[Jeu de temps / Times Play 2022]

Artists and Submissions

Collaboration with CMMAS (Latin America)

Results | Artists and Submissions | Events | Awards | Jury

The JTTP project is unique in that it recognizes and advocates the work of all artists who have participated in it. Through this inclusive initiative, JTTP 2022 offers continued support and promotion to an important and growing number of young and emerging electroacoustic artists.

In this year’s edition, 77 artists and 73 works from or living in Canada and Latin America are represented; programme notes and artist biographies for each work can be found below. 1[1. Click in the list of artists to jump to individual JTTP 2022 submissions; click the audio/video files to the right of the work information to play.] Thanks to the collaboration of our many Media Partners, works from this year’s edition are featured in a number of Events, Concerts and Broadcasts throughout the year.

The prizewinning works and thematic award recipients — as selected by an international jury — are profiled on a dedicated Results page. An overview of the ample prize packages offered to these artists, as well as a list of this year’s Donors, Project Partners and Media Partners, can be found on the Prizes and Awards page.

Artists

Canada

Latin America

Submissions

Pablo BACHMANN — Tan qué (video — 10:00 / 2022)

Tan qué is a site-specific sound work for three percussionists and quadraphonic electroacoustic support. This sound proposal addresses the axis of spatiality, acoustic characteristics and timbral inquiry that can refer to the place.

Born in Chajarí, Entre Ríos (Argentina), Pablo Francisco Bachmann graduated in Music and Technology with a degree in Composition with Electroacoustic media from the National University of Quilmes. He subsequently obtained a specialization in Video and New Technologies online, dictated by the Media Centre d’Art i Disseny of ESDi of Barcelona. He is the author of chamber works, pure and mixed electroacoustic and videomusic works, video art, video clips as well as sound art works. In 2007 and again in 201, he collaborated with Buenos Aires Sonora in performing large-scale sound interventions in urban public spaces. He currently teaches electroacoustic media at the Gilardo Gilardi Conservatory of La Plata, where he has also been in charge of Technical and Pedagogical Support Media since 2007.

Erich BARGANIER — Reflecting Pool (15:51 / 2020)

Reflecting Pool was inspired by a forest hike I made in the spring while feverish. During the hike I came upon a pond with very still water. The sounds and textures were inspired by what I heard and saw as I sat next to the pond in the woods.

Erich Barganier is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based out of Montréal. He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores experimental technology, the edge of noise, improvisation, generative processes and new forms of notation. Barganier’s compositions marry timbres and sonic material from jazz, noise rock, experimental electronica and contemporary classical musical styles, while his process takes inspiration from the creative methods outlined in André Breton’s Surrealist Manifestos. In addition to using surrealist creative techniques in a sonic context, experimental and generative coding techniques inform the vast majority of his installation work and electronic music. Barganier codes in the computer language Supercollider and uses the flexibility of the language to create music that gives the computer agency to make creative decisions. He accomplishes this using neural networks and parameters that rely on randomness to give the pieces a sense of life that might otherwise not be heard in a fixed installation.

Devin BATESON — Broken Fountains (2:58 / 2021)

Devin Bateson is a musician and beat-maker who creates limited edition tapes, from conception to realization, for himself and other musicians. His album Ossiscope was featured on Bandcamp’s Instagram account. His music can be heard on the first season of the TV show “This Is the Thing” and he has a big pile of songs in local podcasts. He mails his hand-made cassettes to fans living across the United States, in the UK and Japan. His beats are specifically created from samples using a SP-404SX and SP-404 Mkii. He can usually be found digging through dusty records or old self-help tapes, or up in a tree collecting field recordings to create his sounds.

Marie Anne BÉRARD — Paracosme (video — 4:00 / 2021)

“I really never expected to get out with my eyes in my head”
—L.M. Montgomery

A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world that each of us creates within ourselves, where we find refuge and comfort. It can be both similar to reality and a personal version of it, as when we invented worlds and games in childhood. Paracosm proposes a sound and visual immersion in my own internal world, where reality remains palpable during the whole journey without ever being completely so.

Diego BERMUDEZ CHAMBERLAND — Manic (video — 13:17 / 2021)

Manic is an atmospheric composition for the Babel Table that proposes a machine-like sound world. The transformations of the instrumental timbre and its deployment are tainted by the fluidity and unpredictability of nature. During the creative process, I was interested in this machine / nature duality, which reminded me of hydroelectric dams. I imagined, through an exploration of sound, how the presence of these gigantic human constructions powered by water might manifest itself. I would like to thank Jean-François Laporte and Productions Totem Contemporain for their assistance in the realization of this work as well as for their performance and recording of the composition.

