[Jeu de temps / Times Play 2018]

Participants and Submissions

Winners / Gagnants | Submissions / Soumissions | Events / Événements | Awards / Prix | Jury

The five Winning Works and Composers, as selected by an international jury, are featured on a dedicated page. Visit the Awards, Project Partners and Support page to get an overview of the ample prize packages offered to these winners thanks to the contributions of JTTP Project Partners. The winners’ works are also featured in a number of Events, Concerts and Radio Broadcasts during the year, thanks to the dedication of our many Media Partners in Canada and around the world.

However, an equally important component of the project is that all submissions to each edition of the annual Jeu de temps / Times Play project are presented online; through this initiative the CEC offers continued support to a large number of young and emerging composers and sound artists. A total of 33 composers / sound artists submitted recent works to the 19th edition of JTTP. You can read the programme notes and composer biographies below and can also click on the work titles to listen to the pieces.

Submissions

Aaron ADDORISIO — Swell (6:55 / 2018)

David BERGERON — dot organic (6:33 / 2018)

dot organic was composed using a collaborative improvisation titled Tonal Recall as raw material. Dr. Nicholas Papador and I performed Tonal Recall for Noiseborder’s Infuse 24: Recall and Flourish. The fundamental idea of the improvisation was to have nothing prepared in advance with Ableton Live, starting with a blank set. As Nick began improvising, I recorded his marimba playing in real time and used what I captured as my source material, creating an organic sonic connection between us and a sound unique to the performance.Tonal Recall yielded moments with musical potential that inspired me to look beyond the live improvisation. Exploring this potential though layering and processing selected moments of the recorded improvisation led to dot organic. I view dot organic as a separate piece from Tonal Recall despite their sonic connection; Tonal Recall is both its own piece and the source material for dot organic.

David Bergeron is a producer and composer whose works are largely electronic. As a composer, guitarist and programmer his diverse interests and skillset is always present in his music one way or another.

Léa BOUDREAU — Recovery (7:19 / 2018)

Recovery est le cheminement long et pénible d'une guérison, autant mentale que physique. La route, parsemée de chutes et de faux pas, évolue selon un continuum aux articulations bien définies, évoquant les obstacles surmontés et les prises de décision modelant le parcours. Au final, la rémission est complète, les plaies ont cicatrisées et une sorte de paix intérieure est atteinte.

Recovery is a long and arduous journey through healing and closure. The progression, with its falls and faux pas, follows an articulated continuum that evokes the difficulties and the decisions made within the process. At the end, the remission is complete, the wounds healed and there is a sense of peacefulness.

Léa Boudreau est une compositrice et musicienne originaire des Laurentides. Après des études collégiales en composition/arrangement et tromboniste de formation, elle entame des études en musiques numériques à l’Université de Montréal. En septembre 2017, elle remporte le 3e prix Hugh Le Caine de la fondation SOCAN pour les jeunes compositeurs pour sa pièce Dementia, créée durant sa première année de baccalauréat. Elle œuvre en parallèle au sein de plusieurs groupes à titre de compositrice et/ou d’interprète.

Arash FAMIILIRANI — sine (3:03 / 2017)

Juro Kim FELIZ — Hanggang sa Takipsilim (Until Dusk) (5:43 / 2018)

In using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to create a series of sculptural works, Marc Didou’s idea of resignation to shun away the creator’s subjectivity paradoxically renders stasis and stillness as action and a proactive exercise of agency. Going further from this idea, one can remain still for a very long time and yet the order within chaos, the butterfly from the other side of the world, inevitably leaves a footprint of this existence as it causes vibrations within the landscapes of time and space. Within spliced planes and pixelated surfaces to render a sensation of flatness, a photograph of one of his “Échos” in Turin can’t help but expand its dimensions, emanating vibrations of surfaces and bronze shades transcending beyond its two-dimensional space.This work responds to the photograph’s (and the sculptor’s) “inaction” with using recordings of Filipino indigenous instruments and narrated stories to render the flatness of historical time and geographical space. A crude, manual process of granular synthesis occurs through pixelating and splicing recordings into shreds and combining them into tapestries of rough textures and echoing vibrations. Similar to the avoidance of automating the process, the political voices of the diaspora won’t subscribe to Didou's "resignation-as-action/creation" given their liminal, almost invisible presence among the global world order. Ongoing histories can never stand still; as political bodies, diasporic communities will never stop creating their own paths and resign against the forces of time. This serves as the starting point for encapsulating “echoes” of the pasts, presents, and futures within different intermingling spaces, as how Didou's open-mouthed sculpture is imagined to call out.Revealing the intertwined web of time and space, the work also includes a recorded excerpt of Hannah Guanlao’s collection of monologues named “Choose Your Own Perspective” (2016). Her work captures a millennial Filipino-Canadian’s response to current historical revisionism regarding the brutal dictatorship of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s.

Hailing from the Philippines, Toronto-based composer Juro Kim Feliz finished composition studies at the University of the Philippines and McGill University. Principal mentors include Jonas Baes and Melissa Hui, along with Liza Lim, Dieter Mack, Chong Kee Yong, Bernd Asmus and Linda Catlin Smith in various consultations. He received the Goethe South East Asian Young Composer Award (1st place) in 2009, and became a finalist in the 5-Minute Piano Concerto Competition of the Music Biennale Zagreb in 2017. His work Gandingan sa Kagiliran for percussionpercussion duo has been commercially released in the Millennial Masters, Vol. 7 CD album (Ablaze Records), and his music has been performed in music festivals and workshops in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel, Greece, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Vincent FILLION — Québécoiseries (9:15 / 2018)

La nostalgie comme matériau de base;
L’échantillonnage comme technique;
Le traitement comme enrobage;
Pour «faire du neuf avec du vieux».

