNO and Opus-nominated The Space Between Us, continued with Dream of Heat, released in 2026 on Ambiances Magnétiques. Along modular synthesizer and video artist Pierre-Luc Lecours, Toninato creates hybrid audiovisual performances. Their collaborative project Homeostasis opened the Biennale NEMO in Paris and toured internationally via the MUTEK network.
Lately, Toninato has deepened her understanding of resonance as a collective modality by developing her somatic practice. Gathering tools across breathing techniques, intuitive danse and mouvement, storytelling and meditation, Toninato creates grounding, transformative or uplifting rituals that help participants to connect to their deepest self. In this too, listening is her first key…
Celebrated for her ability to fuse raw power with introspective vulnerability, Toninato’s work resonates across international festivals, spatial sound domes, and experimental music platforms.
She holds a doctorate in performance from the Université de Montréal.
“Long near-silences with beautiful and terrifying reverberant tones that multiply in fractal form, each detail as rich and intense as its source. It celebrates the grandness of sound in space, but occasionally, as with the tiny voice that whispers amidst the rumble at the beginning of Pour Retourner Au Silence, it underlines our tiny place in that universe."
Exclaim!, February 2020
"And yet, for all its use of silence, this album of drawn-out compositions is nothing if not a towering work of momentous gravity, and sublime vastness."
The Ambientologist, March 2020
« Ida Toninato : arme de construction massive. L’écoute de l’auditeur se contorsionne autour de ce fin tissu pour en admirer les différents plis, et ce spectre lumineux se déploie si lentement dans l’espace qu’on le regarde passer et voler au loin avant de s’éteindre dans le silence obscur."
Le Voir, avril 2016
“The reverb is often thick and engulfing, and Toninato willingly strands herself amidst wisps of her own reflection, observing the various distortions of shape and opacity. There is an inherent curiosity to her process, more emotionally driven rather than scientifically so. She peers into an unknown that may be either wonderful or horrible. Her anxiety, excitement and intrepidity all feel vivid – it reduces notes to a wisp and causes others to bark in sudden, reflexive hostility. As her intimacy with the space increases during the course of each piece, her behaviour shifts accordingly.”
ATTN:MAGAZINE, mai 2016
À PROPOS DE L’ALBUM DREAM OF HEAT [AM 285]
IDA TONINATO ET JENNIFER THIESSEN // COMPOSITION
“This post-urban “Winterreise” that meets Blade Runner is superb, very contemporary, minimalist, and cinematic.”
PanM360, 2026
“… Cet album qui témoigne d’une réelle complicité créative, chacune d’elles sachant tirer le meilleur de l’autre.”
Le Devoir, février 2026
À PROPOS DE LA PERFORMANCE HOMEOSTASIS
IDA TONINATO ET PIERRE-LUC LECOURS // COMPOSITION ET INTERPRÉTATION
“La collaboration puissante entre les deux performeurs était hypnotique et dotée d’une force de caractère assumée. La combinaison des projections aux couleurs vives, invoquant l’organique puis le digital, avec le bruit lourd du saxophone baryton, couplée ceux de la guitare électrique et des synthétiseurs modulaires, créait un spectacle à couper le souffle.
astuvu.ca, août 2023
À PROPOS DE L’OEUVRE À TRAVERS LE TEMPS, ENTRE LES BRUITS
IDA TONINATO // COMPOSITION // INTERPRÉTATION NO HAY BANDA
« The full seven-piece group presented a composition called À travers le temps, entre les bruits by Montreal saxophonist and rising star Ida Toninato. The piece easily and engagingly flowed through three sections that began with fractured and plosive sounds rendered by bowed and woodwind instruments, as well as vocals by Sarah Albu and ondes Martenot by Daniel Aňez. Eventually, drones and overtones emerged, recalling the meditative deep worlds of Tony Conrad's Outside the Dream Syndicate, before developing into harmonics and musical forms. It felt like not only a share musical discovery, but also a symbolic knitting back together of people in celebration of art.”
Exclaim, mai 2022
“A minimalist piece that demanded attention from the beginning”
All about jazz, mai 2022
À PROPOS DE L’ALBUM THE SPACE BETWEEN US [AM 256]
IDA TONINATO ET JENNIFER THIESSEN // COMPOSITION ET INTERPRÉTATION
“The Space Between Us serves as a high point of that year’s recordings, and provides some superb listening.”
Avant Music News, juin 2019
“They create beautiful deep resonating, spatial textures. The music develops slowly in a calm way, giving duration to the created interplay of sounds and timbres. Their investigation on sound and timbre is hold together by a strong musical vision. Because of the deep sonorities the music brings you in a reflective and meditative state. A very inspired and moving meeting by these two musicians and their instruments.”
Vital #1133, mai 2018