Diego Bermudez Chamberland is a Québec-based sound artist who works in several areas related to creation such as composition, sound design, installation and live performance. His practice is inspired by his human and musical experiences. Collaboration is an essential aspect of his artistic practice; he sees it as a way to transcend his reflexes and thus bring his creations to new horizons. He is also interested in the evocative power of sound and its ability to transport us into another state of mind. He devotes most of his time to exploring his discipline through multiple projects. Diego is currently completing a master’s degree in electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal.

Alexis BLAIS — Skand (10:44 / 2021)

The basic idea that served as the focal point for the composition of Skand is above all rhythmic. I gave myself the challenge to articulate a pulsation that tries to position itself between different fluid objects. That pulsation appears with different functions before taking control of the organization of the piece during the final climax (spoiler alert). That simple idea is the motor used to create all the musical universe of the piece.

Alejandro BRIANZA — Kowloon (5:51 / 2022)

Located in Hong Kong and also known as “the city of darkness”, Kowloon was the most densely populated settlement in history. And although its inhabitants maintained an organization based on a harmonious state of anarchy, certain problems related to gangs, drugs and other illegalities led to Kowloon’s demolition in 1994. The memory of Kowloon today is a cyberpunk postcard, swinging between tranquility and chaos.

Composer and recorder player, researcher and teacher Alejandro Brianza holds a master’s degree in Scientific Research Methodologies and a degree in Audiovisual, Sound and Recording Technologies, both from the Universidad Nacional de Lanús. He teaches at the Universidad del Salvador and the Universidad Nacional de Lanús. He has given conferences and workshops in congresses and different national and international academic meetings about his research related to sound technology, electroacoustic music and contemporary languages. His productions have been presented in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Monaco, the United Kingdom and Japan. He is a member of the collaborative platform Andamio and the Network of Latin American Sound Artists.

Jennifer BUTANDA — Aujourd’hui n’est pas aujourd’hui (9:15 / 2021)

Aujourd’hui n’est pas aujourd’hui is a microtonal algorithmic work that uses temperaments of 12, 19, 37, 101 and 151 notes per octave. Its textural and timbral components exhibit a human-machine liaison capable of stimulating the imagination of extra-physical environments, where the perception of time is continuously transformed.

Mexican composer and sound artist Jennifer Butanda creates extravagant, eccentric sound spaces and shadowy atmospheres through the exploration of acoustic and electronic instruments and human-machine interaction. She began her studies at the Facultad Popular de Bellas Artes and is currently pursuing a Music and Artistic Technology degree at the Escuela Nacional De Estudios Superiores UNAM Morelia and a certificate in music for video games at the Universidad de las Artes de Buenos Aires. She has collaborated with the Coro de la Secretaría de Cultura de Michoacán and the jazz ensemble Lilt O’Clock, and has performed in the Música de Morelia Miguel Bernal Jiménez and the Órgano de Morelia Alfonso Vega Núñe festivals. Her works have been presented by Música por un Cambio (Sonora), Músicos Trabajando (Durango), Ensemble Evolution (New York), Festival Expresiones Contemporáneas (Michoacán) and Festival Michoacán. Currently, her curiosity has led her to the world of algorithmic composition, music for mixed media, interactivity and music programming using SuperCollider.

Juan CÁCERES AVITIA — Entendre la sensation (video — 6:42 / 2021)

What matters here is the double meaning of the French verb “entendre”: to listen and to hear, but also, to understand.

Juan Cáceres Avitia began his professional studies in piano at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), later studying musicology with Ricardo Miranda and electroacoustic composition with Josué Peregrina at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música. His music has been presented in Argentina, Japan, Mexico and the USA. Cáceres was the third-place winner in the Latin America category of JTTP 2022, coordinated by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) in collaboration with the Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS). In 2019 he was granted a scholarship from the Cursos Universitarios e Internacionales de “Música en Compostela” to study musicology in Spain. He has presented his research at Festival Visiones Sonoras (2021) with the conference “The Acousma of the Acousmatic Music” and at the Colloquium Miguel Bernal Jiménez (2020) with the conference “Beethoven and Tarkovsky: from ‘Elysium’ to ‘Nostalghia’.”