Y’a comme une petite odeur de boule à mites…

Née d’un désir d’explorer des sonorités propres à la culture québécoise, cette pièce a grandi pour fuguer vers des terrains qui m’étaient inconnus. En me filant doucement entre les doigts, elle a cherché à s’affirmer loin de l’idée que je m’en faisais. Comme une grande adolescente, elle se cherche, instable; veut constamment (s’)explorer, parfois charmeuse; et ne demande qu’on prenne le temps d’essayer de la comprendre.

Nostalgia as a source material;
Sampling as a technique;
Treatment as a coating;
To “do something new with old stuff”…

Born of a desire to explore the sounds of Quebecois culture, this piece grew out of it to escape to lands that were unknown to me. While softly slipping between my fingers, she tried to assert herself far from the basic idea that I had for her. Like an older teenager she’s a bit unstable; she constantly wants to explore and is sometimes charming; and only asks that we take the time to try to understand her spirit.

Vincent Fillion est un jeune artiste sonore basé à Montréal. Adepte du field recording et du détournement audio, ses compositions plongent l’auditeur dans un univers concret et imagé. Entre acousmatique et ce qu’il aime appeler « lo-fi électroacoustique » se cache une expérience sensorielle immersive et portée sur la réflexion.

Vincent Fillion is a young sound artist based in Montréal. Passionate about field recording and audio hacking, his compositions immerse the listener in a concrete and pictorial universe. Between acousmatic and what he likes to call “lo-fi electroacoustics” hides a deep emotive and thoughtful experience.

Gilles FRESNAIS — Variations pour un verre et un cul-de-poule (6:32 / 2015)

Inspiré par les Variations pour une porte et un soupir composées il y a longtemps par Pierre Henri, j’ai tenté ces variations avec deux objets courants produisant de beaux sons qui se prêtent bien au montage et à de nombreuses manipulations permettant d’obtenir de les différents objets sonores que j’ai utilisés.

Inspired by the Variations pour une porte et un soupir composed by Pierre Henri a long time ago, I tried these variations with two common objects that produce beautiful sounds that are in fact very easy to edit and manipulate, and I was able to obtain a lot of different sound objects I used.

Assistant de recherche au Groupe de recherches de l’ORTF (GRM) de 1970 à 1974, alors dirigé par François Bayle, Gilles Fresnais concevait les pistes sonores de films confiés au GRM, a participé à la réalisation de la bande sonore et aux représentations de l’opéra de Maurice Ohana « Autodafé » à l’opéra de Lyon sous les directions conjointes de Theodor Guschlbauer et Claire Gibault en 1971, et a effectué en 1971 une mission d’enregistrement à Bali. Il a suivi en 2011 les cours de mixage audionumérique du Certificat en réalisation audionumérique de la Faculté de musique de l’Université Laval dirigé par Aaron Liu-Rosenbaum, puis a repris la composition avec les nouveaux moyens audionumériques. « Vox Æternam » est sa première pièce aboutie réalisée avec cette technologie. Il a participé en tant que compositeur de musique électroacoustique à quelques concerts, et certaines de ses œuvres ont été radiodiffusées.

Takuto FUKUDA — Super Colliders (video — 3:23 / 2018)

Super Colliders for any pitch-producible instruments /vocals is an audiovisual Game Piece, in which three musicians try to "kill" musical notes in a piano role representing a sequence of a piece on a screen. While notes in the piano role are moving continually in a 2 dimensional space on the screen, the musicians try to reposition dots to the moving notes by performing specific contours. The dots vanishes one by one every time the musicians succeed to collide the dots with the notes. Who deletes the notes the most?

Takuto Fukuda is a composer, sound artist and gestural controller performer. How can music alleviate the intercultural collisions today? This question awakened him to the social significance of the concert, which provides a shared musical experience to all audience members regardless of race, religion and nationality. In hope to attract more people to the concert, he has been researching the enhancement of “liveness” — what makes music live , such as spontaneity, corporeality and interactivity. His approaches encompass, among others, gestural control of music, interactive audiovisual installations and Game Pieces — compositions whose course is determined in real-time according to rules, chance operations and competitive strifes between performing opponents toward a goal. His pieces have been prized at several competitions such as Andrew Svoboda Memorial Prize (Canada), CCMC 2011(Japan) and Musica Nova 2010 (Czech). He has been pursuing his DMus in composition at McGill University.

Ilyaa GHAFOURI — Valence (7:33 / 2018)

Le geste et la surface. La manipulation de matières sonores synthétiques dans le but d’y induire différentes gestuelles et textures. Du grain d’un son au cœur des trames, Valence explore divers paliers de l’objet sonore. La forme étant inspirée des couches électroniques d’un atome, l’œuvre se déploie à travers la traversée de plateaux énergétiques, séparés par de courtes articulations. Les stases mettent en scène des espaces synthétiques distincts dans lesquels la matière se déploie sans vecteur de direction. Cependant, ces sections statiques comportent toutes un degré de stabilité unique ou particulier.

Gesture and Surface. The manipulation of synthetic sonic materials has induced them with different gestures and textures. From the grain of a sound to the heart of a movement, Valence explores different depths of the sound objects it orchestrates. The form is inspired by the principal energy levels of an atom. As the piece unfolds, we cross through different energetic planes, separated by short articulations. These stases stage distinct synthetic spaces in which matter deploys without any directional vectors. However, each static section is characterized by a unique degree of stability.

ilyaa ghafouri est un compositeur montréalais qui a gradué en 2018 du programme de composition électroacoustique du Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, sous la tutelle de Louis Dufort. Ayant fait ses débuts dans le milieu du cinéma et du théâtre, il se déploie dorénavant sur la scène acousmatique. C’est en tant qu’artisan de cinéma qu’ilyaa prend ses premiers pas dans le monde de la prise de son. L’exploration du monde par le microphone est donc devenue une pierre angulaire de sa démarche; pour la collecte de sons et de modèles organisationnels, mais surtout pour l’expérience vécue in situ lors de l’enregistrement, qui est sa source première d’inspiration.

ilyaa ghafouri is a Montréal-based composer who graduated in 2018 from the Electroacoustic Composition programme at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. Starting out working in film and theatre, he now brings this background to the acousmatic scene. His first steps in the world of sound recording were taken in the film industry. Exploring the world via the microphone has since become the cornerstone of his artistic process — for collecting sounds and organizational models, but mostly for the ephemeral experience experienced within the act of recording, his foremost source of inspiration.

