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Radio // Anthology of Canadian Music: Electroacoustic music
    • 1
      Dripsody (1955), 2m00s
      piste@acm_37-1.1 oeuvre@10398
    • 2
      Mobile (1970), 1m50s
      piste@acm_37-1.2 oeuvre@10400
    • 3
      Blinkity Blank (1955), 4m55s
      piste@acm_37-1.3 oeuvre@10401
    • 4
      Pour M: (1987), 5m35s
      piste@acm_37-1.4 oeuvre@10402
    • 5
      … mourir un peu: Thème de la fuite (1984-87), 8m55s

      To escape, to disappear: the flight and the take off; “A rolling stone…”

      [ix-91]

      piste@acm_37-1.5 oeuvre@14278
    • 6
      Intrada: “Calls” (1975), 7m10s
      piste@acm_37-1.6 oeuvre@10404
    • 7
      piste@acm_37-1.7 oeuvre@10405
    • 9
      La Fiesta (1989), 10m25s
      keyboard controlled synthesizers, and tape
      • Premiere: 1989, Sergio Barroso • South Bank Centre (London, England, UK)

      La Fiesta (The Party) was conceived as a symphony of sound color forms derived from the telluric experiences of my tropical ear. The piece involves two sets of Yamaha DX-7IID(E!) and TX-802 synthesizers, one set to be performed live, the other recorded on tape. The result is a multitudinous web of synthetic sound designs having vocal, instrumental or electronic quality which are orgiastically combined between solo and tape to achieve the desired expressive idea.

      La Fiesta was realized at Ireme Studio in Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) in September, 1989 for the Rendezvous Festival in London (UK) with the support of the Canada Council [for the Arts]. It was premiered in October, 1989 by myself at the South Bank Centre (London) and has since been performed and recorded in Canada, USA and Europe. La Fiesta was recorded on the Anthology of Canadian Music: Electroacoustic music by Radio Canada International (ACM 37) released in 1990. The present version is a new recording realized at Ireme studio in Vancouver in 1995. La Fiesta was awarded at the International Music Council (IMC) International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music (IREM) (Oslo, Norway, 1990). La Fiesta was extremely difficult to create; I owe to Barbara all the encouragement to survive it. She switched me from the tracks of torture to those of magic.

      piste@acm_37-1.9 oeuvre@14295
    • 10
      Cordes de nuit (1986), 7m45s
      piste@acm_37-1.10 oeuvre@10399
    • 1
      Adagio (1986), 14m34s
      flute, and tape
      • Commission: Lise Daoust, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: April 19, 1987, Lise DaoustFestival des MANCA (Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France)

      The modern flute of Boehm has incited an extremely virtuosic repertoire: theatrical works with superficial musical content, special effects cataloging the instrument’s idiosyncrasies and technical possibilities, pastiches of famous romantic violin concerti. It is certainly an outdated repertoire, but remains very flattering for the performer.

      The instrumental part of Adagio was realized from 192 excerpts of virtuoso works well-known to any flutist (Boehm, Kuhlau, Tulou, Molique, Doppler, Fauré…). These excerpts are interspersed with quotations from the adagio of Mozart’s Quartet K 285 for flute, violin, viola and violoncello. Omnipresent both in the instrumental part and on the tape, Mozart’s adagio is intermingled with sounds of daily life: traffic, telephone ringing, a cultural radio program (in which Lise Daoust, the performer, is interviewed), television, music lessons.

      The writing is fragmented, and continually interrupted. The performer desperately tries to bring together all of the strewn pieces, to match them into a coherent discourse.

      Her imaginary pianist (in the concert version, a piano is placed near the flutist) serves as an anchor to reality. But she rapidly diverts.

      [ix-91]

      Adagio was realized at the composer’s studio in 1985-86 and premiered by the flutist Lise Daoust on April 19th, 1987, at the festival Musiques actuelles Nice/Côte d’Azur (MANCA, France). The current version was recorded at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal in June, 1991 and mixed at the composer’s studio. This piece was commissioned by Lise Daoust and realized with support from the Canada Council [for the Arts].

      piste@acm_37-2.1 oeuvre@14110
    • 2
      Big Bang II (1987, 95), 5m55s
      • Premiere: 1989, Images du futur, Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal (Montréal, Québec)

      “Endlessly oscillating between light and darkness, Big Bang II is simultaneously a requiem, a gloria and a Halleluiah celebrating the fragile paths of Mankind’s destiny…” -Georges Dyens

      In a postnuclear setting where all trace of human life has vanished, crushed remnants emerge from the layers of sand and stone, and the fragments of memory burst through the shadow mouths forming, singing, shutting up, screaming. An extravagant symbol evoking at the same time spiritual or emotional connections and social commentary, this very short representation becomes an imaginary journey, poetic and sidereal, full of the distress generated by our collective fear of the end of the world.