Merlin CAMPBELL — Nuées — Chapitre I (video — 6:43 / 2021)

Merlin Campbell is a French-Canadian visual artist and composer born in Saint-Hyacinthe. His installations and performances focus mostly on audiovisual and sound design. He is interested in visual music, therefore in the relationship between sound and image and their spatialization. He is also inspired by experimental, noise and industrial music. He explores the possibilities of creative approaches such as no-input mixing, field recording, sound synthesis and sampling of everyday sounds. He holds a BFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University and is currently completing a DESS in Digital Music at the Université de Montréal, where he is studying visual music under the supervision of Myriam Boucher. He has received several operating grants from the Conseil de la culture de Saint-Hyacinthe and has also received various scholarships at Concordia University in recognition of his academic performance.

Sabrina CARON — Confusion (video — 5:23 / 2021)

“Mental confusion is characterized by an obnubilation of consciousness, an inefficiency of the processes of synthesis (perception, memory, temporo-spatial orientation) as well a dreamlike mental state experienced while awake where visual hallucinations organized in scenes predominate.”
— Translated from Larousse Dictionnary

Music translates the words of the soul… Having first graduated in photography, Sabrina Caron now devotes most of her time to musical creation. After she visited several aspects of traditional music, it was in digital music and sound textures that Sabe discovered a great freedom of artistic expression. Her favourite instrument being the voice, she tries to insert it in each of the pieces she composes. It was by taking two Visual Music Workshop courses with Myriam Boucher that a new world of possibilities opened up to her. Sabe understood that she could join her two passions: music and visuals. As part of the course, she composed her first videomusic work, Confusion. Sabe draws on her personal experiences to speak out on various societal ills. She creates intimate and abstract pieces in which she wants viewers to recognize themselves with their own life experience.

Óscar Andrés CHAVÉS MORALES — The Garden on the Other Side of the Fence (video — 8:28 / 2021)

The Garden on the Other Side of the Fence is born of a listening score for an electroacoustic mixed work with tape, accordion and guacharaca, and meant to be played live. The graphic possibilities afforded by representing sound parameters as spectral visualization provide the tools to go further with some additional emotional understanding: colours, proportions and thresholds not only quantify but can express as well. This work seeks to articulate a bothersome situation in my life in the rainy Colombian countryside: to live next to a large flower-growing company that exports its harvest for sale to countries in the Northern Hemisphere during the winter.

Óscar Andrés Chavés Morales has been working in music since he was a child playing traditional instruments (piano, accordion, tiple, guacharaca), however, electroacoustic is part of that huge universe that has been always present and returns cyclically as creative moments of composing without limits — sometimes with video, sometimes instrumental, sometimes mixed, sometimes noise or performance but always looking for a whole and independent picture of his own life at a specific moment with its specific environment and culture where music is a state of the soul and not a linear path from the easiest to the hardest, from success to indifference.

Yon CHEKHANOVICH — the tendency of all things to take habits (4:00 / 2021)

the tendency of all things to take habits is an exercise in attunement to emergent processes that occur within disorderly spaces. Although end-directed in its larger form, this piece was conceived as a tool to facilitate and guide the listener in following sound paths more attentively, notably those that extend beyond the soundscape itself. My initial idea behind this project was to epitomize through sound some of the concepts Terrance Deacon presents in his book Incomplete Nature. I sought to portray the emergence of self-maintaining living organisms (thermodynamic processes) out of self-organizing non-living ones (morphodynamic processes). In other words, I ambitiously began working on a sound experiment that portrays the origins of life.

Yon Chekhanovich grew up between Jerusalem and Montréal. From a young age, he trained as a classical pianist, graduating from his high-school studies at the Academy of Music in Jerusalem. In 2016, Yon traveled the world for a year — an experience that inspired him to devote his life to music composition. Yon has written for a wide variety of ensembles, with recent projects focusing on the inclusion of instruments of non-western origin and electronic music. Yon participated in various musical opportunities in England, The Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, India and Canada and has received awards and recognition from organizations like Le Vivier and the Festival of English Music. Yon currently resides in Montréal, where he pursues a bachelor’s degree in Music Composition and Anthropology at McGill University. His latest projects involve mitigating injustices in the community by offering music sessions at a homeless shelter and organizing charity events for various relief causes.

Sisi CHEN — Nomansland (9:16 / 2022)

This piece is from an electroacoustic EP I made, for which all the sound sources come from non-instrumental objects in my apartment. The idea is to focus on physical sounds and try some Foley technique in the process of collecting material and composing. The practice of the EP is to use non-instrumental objects at home to mimic the natural environment, elements including animals, birds, insects, weather, natural events, etc. This piece is based on the theme of forest and composed with a range of items found in my kitchen.

An electroacoustic student at Concordia University.