Nolan HILDEBRAND — titel (2:40 / 2017)

Nolan Hildebrand is a composer, drummer and improviser from Winnipeg, Manitoba

Matthew HORRIGAN — taste / oh yeah, i guess (9:44 / 2018)

"taste / oh yeah, i guess" réalise un style de composition que j'ai poursuivi depuis cinq ans: celui d'une musique acousmatique qui communique son message en en atteignant dans le monde bouillonnant des enregistrements audio, et en attrapant ceux qui disent ce que je veux dire - en mots, et en des bribes de mélodie. La pièce est une "fanfiction" musicale, existant à une jonction entre les royaumes, à un endroit signalé par "Plexure" de John Oswald et des mashups comme "Wugazi" de Cecil Otter et Swiss Andy; cette fois, imprégné avec l'éthos de ce que j'appelle "l'expressionnisme acousmatique:" Cette combinaison de wooshbangerie montréalaise et de soundscapemancie urbain qui vise à renverser le cinéma pour les oreilles dans le territoire surréaliste aucune vision pourrait, ou peut-être voudrait, tracer.Je n'ai jamais obéi la notion que la restriction auto-imposée était utile pour faire de l'art grand ou bon. Nous héritons suffisamment de restrictions telles quelles - les lois de la physique, les capacités calculs des ordinateurs et des oreilles et du cerveau, le temps et les autres ressources accordé par nos conditions économiques respectives, etc - que de comprendre la liberté, et les limites de la liberté, qu'on a déjà, constitue lui-même une tâche presque écrasante. Avec "taste / oh yeah, i guess" j'ai fait mes premiers pas dans l'étendue de cette liberté.

"taste / oh yeah, i guess" realizes a compositional style i've been pursuing for the past five years: that of an acousmatic music that communicates its message by reaching out to the seething world of audio recordings and pulling in those that say what i want to say - in words, and snatches of melody. The piece is a musical fanfiction, existing at a junction between realms, at a place pointed at by John Oswald's “Plexure” and mashups like Cecil Otter and Swiss Andy’s Wugazi, infused, this time, with the ethos of what i call “acousmatic expressionism:” that combination of Montreal-school wooshbangery and urban soundscape-mancy that aims to flip cinema for the ears over into surreal territory no vision could, or perhaps would want to, map.I never bought the line that self-imposed restriction was the key to making great or good art. We inherit enough restrictions as it is — the laws of physics, the processing capacities of computers and ears and brains, the time and other resources afforded by our own respective economic conditions, etc — that understanding the full extent of the freedom one has to operate within constitutes a near-overwhelming task all on its own. In “taste / oh yeah, i guess,” I've taken my first steps into that freedom.

Matthew Horrigan est un compositeur basé a Vancouver. Ses poèmes sont apparu dans nombreuses magazines incluant ditch, Steps, The Veg, Poetry Quarterly et Infinity’s Kitchen, et ont aussi servi comme paroles pour ses compositions musicales, dont Kyrie (2015) et In the Minimal Senses (2016) ont gagné des prix dans les 2016 Concours de la Fondation SOCAN pour les jeunes compositeurs.

Matthew Horrigan is a Vancouver-based musician, writer and software developer. Matt holds a BMus in composition from McGill and an MFA in interdisciplinary studies from Simon Fraser University, and has taught computer music at the latter as a sessional instructor. Matt currently works on the Musebot musical metacreation project with Arne Eigenfeldt, and drums with rock acts Harley Small, Dumbpop and Reagan Mutt. As a sound designer and composer for dance and theatre, Matthew’s work has appeared around the BC lower mainland. Matt’s compositions Kyrie and In the Minimal Senses won prizes at the 2016 SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Awards.

Timothy ISHERWOOD — Before Dawn (1:50 / 2018)

Canadian composer Timothy Isherwood works with varying music and sound mediums. He has released two darksynth albums and numerous sound recordings. In 2018 he will release the synth LP POSTLove as well as an ambient piano/noise album titled Waving not Drowning. At St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto, Timothy became proficient as an organist and pianist. Studies at the University of Toronto and the Banff Centre for the Arts supported his music foundation within the realms of contemporary opera and the Roy Hart method of extended vocal technique. Studies at NAISA enabled his exploration in the field of electroacoustic and experimental sound art. Isherwood currently resides in Berlin where he performs throughout Europe, and composes film scores, audio tracks contemporary dance, and supports art forms with sound installations. In spring 2018, Isherwood was selected to compose in Athens on a sound/images project for Tempszero.

Dominic JASMIN — Sui Generis (8:04 / 2018)

Sui Generis, « dans son propre genre », est une pièce construite avec des techniques et sources sonores empruntés à la musique populaire dans le but de les détourner de leur utilisation usuelle pour créer un discours familier mais nouveau.

Dominic Jasmin est un jeune compositeur et improvisateur de Montréal. Son travail explore la dualité entre la musique pour support fixe et la composition spontanée, cherchant à consolider les deux pratiques souvent vues comme antagonistes. Sa musique est fortement influencée par la musique concrète, faisant utilisation des techniques de celles-ci de façon improvisée pour créer de riches textures sonores interreliées, à la façon des improvisateur qui répondent à la musique de ceux avec qui ils jouent.

Dominic Jasmin is a young composer and improviser from Montréal, Canada. He explores the duality of fixed media and spontaneous composition, looking to bridge the perceived æsthetic gaps between both practices. His music is based on musique concrète techniques like looping, sampling and effects used in a freely improvised setting to create complex layers of sound which are articulated in response to one another in real time, as free improvisers respond to the other musicians they are playing with.