      Big Bang II was designed for a strange technological planet created by holographic sculptor Georges Dyens for a multimedia installation comprised of holographic sculptures, lighting, optical fiber and electroacoustic music, all this set in motion by a programmed synchronization system.

      [English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

      Big Bang II — music for the multimedia installation by George Dyens — was realized in 1987 at the Bruit Blanc studio in Montréal. It was created during the summer of 1987, as part of the international exhibit Images du futur at La Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal. This version was remixed in 1995 by Louis Dufort at the Université de Montréal. Bruno Bélanger performed the first mastering at PRIM, centre d’arts médiatiques, studio in Montréal (thanks to its coproduction program) in 2004. Dominique Bassal did the final mastering in 2005.

      piste@acm_37-2.2 oeuvre@10410
    • 3
      Lumina (1988), 11m45s
      piste@acm_37-2.3 oeuvre@10411
    • 4
      piste@acm_37-2.4 oeuvre@10412
    • 5
      Fancye (1975), 8m35s
      piste@acm_37-2.5 oeuvre@10413
    • 6
      Israfel (1987), 9m25s
      piste@acm_37-2.6 oeuvre@10414
    • 7
      Saigon (1984), 10m15s
      piste@acm_37-2.7 oeuvre@10415
    • 1
      harpsichord with MIDI system, computer, and processing
      • Vivienne Spiteri, harpsichord
      piste@acm_37-3.1 oeuvre@15276
    • 2
      Taxis to Burning Sky (1988), 7m50s
      piste@acm_37-3.2 oeuvre@10418
    • 3
      Fluke Sound (1989), 10m10s
      piste@acm_37-3.3 oeuvre@10419
    • 4
      Arras (1980), 9m55s
      piste@acm_37-3.4 oeuvre@13187
    • 5
      Cricket Voice (1987), 10m55s
      • Premiere: June 1987, Community Arts Council of Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

      To Norbert Ruebsaat

      “It’s hard to be a night in the desert
      without the crickets.
      You make it with stars.
      You make it with the skin
      of the desert night.
      You stitch those two together
      sky and earth.
      You find it with your cricket voice.”

      Norbert Ruebsaat

      Cricket Voice is a musical exploration of a cricket, whose song I recorded in the stillness of a Mexican desert region called the Zone of Silence. The quiet of the desert allowed for such acoustic clarity that this cricket’s night song — sung coincidentally very near my microphone — became the ideal “sound object” for this tape composition. Slowed down, it sounds like the heartbeat of the desert, in its original speed it sings of the stars.

      The quiet of the desert also encouraged soundmaking. The percussive sounds in Cricket Voice were created by ‘playing’ on desert plants: on the spikes of various cacti, on dried up roots and palm leaves, and by exploring the resonances in the ruins of an old water reservoir.

       

      Cricket Voice was completed at my own studio Inside the Soundscape with support from the Canada Council [for the Arts]. It was premiered in June, 1987 at the Community Arts Council of Vancouver.

      piste@acm_37-3.5 oeuvre@14314
    • 6
      Murmure (1989), 12m25s
      • Commission: David Olds / CKLN FM, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: December 4, 1989, CKLN FM (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

      In numerous myths, the creation of the universe occurs with a breath or a cry. From primitive African cultures to the Vedic texts of India, throughout China and amongst the Inuit People… the universality of a sound as the basis for the various cosmogonies is striking. And don’t the astrophysical theories of the 20th-century designate the first few seconds of the universe with the expression ‘Big Bang’? In the space of a few minutes, Murmure (Murmur) weaves the long journey from the original breath to the human voice.

      [xii-93]

      Murmure was produced using mainly voice sounds and the Yamaha DX7II synthesizer, at the Bruit vert studio in Montréal in 1989. It was commissioned by David Olds for his radio program Transfigured Night on CKLN FM in Toronto, premiering on December 4, 1989. Murmure was produced with support from the Canada Council [for the Arts]. Many thanks to Marie-France Lambert and David Olds. Murmure is part of the Anthology of Canadian Music: Electroacoustic Music on the Radio Canada International label (ACM 37).

      piste@acm_37-3.6 oeuvre@14140
    • 7
      La disparition (1988), 11m10s
      • Présentation
      • 1er mouvement
      • 2e mouvement
      • Le sommeil
      • Totem
      • La mort
      • Épilogue
      • Commission: GMEM, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: June 17, 1988, Jardin des Vestiges (Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France)

      To Ghislaine

      “I perceive in its whole a vast convulsion that brings the global movements of beings into play. It goes from the disappearance (la disparition) in death to this voluptuous fury which may be the sense of the disappearance.”