Zakary COLELLO — Sarah Good (8:07 / 2022)

In 1692, New England was the scene of one of the best-known episodes from the eternal witch hunt, the Salem witch trials. The piece presents several voices of this historical story. First, there’s John Harton, the judge who sentenced Sarah Good to be hung to death. Then, we hear the clerk who transcribed the trial. There’s also William Elliot Woodward, who collected the original transcriptions to make a book. Finally, we hear the voice of Sarah Good, one of the 20 people executed for crimes they couldn’t have committed. Her voice in the piece sometimes appears as words, sometimes as music. The music surrounds the text; it tries to enter the story to take on the role of a character or a decor. The actors who provided the voice work are Mahdi Ourahmoune and Mélissa Colello.

Zak Colello is a composer and sound artist currently living in Montréal. He acknowledges that Tiohtiá:ke / Montréal is an unceded Indigenous territory. He’s always been fascinated with creating sounds. Since completing his studies in the sound technology programme at Drummondville’s Cégep, Zak has been studying composition and sound creation at Université de Montréal with talented and passionate musicians. Even though his nascent work is in perpetual evolution, he always sticks to his intuitive approach for creating sounds. He also tends to induce ecosystems and environmental notions in the conceptual aspect of his work, as well as questions that surround identity. In addition, he frequently performs and produces music with bands from the alternative music scene of Montréal.

Tania CORTÉS BECERRA — [n.o.si] (5:06 / 2022)

sensations,
repetitions,
uncontrolled efforts
that try to keep control of the uncontrollable
of the uncontrollable,
of the inevitable

Wayne DEFEHR — Orb in Green and Orange (16:02 / 2022)

Sonorus waves immerse the listener and invite them on a journey that follows the blurred border between organization and chaos. The structures of this work play off each other, painting sonic colours that pull forward while also drawing back. Referencing other genres in the electroacoustic practice, this piece creates moments of surprise and recognition that are fragmented and also unified, while inviting the ear to exploration the dimensions of this aural space.

Wayne DeFehr began studying piano at an early age in the Royal Conservatory of Music. With this classical foundation he branched out to provide compositions and sound support for live theatre, independent film and boutique video games. He has served for many years on the Board of the Boreal Electroacoustic Music Society (BEAMS) in Edmonton and has performed at many electroacoustic concerts, festivals and events. He is especially interested in exploring the role of sound to encourage deeper awareness of the environment.

Philippe DESJARDINS — Appartement mouvant (9:31 / 2018)

In the beginning, there was only noise. All sound frequencies were flung violently in all directions… until the known universe created the first ears and realized rapidly that the phenomenon was strongly unpleasant and didn’t make any sense. Following a primal “SHHH!”, silence appeared suddenly to allow time for each stardust to find its own oscillating frequency. Some particles began to resonate, pure like continuous waves, while others remained as noises. They began to mingle and transform into new combinations, harmonious and inharmonious, for better or for worse. One of these stardust combinations cleverly blended the elements of earth, water, air and fire to create music. It evolved from prehistoric percussion to symphonies of industrialization, creating infinite combinations of noises and sounds. Gohertz (Philippe Desjardins) is an explorer of this soundtrack that accompanies the human experience; from the natural elements that manifest through sinking sand, fine rain, windblast or slow combustion, to artificial elements animated by a mechanism, an electrical current or the goodwill of a gesture.

Marc-Antoine DIAS — Carousel (9:06 / 2021)

Carousel is a piece based on a poem by Skyleigh Urrutia. The main goal of the project was to bring the author’s words to life using sound. The composition process began with a recording of Skyleigh reciting her poem, this audio file then being sliced, EQ’ed, pitch-shifted and processed with various techniques and effects. Energy-motion models such as spirals, rotations, resonances and iterative sounds, as well as synthesizers, make up the rest of the sound materials used in this composition. These were also processed using the same techniques and effects used on the voice recording. The dark and dynamic sonic world of this piece ties in directly to the author’s poem, the latter being about fighting against settling into a life you don’t want, and the disappointment that comes with the acceptance that said life might be unavoidable.

Marc-Antoine Dias is a composer and producer from Quebec City. He has been playing guitar since he was a child and completed studies in Digital Audio Production at Université Laval in 2017. He is currently studying Digital Music at Université de Montréal. He is interested by the endless possibilities that audio processing software offers to electroacoustic composers and has a passion for sound design. His musical practice focuses on representing emotions and more abstract feelings into music.

Guillermo EISNER SAGÜÉS — Esculturas temporales (7:53 / 2022)

Esculturas temporales is arranged as a continuum of sound fragments that seeks to construct diverse ways of sculpting time, diverse gestures, diverse paths of accumulation and distension of energies. Composed exclusively from double bass samples, the work takes sound as a malleable material and proposes to sculpt on it as if we could grasp it, take it, feel it with our hands. In short, it is a vain attempt to make tangible an ephemeral material such as sound, of which we can only verify the temporal and spatial experience that its fleeting presence leaves us with.