Randolph JORDAN — Bell Tower of False Creek (video — 11:33 / 2017)

Bell Tower of False Creek is an experimental soundscape film investigating overlapping issues of urban acoustic design, indigenous land claims, and creative archival practices in the city of Vancouver, BC, Canada. The film uses the church bell as metaphor for the traffic on Burrard Bridge as it casts an acoustic profile roughly equivalent to the area recently returned to the Squamish Nation as reserve lands in 2002. Recorded on the 40th anniversary of the World Soundscape Project’s first major case study of Vancouver, the film juxtaposes archival recordings of the WSP members in conversation about the city’s endangered sounds with new audiovisual material exploring current indigenous presence around the bridge. Amidst the fog, listeners are invited to imagine the sound of traffic noise recasting the bells of old as markers of territorial boundaries, challenging stereotypical biases against urban noise pollution (typical of the work of early acoustic ecology) in order to rethink narratives that posit the death of indigenous culture in the face of modernization.

Christopher LAROSA — hatch (6:02 / 2016)

hatch/haCH/verb1. (of birds, reptiles, fish, insects) to emerge from an egg.2. (in fine art and technical drawing) to shade with closely drawn parallel and/or perpendicular lines to create texture, value, and the illusion of form and light.3. to devise a plan.noun a small door or opening, allowing passage from one area to another.• a door in a submarine, airplane, or spacecraft.• an opening in the deck of a boat or ship leading to the cabin or a lower level.• an opening in a ceiling leading to a loft.

Christopher LaRosa’s music exhibits a fascination for temporal perception, human aggression and compassion, natural phenomena and technological advancements. His music has been performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia by ensembles such as the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, United States Marine Band, Boston New Music Initiative, CEPROMUSIC, Genesis Chamber Singers and NOTUS, as well as by soloists such as pianist Thomas Weaver, Gregory LaRosa (percussion) and James Kibbie (organ). LaRosa’s electronic music has received performances at the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, Seoul International Computer Music Festival and Electronic Music Midwest. He has received commissions from the American Guild of Organists, Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association and Hartford Symphony Orchestra. LaRosa holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and studied electronic music creation and critique at IRCAM in Paris.

Nick LAVIGNE — Elegiac (8:00 / 2018)

Elegiac was composed as three separate movements with the intent of eventually connecting them all into a larger scale composition. As the composition began to take shape, certain sounds, gestures, and textures began to take on mournful, vocal-like qualities which brought to mind something not unlike an elegy.

Nick Lavigne is a composer and sound designer focusing on acousmatic and experimental electronic music, and sound design for film. He is currently enrolled in Concordia University’s Electroacoustic Studies program in Montreal.

David LEDOUX — (Cathédrales : I) Ville Aux Cent Clochers (11:30 / 2018)

Le projet Cathédrales est un parcours acousmatique conçu pour dôme de hautparleurs qui aborde l’immersion sonore et l’esthétique d’un « montrage » pour l’oreille en s’inspirant du bâtiment lui-même. Ville aux cent clochers constitue la première partie de ce parcours, où les clochers sont à l’honneur en tant que point de repère citadin, à la fois visuel et sonore. Sans toutefois se limiter aux cloches d’église, cet essai s’inspire également de l’écologie sonore et de la vie montréalaise pour interpréter la relation spatio-temporelle entre l’individu, le milieu urbain et les sons propres à son identité.

Cathédrales is an acousmatic journey, conceived for a dome of loudspeakers, that presents sound immersion as a “montrage” (from the French montrer and montage) for the ear, inspired by the physical and sonic presence of churches in Montréal. The journey’s first part, Ville aux cent clochers [City of a Hundred Bell Towers], spotlights bell towers as both urban landmark and soundmark. Although the main sound sources are not limited to traditional church bells, this spatial essay takes its inspiration and sound materials from acoustic ecology and Montréal’s city life, in order to interpret the spatio-temporal relationship between the individual, the urban environment and the sounds that are specific to its identity.

Étudiant à la maîtrise à l’Université de Montréal sous la direction de Robert Normandeau, David Ledoux s’intéresse particulièrement au potentiel immersif du médium électroacoustique, à travers la spatialisation multidimensionnelle du son. Sur le plan esthétique, son travail s’entend comme un « montrage » acousmatique, employant des sons reconnaissables afin de créer du sens dans un contexte d’immersion sonore. Les environnements sonores virtuels qu’il réalise engagent l’auditeur dans un circuit d’échange perpétuel, entre les sons et la musique, et mettent en lumière la musicalité des environnements sonores naturels. Il a récemment reçu le Prix Marcelle édition 2018, décerné par les membres du corps enseignant de la faculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal, pour sa plus récente création Cathédrales (2018), alors que son travail antérieur a été sélectionné dans plusieurs évènements internationaux, incluant KLG à l’Université de Hambourg (DE), inSonic au ZKM (DE), EmuFest au Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia (IT) et Cube Fest à Virginia Tech (É.-U.).

As a graduate student at the Université de Montréal, under the supervision of Robert Normandeau, David Ledoux’s interests lies particularly in the immersive potential of the electroacoustic medium, through multidimensional sound spatialization. On the æsthetic level, his work, presented in numerous international events, is heard as an acousmatic montrage, employing recognizable sounds to create sense in an immersive context. The virtual auditory environments he creates engage the listener in a constant circuit of exchange, between sounds and music, spotlighting the musicality of natural auditory environments. In 2018 he was awarded the Marcelle Prize by professors and teachers from the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Music for his most recent work Cathédrales (2018), while his past work has been presented in international events, including KLG at the University of Hamburg (DE), inSonic at ZKM (DE), EmuFest at Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia (IT) and Cube Fest at Virginia Tech (US).