      Georges Bataille

      “What is going to rise comes from ancient times.”

      Jean-Luc Godard

      Rooted in this work lies the desire to hear those multiple and deep voices, that now belong to what we call History, rise together in one song.

      Through the sometimes violent embrace of sound materials, as distant and far away as our great music can be from the traditional music of other civilizations, one will recognize this vain desire to break the wall of silence, of the erasure, of the disappearance.

      Sadly ethnocentric would be such an act, if one had not learned along the way to cancel this distance, understanding that these now silent voices were then moved by the same force as today’s artist, that is of being the intercessor; then against the power of the spirits, now for the freedom of the individual.

      The orchestral and heterophonic quality which can define stylistically this work has been reached by following this compositional method: from the sound materials of environmental and musical origin (Beethoven, Große Fuge, Opus 133, traditional music of Africa, Melanesia, the Far-East) short Elements have been extracted. These sound elements were broken down into Fragments, then spatialized and assembled to form Families. These related-sounds families were transformed and accumulated into Clouds. These clouds of multiple materials were finally mixed to form the Starry Wheel through which, hierarchical connections are then made possible in all directions.

      [i-90]

      La disparition was composed from July, 1987 to April, 1988 at the studio of the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Marseille (GMEM), France, and in the composer’s studio. The work was premiered on June 17th, 1988 at the Jardin des Vestiges, Marseille, France. A commission of the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Marseille (GMEM), the work received support from the Canada Council [for the Arts]. La disparition was awarded the 2nd prize at the 1988 International Newcomp Computer Music Competition (Boston, USA) and was selected to represent Canada at the 1989 World Days of Music of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM).

      piste@acm_37-3.7 oeuvre@14053 ISRC CAD509010002
    • 1
      HeatNoise (1987), 11m10s
      piste@acm_37-4.1 oeuvre@10425
    • 2
      Fréquents passages (1987), 10m10s
      two Yamaha DX-7/E! synthesizers
      • Premiere: October 22, 1987, Eric Brown, Jean-François DenisZone de précipitations, Centre des arts actuels Skol (Montréal, Québec)

      “A local disturbance will cause rain showers. A high pressure region is following this low pressure system bringing with it cooler air. Today’s forecast: clear in the morning; sunny followed by frequent cloudy periods afterwards.”

      Fréquents passages is a live electroacoustic work for two performers (and two Yamaha DX7/E! instruments) and premiered on October 22nd, 1987 at the “Zone de précipitations” concert at the new art center Skol in Montréal (Québec). The version presented in the Anthology of Canadian Music: Electroacoustic music boxset is a live recording realized on September 10th, 1988 by David Jaeger for CBC Stereo during the 1988 CEC Electroacoustic Days, Diffusion! at the Music Gallery in Toronto (Ontario).

      piste@acm_37-4.2 oeuvre@10426
    • 3
      Below the Walls of Jericho (1988-89), 14m35s
      • Premiere: November 12, 1989, >convergence<, The Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, Alberta, Canada)

      The title is only a loose reference to the story in the bible. What interests me about the story is the idea of a large mass of people knocking down a wall through the use of sound. The story gives credence to the notion of music as a catalyst for social change. Beyond the sheer physical impact that a large number of sounds contain, music is a form of language which is capable of stimulating thought. The power of music lies in the simultaneous physical and intellectual seduction of the listener.

      In the composition, four hundred tracks of sound are often assembled to create the sense of a large mass. Three hundred and thirty-three tracks are created by dividing each of the seven octaves into forty-eight notes. Brass, string and wind instruments from the Western musical tradition and from other cultures are combined to create these textures. The remaining tracks are made from unpitched percussion instruments. This working method allows each track to have its own identity in terms of frequency and tempo. The relationship between each individual layer and the mass effect can act as a metaphor for the relationship between the individual and society. Beyond the music, the metaphor suggests questions of the nature of the walls we have to tear down in order for our culture to move forward.

      Recorded musicians
      Isaac Bull: bassoon, contrabassoon
      Paul Steenhuisen: soprano, alto, and bass saxophones
      Ian Crutchley: tenor saxophone
      Lorne Buick: bass clarinet
      Johanna Hauser: clarinet
      Michelle Cheramy: piccolo, bass flute
      Clemens Rettich: C-flute, soprano, tenor, alto, and bass recorders
      Glee Devereaux: oboe, English horn
      Mark Tynan: trombone
      Jamie Croil: trumpet
      Paul Fester: tuba
      Gwyneth MacKenzie: French horn
      Gary Sterle: French horn
      Marc Crompton: timpani, tom-toms, cymbals, glockenspiel, temple blocks
      Trevor Tureski: tom-toms, cymbals, vibraphone, marimba, hongos, congas, tablas, gongageng, kempeul, slenthem, sanon, snare, tenor snare
      Paul Dolden: acoustic and electric guitars, double bass, cello, viola, violin, dulcimers, sitar, banjo, mandolin, piano.