Born in Uruguay, Guillermo Eisner Sagüés holds a Doctor in Music Composition from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He has developed acoustic and electroacoustic concert music, participating in festivals in South America, North America and Europe. In 2021 he released the CD Música para guitarra (Chile Clásico). In 2019 he released the acoustic recording música de barrio (Cero Records) on CD. In 2017 he premiered the chamber opera Titus at the Teatro Helénico in Mexico City. In 2015 he published the book and CD guitarrerías. 10 monotemas para guitarra (Microtono Editions) and premiered the chamber opera La Isla de los peces at the GAM Cultural Center in Santiago (Chile). In the year 2012 he released the electroacoustic music recording habitar el tiempo on CD. Since 2019 he is a full-time professor in the Department of Sound of the Faculty of Arts at the Universidad de Chile.

Aarón ESCOBAR-CASTAÑEDA — Interdictos Protésicos (10:24 / 2021)

To a certain extent, the way we currently create musical products is mediated by a series of devices, both theoretical and practical, that respond to a production method similar to what we see in the automated production of mass-produced products. These devices are marked by a deep process of lattice reticulation, segmentation, structuring and classification proposed from the very history of music and extensively studied by Trevor Wishart. Furthermore, since the end of the 20^th century, music has been reduced to a single and infinite mode of reproduction, from the phonautograph to digital playback platforms. This problem exhibits the lack of openness to the affectation that could exist in the processes of creating a musical work. Indeed, the very concept of a “finished work” reveals the impossibility of the living process that sound itself has, trapped and systematically subjected to its automated reticulation.

Researcher, composer, sound artist, programmer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist Aarón Escobar Castañeda studied composition at UNAM. His master’s degree in Music Technology at the same institution, under Hugo Solís, focused on machine learning applied to the generation and analysis of archetypal models in free improvisation. Aarón is currently completing his doctorate in Music Technology at UNAM, where he is working on the development of an automatic listening system for free improvisation (SEALI) focused on the use and questioning of technologies such as deep learning and listening of machines, in contexts of sound creation and free improvisation. His creative practice focuses on the creation of interactive systems with machine learning and listening, the re-creation and analysis of musical structures with recurrent neural networks, modular composition inspired by complex systems, audible ecosystems, sound installation, sound synthesis, programming of generative systems and the investigation of creative processes in human and more than human agents around artificial intelligence and posthumanism.

Juro Kim FELIZ — Kinalugarán (19:33 / 2022)

Derived from the word “lugar” (Filipino/Spanish for “place”), “kinalugaran” refers to the site where an object is placed. Common contexts here imply that one should know their place in society, an emphasis on social harmony among Asian communities. As a result, people are marginalized into silence by way of being othered and rendered invisible while loud, assertive voices among first-world societies are most heard and valued. Kinalugarán highlights this condition at the forefront. An audio essay features the voices of Filipino artists based in first-world diasporas: violinist Ramon Alfonso Soberano (Tempe AZ, United States), film composer Marie-Luise Calvero (Freiburg, Germany) and theatre creator Riley Palanca (Montréal, Canada). Weaving through juxtapositions of Tagalog poetry, they narrate their perspectives surrounding invisibility, assimilation / integration and homelands over soundscapes of found objects and musical instruments. Commissioned by New Music Concerts (Toronto), the creation of Kinalugarán was made possible by the support of the Ontario Arts Council.

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 Southeast Asian Young Composer Award (1st place) in 2009 and was a finalist in the 5-Minute Piano Concerto Competition of the Music Biennale Zagreb in 2017. His work Gandingan sa Kagiliran for percussion duo was released on the Millennial Masters, Vol. 7 CD (Ablaze Records) and his music has been performed in festivals and workshops in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel, Greece, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Carlos Andrés FERNÁNDEZ LAMPREA — Progresiones Sonoras (32:28 / 2021)

The composition is based on the transformation of vintage sounds created on a Yamaha TX81z synthesizer. The core of the whole process is a “rough” sound element that metamorphoses continuously and progressively generating new sound environments that coexist and evolve.

Composer and violinist from Ibagué (Colombia) and now living in Argentina, Carlos Andrés Fernández Lamprea studied music at the Conservatory of Tolima in 1999. His interest in sound exploration and improvisation drove him to composition. The possibilities offered by technologies in terms of music led him later on into the field of electroacoustics in a self-taught way and from there he begqn a journey of experimentation with no return. His compositional work can be described as an “alchemical process” wherein musical procedures are transformed from the primordial to the transcendental. His work includes compositions in various musical formats and has been presented on local and international stages.