Xavier LEÓN — Nadie Es Ilegal (4:49 / 2017)

Nadie Es Ilegal explores themes of familial estrangement from forced migration, border politics and deep desires of reconnection.

Xavier León is a composer from Montréal. He is a student of electroacoustic at Concordia University and a member of the artist collective, susy.technology. Léon releases music under the name Witnessing.

Maxwell LUCAS — Rainbow Phase Mechanism (12:00 / 2017-18)

Rainbow Phase Mechanism explores repeated percussive attacks in a variety of timbres. Each percussive 'voice' maintains its own tempo and pulse phasing in and out with other repetitive gestures that occur simultaneously. The listener is encouraged to trace individual 'voices' and to listen for rhythms and that emerge from the texture.

Jon MARTIN — III - Seven Vignettes (14:31 / 2017)

Seven Vignettes est le troisième et dernier mouvement d’Open Doors and Parallel Windows (2017), une composition paysage sonore qui est construite entièrement de prises de son d’environnements sonores faites au Canada, aux États-Unis, en France, en Allemagne et au Japon. Contenant une série composée de sept courtes sections, Seven Vignettes développe une narration abstraite à travers le développement du timbre et de la gestuelle présenté dans les deux premiers mouvements de cette œuvre. La présentation simultanée de sons connus et inconnus dans chaque scène défie le biais préférentiel de l’auditeur, sa connaissance expérimentale et sa relation avec son environnement.

Seven Vignettes is the third and final movement of Open Doors and Parallel Windows (2017), a soundscape composition consisting entirely of environmental and soundscape recordings made in Canada, the United States, France, Germany and Japan. Containing a series of seven short sections, Seven Vignettes develops an abstract narrative through the expansion of timbral and gestural materials presented in the first two movements of the work. The simultaneous presentation of known and unknown sound materials in each scene challenges the listener’s preferential bias, experiential knowledge and relationship with their environment.

Jon Martin est un musicien et compositeur canadien/britannique résidant à Lethbridge, en Alberta. Il a obtenu son master en musicologie à l’université de Lethbridge en 2017, et se vit attribuer la médaille de mérite pour excellence académique. Ses recherches examinent la relation entre le timbre, le geste et l’émotion extraite dans le son enregistré. En plus de son travail en tant que compositeur électroacoustique, Jon compose et interprète avec son groupe, The New Weather Machine, et travaille en tant que producteur de disques pour la Green Recording Company. Ses compositions ont été utilisées dans des films, à la télévision et dans des galeries d’art, dont une exposition permanente au Royal Tyrrel Museum à Drumheller, Alberta. Il s’inspire notamment du potentiel du son, du processus et de ses recherches dans le champ de la psychologie cognitive.

Jon Martin is a Canadian/British musician and composer residing in Lethbridge, Alberta. He completed his Master of Music degree at the University of Lethbridge in 2017 and was awarded the graduate Medal of Merit for academic excellence. Jon’s research examines the relationship between timbre, gesture and the elicitation of emotion in recorded sound. In addition to his work as an electroacoustic composer, Jon writes and performs with his band, The New Weather Machine, and works as a record producer at Green Recording Company. His compositions have been featured in film, television and gallery exhibitions, including a permanent exhibit at the Royal Tyrrel Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. He is inspired by sound potential, process and research in the field of cognitive psychology.

Noah MCROBBIE — Odyssey // Arrival (10:29 / 2018)

An astronaut hurled across space and time

Noah McRobbie is an electroacoustic and hip-hop composer from Edmonton, Alberta. Above all else, he loves experimenting with the boundaries of digital music creation.

Julia MERMELSTEIN — wonted I, II, III (12:18 / 2017)

wonted explores habitual sounds from daily routines, usually experienced as background. These sounds become the focus through warped and distorted perspectives until they are gradually revealed in their environment. There’s a juxtaposition between these activities and electronically sculpted sonorities that create underlining emotions behind the tasks at hand, invoking what might be there subconsciously.

Julia Mermelstein is a Toronto-based composer, originally from Halifax. Her music focuses on detailed tone colour, textures and gestural movement that reveal evocative, immersive and subtly changing soundscapes. She works extensively with electronics, blending acoustic and electronic sound worlds in seamless interactions. Her music takes influence from Buddhist philosophy, psychology and ritualistic tendencies that shape her relationship to form, stillness and sense of space. Julia’s music has been commissioned and performed by leading ensembles, including Blue Rider Ensemble, the Array Ensemble, Ensemble Arkea, Quatuor Bozzini, Toy Piano Composers Ensemble and Windermere String Quartet, among others. Her compositions have been presented at OUA Electronic Music Festival 2017 in Osaka, NAISA’s Deep Wireless Compilation, The Movement Gallery, Festival of Original Theatre and at the Open Ears Festival. Julia received a BFA specializing in Composition under Georges Dimitrov from Concordia University (Montréal) in 2013.

Claude PÉRIARD — Terrains vagues (9:30 / 2017)

Le mot utopie provient du mot grec topos, qui signifie lieu. Foucault évoque les concepts d’hétérotopie et d’utopie dans Les espaces autres, et explore la notion d’espace. L’utopie est donc un lieu imaginaire. En création sonore, expérimentale ou électroacoustique, la notion d’espace est omniprésente, déjà introduite par les Imaginary Landscape de John Cage. C’est que l’espace est une dimension centrale du médium sonore. D’un point de vue psychoacoustique, le son nous informe sur notre environnement spatial. Terrains vagues explore donc trois lieux sonores distincts : 1. Plage blanche, 2. Chambre noire, et 3. Zone grise. Le blanc et le noir additionné donne le gris. C’est le modèle dialectique; position, opposition, composition. La pièce, qui se veut un voyage à travers des mondes mentaux, met en opposition des sons liquides et aquatiques avec des sons électroniques, comme métaphore de la société liquide. Aussi, l’eau est symbole de l’origine de la vie, et sa mise en contraste avec l’électronique évoque l’époque hypertechnologique de l’humanité. La fonte des glaciers et les inondations à venir rappellent aussi que l’eau a une force de destruction des dispositifs électroniques. Les sonorités d’eau et d’électronique agissent ici comme deux forces antagonistes. Paradoxalement, notre électricité est produite par l’eau…