      Voices
      Diana Ganske: soprano
      Janis Clark: contralto
      Nick Curalli: tenor
      David Pay: baritone

       

      Below the Walls of Jericho was realized in 1988-89 at the composer’s studio and premiered on November 12th, 1989 during the CEC Electroacoustic Days, >convergence< at the Margaret Greenham Theatre of The Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta, Canada) — as the Berlin wall began to tumble down. The version of this work for percussion and tape, Luminous Hysteresis, was commissioned by percussionist Trevor Tureski with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Below the Walls of Jericho won 1st prize in the Electroacoustic category of the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Bourges, France, 1990). This work was reprocessed, remixed and remastered in the composer’s studio in 2001-02.

      piste@acm_37-4.3 oeuvre@13940
    • 4
      Rivage (1986), 8m35s

      Rivage (Shore) utilizes unretouched sounds from our urban environment (the noise of traffic, of industry, of business transactions…) bordered by electronic sounds. The title refers to the antinomy created by the clash of these two elements, a continual conflict, and symbolizes the interplay of contrasts, the shifting of a delta, which underlie the work.

      [v-94]

      Rivage was produced in the studios of McGill University in Montréal in 1986, with support from the Canada Council [for the Arts]. Rivage was awarded the 2nd Prize at the 1987 International Newcomp Computer Music Competition (Boston, USA), an honorable mention at the 9th Luigi Russolo International Competition (Varese, Italy, 1987), and a mention in the electroacoustic category at the 16th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France, 1988). Rivage can also be found as part of the Anthology of Canadian Music: Electroacoustic Music on the Radio Canada International label (ACM 37).

      piste@acm_37-4.4 oeuvre@14216
    • 5
      Matrechka (1986), 10m10s
      • Chaos (1987)
      • Gris acier (1987)
      • Outremer (1987)
      • Terre de sienne brûlée (1987)
      • Bleu de cobalt (1987)
      • Pourpre (1987)
      • Terre d’ombre (1987)
      • Premiere: June 1, 1986, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Trois-Rivières, Québec)

      To Lucie

      This piece, similar to Matrechka, the nest of Russian dolls from which the title originates, takes in the form of an unveiling, a journey where reality, of a certain form, gives place to another reality. It uses the theme, dear to surrealists, that art should never be mistaken for the object it represents. Thus, in a painting entitled L’air et la chanson (The Tune and the Song), René Magritte writes under what seems to be: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe).

      Thus, waves, breaths, even music originate from elsewhere; they are presented in unnatural forms. From a tumultuous exterior and chaos, we gradually progress towards a helpless and anxious interior. The sound objects progressively adopt new and unheard-of forms, and resemble less and less the real objects from which they arise.

      [ii-90]

      Matrechka was realized between 1984 and 1986 at the studio of the Université de Montréal and at the composer’s studio from sound material created for six holosculptures of Georges Dyens. The work was premiered on May 1st, 1986 at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). Matrechka was awarded the prize of the French National Federation of Electroacoustic Music, a Mention at the 14th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France, 1986) and the Métamorphoses d’Orphée Studio prize (Ohain, Belgium) at the 1st Phonurgia-Nova International Competition (Arles, France, 1986).

      piste@acm_37-4.5 oeuvre@14383
    • 6
      electronic percussion, and interactive system
      • Commission: Trevor Tureski, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: October 1987, Trevor Tureski • The Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, Alberta, Canada)

      The software for Obeying the Laws of Physics defines an interactive environment consisting of four timbral regions — each representing a different instrumental family. The percussionist explores each region and controls transitions from one to another using cues derived from specific percussion playing techniques.

      The computer knows no precomposed score — the performance is completely controlled by the percussionist and requires no intervention on the part of a computer operator.

      [ii-91]

      Obeying the Laws of Physics was commissioned by Trevor Tureski with support from the Canada Council [for the Arts] and premiered by him in October 1987 at The Banff Centre for the Arts. The present recording was realized at the Luscar Studio of The Banff Centre for the Arts in July 1990.

      piste@acm_37-4.6 oeuvre@14098
    • 7
      Chasse (1989), 6m25s
      piste@acm_37-4.7 oeuvre@10431