Audréanne FILION — Inaes (8:29 / 2021)

Composed entirely from sounds obtained by synthesis, Inaes offers an energetic and rapid speech, sharp, contrasting and constantly revived. The playful energy, sometimes pushed to an extreme, reaches rawness. The resumption in writing made with generally unified sound materials is a way to expose several facets of the same image, as if we were directing a beam of light on multiple small debris of mirrors, the shimmering reflections of which are unpredictable, dazzling and fleeting.

Montréal composer and cellist Audréanne Filion obtained her artist’s diploma in cello performance at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and is currently completing a certificate in electroacoustic composition at the same institution. Having a great interest in contemporary music and improvisation, the musician co-founded the Tesse Ensemble, a sextet co-creating original new works using improvisation techniques. Loving to combine different forms of art, she has participated in several multidisciplinary creation projects, for instance, she presented pieces for dancers notably at Jardin des Métis in 2022 and at the Women Between Arts series in New York in 2018. Also active on the experimental pop scene, Audréanne performs with various groups, notably Crushhh, and collaborates with a range of electronic music artists such as YlangYlang, Jessica Moss and Kid Koala.

Barbara FINCK-BECCAFICO — Poésie de l’ADN (video — 24:00 / 2021)

ARTivist-Queer-intersectionnnal-eco-feminist-anti-speciesist-Witch-mom-neuroatypical — this is how Barbara Finck-Beccafico [she/they] positions themselves in the artistic ecosystem. Holding an MA in Composition and Sound Art from the Université de Montreal, Barbara’s electroacoustic works have been heard from Ultrasons (Montréal) to the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium to the Venice Electroacoustic Rendez-vous. They also collaborate constantly with choreographers and film directors to set their works to music. In 2015, Finck-Beccafico created Conscience, six engaged multisensory installations that were exhibited at famous contemporary art events Nuit Blanche of Montréal and Paris. Since 2017, Barbara has been working on DNA Poetry, a series of poetic audiovisual portraits of the biological and esoteric identity of the human being. This project brings together programming, biotechnology (using DNA data), sound and visual creation, esotericism (energy healing rituals), as well as participatory and performative art. Since its release in 2021, it has been selected for such festivals as RIPA, NYCEMF, QRC PRJCT and the Concordia Film Festival.

Mélanie FRISOLI — Le Bruit I (9:58 / 2022)

The first acousmatic piece of a series of three spatialized works, Le Bruit I emerged from the sound materials of the digital instrument created for the live performance of the same name. This instrument has the particularity of using only a simple noise generator, but is capable, through various technical processes — that need not be discussed here — of delivering a wide and generous range of sounds. The acousmatic writing in the studio allowed, then, to develop a succession of soundscapes with, sometimes, blurred and dystopian contours. Le Bruit I wanders between several atmospheres and wants to pay tribute to all the sounds that surround us, whether natural or mechanical, with the will to place them on the same level. Thus, the “background noises” have the possibility to become “figure noises”, the tumults become murmurs and the interferences are agitated in the middle of the almost-silence.

Originally from northeastern France, a formerly prosperous industrial region, Mélanie Frisoli has been composing for almost twenty years. During these years, she has travelled the world performing on stage and recording albums (she has six releases on different independent labels created between 2003 and 2016). First and foremost a guitarist and author, a free electron within the “new French scene”, she has been awarded several prizes, including the SACEM prize in the Printemps de Bourges. She has also written three books of “false poetry”. Her passion for words has gradually transformed into a passion for sound and its abstractions. In Montréal since 2015 she has immersed herself in audio production techniques, enabling her to carry out various sound-based projects. Surrounded by such talented teachers as Robert Normandeau, Nicolas Bernier, etc., she has embarked on a career in acousmatic music coloured with a penchant for soundscapes, whether real or imaginary, as well as a growing interest in multiphonic diffusion.

Eduardo GARCIA — Pulso II (5:52 / 2022)

Pulso IItook shape through a series of field recordings using contact microphones on the Mexico City subway commute between lines 2 and 8 at approximately 6 p.m., when the flux of people is at its peak. I placed the contact microphones on a steel sheet situated on the subway car’s floor, which beats with each footstep made by the commuters. Broadly speaking, these sounds are, at first, treated as perpetual sounds, then as percussion sounds produced by the unpredictable walking of the commuters.