The word utopia comes from greek word topos, that means place, space. Therefore, an utopia is an imaginary space. The notion of space is central in the medium of sound. It's maybe explained by the psychoacoustic rôle of the faculty hearing, which is to access informations about the surrounding space. John Cage already brought this idea within his Imaginary Landscapes, at the very early beginning of the electroacoustic medium. Terrains vagues tries so to create three utopias that can be seen as soundscapes : 1- Plage blanche (white beach), 2- Chambre noire (Black room), 3- Zone grise (Grey zone). White + black = grey. It is based on the dialectic model. The first and the third spaces are exterior lands, and the second propose an interiority (EXT-INT-EXT). The piece wants to be a travel through those three mental and imaginary spaces and put in opposition water and liquid sounds with electronic sounds, as a metaphor of the ''liquid society'', which is a sociological concept explaining our decades. On the other hand, water is the symbol of life origin, so the contrast between those water sounds and the electronics ones recall the hypertechnological era of humanity. The glaciers melting and the waterfloods to come remember us of the destruction power of water upon electronic devices. Paradoxically, our electricity in Quebec is made from water streams (hydro-electricity).

Touche-à-tout et éternelle curieuse, Claude Périard est d’abord issue du monde de la musique. C’est par une formation en piano classique que son intérêt s’éveille pour le médium musical. Elle fait paraître une douzaine d’albums de musique, publie textes, nouvelles et poèmes dans des publications indépendantes, expose toiles et sculptures. En 2013, elle entreprend un baccalauréat en musiques numériques à l’Université de Montréal et oriente de plus en plus sa pratique vers les nouveaux médias (vidéo, art sonore, installation multimédia). Créature multiforme toujours affamée d’exploration, c’est le désir de DIRE qui agit comme moteur de tout son œuvre, à caractère politique, féministe et philosophique.

An eclectic and eternally curious being, Claude Periard belonged at first to the musical world. Through studies in classical piano, her interest for sound as a medium was awoken. She has released a dozen music albums, has published essays, short stories and poems in independent publications, and exposed paintings and sculptures. In 2013, she began a Bachelor’s degree in electroaccoustic studies at Université de Montréal and orients increasingly her practice towards new medias such as video, sound art and multimedia installation. Multiform cyborg creature, always eager for more exploration, it is the desire to EXPRESS that fuels her politically, philosophically and feminist-charged work.

Kasey POCIUS — Calm Into Storm (5:14 / 2018)

“Calm into Storm” is a multichannel soundscape work composed by Kasey Pocius between February & April 2018, meant as a sonorization of the bird chatter often present before a storm, with the birds growing quiet as the storm approaches and washes over. All sounds occupying the soundscape have been made from processing one of three files. It was composed in part for requirements of the second year Electroacoustic composition course at Concordia.

Originally from St. John’s (Newfoundland), audio artist Kasey Pocius grew up experimenting with audio editing and MIDI sequencing software while also pursing classical training in both viola and piano. In late 2014, Kasey began to concentrate more intensively on the creation of digital audio works. Initially the focus of this work was on more traditional tone-based works but has since quickly been realigned towards the pursuit of electroacoustic composition, notably through entering the Electroacoustic Studies programme at Concordia University in Montréal.

George RAHI — Opening to the Surround (8:54 / 2017)

Using field recordings of birdsong, radio transmissions, and Indonesian gamelan instruments, Opening to the Surround explores our capacities for different modalities of listening. The composition draws from Pauline Oliveros’s listening meditations and her theorization of two distinct modes of listening which she calls ‘global attention’ and ‘focal attention’. For Oliveros, ‘focal attention’ is likened to a lens that produces clear, object-oriented details of sounds. ‘Global attention’ is described as being of a diffuse nature, sensitive to the entire flow of sound and its overlapping dimensions. In Opening to the Surround, a state of continual flux between focal and global attention is developed, which asks the listener to perceive time passing at different rates of pulsations and to shift between focal and global attention to navigate the unsteady field.

George Rahi is a composer, sound artist and instrument maker exploring new hybrids between the acoustic, electronic, mechanical and sculptural. He commonly works across a diverse array of interests including electroacoustic music, robotics and large-scale instruments such as the pipe organ and the Indonesian Gamelan. He has produced work for the Western Front, Vancouver New Music, Miscellaneous Productions, VIVO Media Arts Centre and Vancouver Co-op Radio’s Media Arts Committee. He is a founding member of the percussion ensemble Gamelan Bike Bike and art collective Publik Secrets, currently in residence at the Hadden Park Field House, unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Jérémie RICARD — Rester Calme (7:30 / 2018)

Nous le savons, la musique permets de moduler notre niveau de stress. Pour qu'elle soit relaxante, une musique se doit d'avoir un tempo lent et stable, un volume bas, une absence de rythme accentué ou percutant et un timbre doux. Pour les prochaines minutes, je vous invite donc à rester calme.

As we know, music allows us to modulate our level of stress. A relaxing music must be at a low volume, it must have a slow and stable tempo, without accentuated or percussive rhythm and a soft timbre. For the next few minutes, I invite you to stay calm.

De 2000 à 2005, Jérémie Ricard a fait ses études en musique, en enregistrement et en sonorisation au Cégep de Drummondville. C’est à cette époque qu’il a été initié à la musique électroacoustique et à ses méthodes de création. Depuis, il a toujours été fasciné par les sons de toutes natures et à leurs porter une attention particulière. Après ses études, il a participé à plusieurs sessions d’enregistrement et de mixage en studio mais c’est surtout le travail de sonorisateur qui a occupé ses dix dernières années. Il a joué de la batterie dans plusieurs projets musicaux où il en profita pour améliorer ses techniques de mixage et de prise de son en enregistrant chaque répétitions. Avec les années, il a fait quelques ébauches de composition qui se voulaient électroacoustique mais c’est en automne 2015 qu’il décide d’approfondir ses connaissances sur ce style musical en allant étudier à l’Université de Montréal.

From 2000–2005, Jérémie Ricard studied music, recording and sound reinforcement at Cégep de Drummondville, where he was introduced to electroacoustic music and its creative methods. Since then, he has been fascinated by all kinds of sounds around him and has showed a particular interest in them. Following his studies he participated in several recording and mixing sessions in the studio but his work over the past ten years has mainly been as soundman. He also played drums in several musical projects, taking the opportunity to improve his mixing and sound recording techniques by recording each and every rehearsal. Over the years, he made some sketches of composition that tended towards electroacoustics, and finally in autumn 2015 he decided to deepen his knowledge of this musical style by returning to study at Université de Montréal.

Pierre-Luc SENÉCAL — PFTP (5:25 / 2015)

L'idée de PFTP m'est venue à l'été 2013, alors que j'écoutai l'infâme film d'horreur « A Serbian Film » suivi d'un DVD des plus belles chorégraphies de Pina Bausch. J'imaginai alors à quoi ressemblerait un film gore s'il était dirigé par la célèbre chorégraphe. La ligne est si fine entre brutalité terrible et beauté transcendantale, et PFTP est une fabulation musicale abstraite de cette idée. L'acronyme "politically correct" de la pièce est laissé à l'imagination de l'auditeur. Cette étude acousmatique portant sur les techniques de mixage a été réalisée en mai 2015 dans les studios de l'Université de Huddersfield, puis remixée en 2017. Merci à Pierre Alexandre Tremblay et aux ingénieurs de mastering Stéphane Claude et Dominique Bassal.

The idea for PFTP came to me during the summer of 2013, when I watched, in a single evening, infamous horror movie "A Serbian Film" and a DVD of Pina Bausch's greatest choreographies. I envisioned how a gore movie would look if it were to be directed by the famous choreographer. The line between terrible brutality and transcending beauty is ever so fine, and PFTP is the musically abstract outtake of this idea. The politically correct acronym for the piece's title, I leave up to the listener to discover.This acousmatic study in mixing techniques was realized in May 2015 in the University of Huddersfield's studios, and remixed in 2017. Thanks to Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, and mastering engineer Stéphane Claude and Dominique Bassal.

Compositeur, artiste sonore et critique musical, Pierre-Luc Senécal est reconnu pour sa curiosité et sa passion invétérée en vers le son. Touche-à-tout, il réalise autant de la musique électroacoustique que des trames sonores pour la danse, le film et le théâtre. Profondément inspiré par les musiques rock, pop et heavy métal, il insuffle dans ses pièces électroniques sa sensibilité pour le lyrisme, la narrativité et le poétique.

Composer, sound artist and music critic Pierre-Luc Senécal is known for being curious and dashingly passionate about sound. Jack of all trades, he composes electroacoustic music as well as soundtracks for dance, film and theatre. Profoundly inspired by rock, pop and heavy metal, he infuses in his electronic pieces his sensitivity for lyricism, storytelling and poetics.

Vanessa SORCE-LÉVESQUE — Boarder Crossing (10:10 / 2017)

Composed for The Quota, a live role-play experience, in December 2017, this stereo acousmatic piece is designed to evoke a metaphorical and imaginary environment more than a purely acoustic one. This LARP (Live Action Role-Play) situates the participants, which constitute the original audience for this piece, in the context of embodying the journey of a refugee, leaving their country with urgency, in a desperate attempt to reach a safer land. Composed during an Erasmus+ Placement at EMS studios (Stockholm).

À travers son art, Vanessa cherche à partager la richesse des découvertes fortuites. Le contact avec l’autre, les mélanges culturels, les superpositions d’environnements et les mondes poétiques font constamment partie de son univers musical. Forte d’un prix avec distinction en composition électroacoustique du conservatoire de musique de Montréal, elle est fréquemment représentée dans nombre d’événements à travers le monde. Sa musique a été entendue entre autres au ZKM (DE), aux festivals NWEAMO (JP/ÉU), Miso Music (PT), NYCEMF (ÉU), TES (CA), Ai-Maako (CL), FRST (SE), MOKS (EE) et l’une de ses dernières œuvres a étée primée dans la 17e édition de Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP), coordonné par la Communauté électroacoustique canadienne (CEC). Elle étudie actuellement les différentes occurrences d’environnements, culturels et poétiques, dans les musiques électroacoustiques. Elle est basée à Stockholm depuis octobre 2017.

As an artist, Vanessa Massera is fascinated by the manifestations of serendipity in life. Originating from Montréal, she specialized in electroacoustic music, a medium she now uses as a means to express poetic ideas whilst being anchored in the many different spaces and cultural environments she is inspired by. Her works have been performed amongst others at the ZKM (DE), NWEAMO Festival (JP/US), EMUFest (IT), Miso Music (PT), NYCEMF (US), TES (CA), Ai-Maako (CL), FRST (SE), MOKS (EE) and one of her latest works was awarded 2nd Prize in the 2016 edition of Jeu de temps (JTTP), coordinated by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC). She now works in Stockholm as a freelance composer and performer.

Valentin STIP — The Red Pill (2:28 / 2018)

The Red Pill, pour cinq enceintes, est une exploration des possibilités musicales, perceptives et électroacoustiques offertes spécifiquement par le format multi-canaux. Par là, la pièce s’efforce de n’imposer aucune perspective d’écoute à l’auditeur. À cette fin, l'introduction se veut exprimer les 'frontières' ou 'limites' perçues de 'l'espace acoustique’, tel qu’il est créé par les cinq enceintes. Ces limites se dissolvent ensuite dans une exploration de l'espace immersif sonore. Finalement, le role du temps comme composante subjective de notre perception sonore est examiné dans un geste final.