Eduardo García studied Fine Arts at Mexico City’s Centro de Arte Mexicano. He began to venture into digital sound processing and sound art as a self-taught artist, which later led him to focus on the World Soundscape Project and the conceptualization of soundscape, which has been the subject of his work and research ever since. Starting from an apologia of Mexico City’s noise as an inexhaustible source of creation, his work has been presented at festivals in countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Mexico.

Véronique GIRARD — La petite lune (video — 14:00 / 2021)

La petite lune is an excursion into a dream-like garden. Through the voice, the moon tries to initiate a dialogue with the flowers, which gradually orient their listening towards the universe that surrounds them. The musical form, structured as an arch, reflects the cycle of the moon. To follow the rhythm of the lunar phases, I’ve given preference to contemplative atmospheres. The border between reality (voices, flowers) and the imagination (treatments, plastic) is blurred in order to allow the emergence of a universe that is both sensitive and abstract. The light is reflected in arborescence on the multiple textures and iridescent surfaces of the installation. The resonance frequencies of the flowers, represented by sine waves, communicate with the voice in order to find a meeting point, an open listening where the thought will be grasped in its entirety and allow the universe to surrender in this dreamscape.

Véronique Girard is a visual and sound artist, an educator and vocalist based in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal. She creates whimsical imageries that seek to reveal the authenticity of the body and the voice through activism and enchantment. Guided by movement, her practice unfolds at the intersection of music, performance and video art. The intimacy and sincerity that emerge from it become a way to reflect on our relationship with our mind and perceptions. In her projects, she creates an environment that gives the possibility to feel and share human vulnerability through listening. By being actively involved in her community, she develops inclusive initiatives with open, nurturing and stimulating environments. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University, Véronique also recently completed the digital music programme at the Université de Montréal. Her work has been showcased at several film festivals and concerts, both in Quebec and internationally.

Jefferson GÓMEZ RODRÍGUEZ — Vientos de Cotacachi (14:56 / 2021)

Composition conceived from experimentation and sound exploration. The technology expands the timbre of the trombone, combining it with characteristic soundscapes of Cotacachi and creating a tour from March to June 2021. the first movement refers to the numbering of the composer’s house. It is a soundscape with processing that recreates urban sound: birdsong, rain, dogs, gas cars, garbage truck, bus terminal, market, vaccination area. The second movement, “Semana Santa”, incorporates elements taken from the funeral march, a musical genre characteristic of this time of year. There are soundscapes of the referendum, a caravan for the victory of Lasso’s presidency, chimes, processions, indigenous prayers, and Holy Week flute players. The third movement, “Raymi”, contains sonorities of the taking of the square at Cotacachi, such as flutes, harmonicas, conch shells, whistles, shouts and footwork. This is coupled with repetitive rhythms and melodies on the trombone, important sound components found in the Inti Raymi ritual.

Jefferson Gómez Rodríguez studied at the Luis Ulpiano de la Torre Institute in Cotacachi, specializing in tenor trombone and obtaining a Bachelor of Music. In 2014, thanks to a scholarship, he traveled to Guayaquil to study at UARTES and obtain his Bachelor of Musical and Sound Arts. As an instrumentalist he was part of groups of cumbia, salsa, ska, reggae, rock, folklore and in the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Guayaquil. He is a founding member of the Andean Instruments Orchestra and the Brass Ensemble at the School of Sound Arts. As a composer, he collaborated on the Ecuadorian film A Son of Man and composed the music for the documentary Entre Mangles y Derivas, winner of the best Ecuadorian short film in 2020. At the same university he received a scholarship for the master’s degree in Musical Composition and Arts Sonoras, delving into electroacoustic composition.

Sara GONZÁLEZ SALAMANCA — Plegaria (8:01 / 2018)

Plegaria was inspired by the idea of a prayer, understood as human beings’ spiritual search to relate personally and to communicate with that which is beyond themselves and their understanding, God. It seeks to illustrate the transition happening within the person who prays, going from a state of mind focused on the earthly, the harsh and difficult realities of our world, into one leading towards the abstract and spiritual, looking for wisdom, hope, peace and wholeness, no matter the circumstances.

Sara González Salamanca is a composer, improviser and singer from Bogotá. She has twice been awarded the Semester Distinction for Excellence at the Universidad de Los Andes, where she majored in composition with a minor in jazz practice. Sara is co-founder of both the collective EARS Composers and the all-female interdisciplinary creation ensemble Dalua Ensamble. In 2019 she founded the improvisation concert El Silencio Suena. She was the winner in 2021 of the Jóvenes en Movimiento grant from the Colombian Ministry of Culture as well as the Innov-Arte Escénicas grant from the SCRD. Sara is a OneBeat Virtual 2021 fellow and has been awarded several prizes and recognitions, including 1st Prize in the Bogotá Composition Prize — Music Training Project 2020 and the Musical Laboratory for Women Creators 2021 grant from IDARTES, among others. Her works have been presented in national and international events.