The Red Pill, for five-channels, is a piece which explores the acoustic, musical, and perceptive possibilities afforded by the multi-channel point source format, and thereby attempts to break away from a front centric approach to the presentation of music. It does so first, by expressing the boundaries of the perceived ‘acoustic environment’ created by the loudspeakers. These boundaries then dissolve into a sonic exploration of immersive space. Finally, the relationship between our perception of time and our perception of sound is taken up in a final gesture.

Valentin est français de naissance mais grandit à New York. Pendant son BA en philosophie à Montréal, il découvre la musique electronique, avec laquelle il expérimentera pendant quelques années, dans le circuit commercial. Ayant récemment rejoint le programme d’Électroacoustique de Concordia, il s’intéresse particulièrement à la composition, la perception et la relation que les deux procédés entretiennent.

Born in France, Valentin grew up in New York. While completing his BA in Philosophy in Montréal, he discovers electronic music, with which he will experiment for a few years, eventually spending some time in the industry. Having recently joined Concordia’s Electroacoustic Programme, he is particularly interested in composition, perception and the relationship entertained between the two.

Roger TELLIER-CRAIG — Duelle (9:14 / 2017)

Duelle est une composition dont la prémisse repose sur une dualité matériologique : des prises de son d’objets trouvés tirés de mon quotidien et des sonorités issues de synthétiseurs analogiques. Mon objectif était de réduire autant que possible l’écart timbral entre ces deux mondes sonores afin d’en révéler leurs affinités communes. Il en résulte un croisement entre des fantômes de manipulations physiques et des hallucinations synthétiques.

Duelle is a composition whose premise rests on a material duality: detailed audio recordings of everyday objects coupled with sounds generated with analogue synthesizers. My goal was to reduce the timbral gap between these two sound worlds as much as possible in order to reveal their common affinities. This results in an encounter between the ghosts of physical manipulations and a variety of synthetic hallucinations.

Roger Tellier-Craig est un compositeur et musicien électronique basé à Montréal. Actif au sein de la scène musicale indépendante montréalaise depuis plus d’une quinzaine d’années, il est membre fondateur des groupes Fly Pan Am, Et Sans (aux côtés de Alexandre St-Onge), Set Fire to Flames, Le Révélateur (avec Sabrina Ratté) et Fousek / Hansen / Tellier-Craig. Son travail a été publié sur une panoplie de labels internationaux, dont Constellation, Locust, Alien 8, Fat Cat, Root Strata, Gneiss Things, NNA Tapes, Where To Now? et Dekorder, et présenté sur scène au Canada, en Europe, aux États- Unis et au Japon. Il a également composé de la musique pour le cinéma et la danse, travaillant étroitement avec l’artiste vidéo Sabrina Ratté. Il étudie actuellement la composition électroacoustique au Conservatoire de musique de Montréal avec Louis Dufort.

Roger Tellier-Craig is an electronic musician and composer based out of Montréal. He shares an improvisation trio with Karl Fousek and Devon Hansen and is a founding member of Fly Pan Am, Et Sans (with Alexandre St-Onge), Set Fire to Flames, and Le Révélateur (with Sabrina Ratté). These projects have seen him tour extensively in Canada, Europe, the United States and Japan, as well as releasing records with Constellation, Locust, Alien 8, Fat Cat, Root Strata, Gneiss Things, NNA Tapes, Where To Now? and Dekorder. He has also composed music for film and dance, working closely with video artist Sabrina Ratté and providing the score for most of her video works. He is currently studying electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal under Louis Dufort.

Hugo TREMBLAY — Pressions // Abysses (7:47 / 2017)

Profondeurs, etc.

Georgios VAROUTSOS, Matheos ZAHAROPOULOS — Changing One's Mind (8:54 / 2018)

Changing One's Mind par Georgios Varoutsos et Matheos Zaharopoulos est une tentative de représentation sonore des effets de la psychose. L'intention de notre exploration auditive est d'immerger l'auditeur dans deux espaces acoustiques physiques différents, ce qui provoque la tromperie et la méconnaissance. Ceci est guidé par des thèmes de dualité et d'espace qui défient en brisant le sens de la réalité d'une personne. En hommage au son directionnel de Karlheinz Stockhausen en matière de performance, l'utilisation d'enregistrements extérieurs sur le terrain et multicanaux intérieurs doit évoquer une expérience surréaliste. Tout au long de la construction du projet, les deux artistes ont continuellement exposé différentes formes d'intervention liées à sa création. Cette pièce jette un pont entre la conscience humaine et l'art sonore afin d'attirer l'attention sur la conscience sociétale et la santé mentale.

Changing One’s Mind by Georgios Varoutsos and Matheos Zaharopoulos is an attempt to sonically portray the effects of psychosis. The intent of our auditory exploration is to immerse the listener in two different physical acoustical spaces in which provokes deception and unfamiliarity. This is guided by themes of duality and space which challenges by fracturing a person’s sense of reality. With homage to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s directional sound in performance, the use of outdoor field and indoor multichannel recordings are to evoke a sense of a surreal experience. Throughout the construction of the project, both artists continuously exposed different forms of intervention which tied to its creation. This piece bridges human consciousness and sound art in order to bring attention to societal awareness and mental health.

Georgios Varoutsos is a sound artist and performer based in Montréal. He received a Baccalaureate in the Electroacoustic Studies programme at Concordia University. Varoutsos explores the field of sound with an extensive range of projects he’s produced or worked on, and he continues to be a member of the Concordia Laptop Orchestra (CLOrk). His audio creations derive from different inspirations such as field recordings, digital recordings, amplified sound materials, digital audio processing, synthesis and experimentation of processing techniques. His signature works encompass an unorthodox depiction of audio processing in mind of engendering tension and emotional reactions.