Marcus GORDON — Ambient Assembly (13:51 / 2022)

Ambient Assembly is a live-coded composition that embraces a tranquil opening with blips of sharp electronic sounds over an oceanside soundscape. The “ambient” is reflected by the live coding sequences that fluctuate the blips in a repetitive but slightly random manner. The movement of the work transitions from tranquility to a deep suspenseful mode imbued with increasing layers of slow and very slow bass lines, creating a fabric for in the incoming transition to a slow breakbeat. At this juncture, various assemblages begin to form through a cloud of wobbly bass lines rising and falling. An increase in tempo, adding of the percussion sounds top off the energy this piece and slowly subside with stuttered effects entering in quickly and all fading out slowly, while the tempo decreases at an even slower pace. This live coding performance was recorded in studio.

Marcus Gordon is a live coder, artist and PhD candidate in Computational Arts at York University. His practice explores live coding performance, composition and improvisation with modular synthesis.

Gabriela HÉBERT — Contradictions (5:46 / 2022)

Contradictions is a composition that visits the potential of the extremes through softness. A conversation of opposing worlds; technology and nature, tangible and abstract. Bringing the listener into a soundscape, a melancholy of an imaginary world that we can all relate to. The disconnection between the natural sounds of rain and birds contrasting the urban ambiance of cars passing by immerses us into time and scenes changing. This piece uses entirely recordings, following me from the city to the forest, the bells of an abandoned park to chains and glitches from power outlets. It was made in the idea of cinematographic images and how they relate to sound and make us travel with our ears, getting us in a loop of pulsation of feelings. The glitches symbolize the paradox of the world coexisting together in the melodies of modernity.

Gabriela Hebert is a multidisciplinary artist based in Montréal who explores and merges various fields of the art world such as sound design, scenography, installation, VR, dance, performance and conceptual fashion. On the stage since the age of four, she knows how to hypnotize the crowd into her own imagination. Her art is a reflection of her spiritual journey, evoking through her projects paradoxical thinking whereby she aims to share in order to expand consciousness. Currently studying electroacoustic composition at Université de Montréal, her numerous practices brought her to link diverse art fields through electroacoustic, where she’s able to complete the immersive experience using sounds.

Mickail HENDI — Exodus (8:10 / 2022)

Mickail Hendi is a Calgary-based composer currently studying composition at the University of Calgary, having studied under such composers as Allan Bell and Laurie Radford. His work, which could best be characterized as an exploration of narrative from a variety of different sonic lenses, encompasses both electroacoustic and instrumental practices. He is always on the search for new and innovative ways to manipulate sounds and to invoke narrative. His works have been performed at numerous exhibitions of new music at the University of Calgary, most notably his piano trio To Languish (2021), which was performed by the Land’s End Chamber Ensemble.

Ivonne HERNÁNDEZ — Ciudades ficticias, Culpas Judeocristianas (video — 9:56 / 2020)

“I reflect on the fragility of life in urbanizations, always on the verge of absolute annihilation, without concrete plans.”
—Marcela Alvizouri, “Ensayo Urbano. Cada Ciudad, tantos mundos,” 2019.

This soundscape work is inspired by Marcela Alvizouri’s pictorial work, “Ciudad en Cubetas.” Appearances are always kept in the city. In this fictitious city initially we hear the calm of the water lashing around the buckets, the resonance of the city itself within the metal walls. However, this city also reflects sin; the city corrupts souls and destroys morals. We listen to the anthropological factor, the Judeo-Christian faults and the call to the Church to “purify souls and forgive sins” — to continue keeping up appearances.

Mexican composer and sound artist Ivonne Hernández studied musical composition at the Conservatorio de las Rosas and is currently doing her BA in Music and Artistic Technology at ENES-UNAM in Morelia (Mexico). She also attended the diplo Neurosciences, Art and Culture of the ACT programme. She is co-director of Extremófilas and ASCII Sin Rumbo, transdisciplinary collectives whose main axes are the intersection of Art, science and technology. Hernández was recently selected for the Festival University, a collaborative project between the Ars Electronica and Johannes Kepler University in Linz (Austria). She has participated in the Fluxus Festival 2019 in the UK, in the Crosstalks concert series (ÖGZM, Austria), was awarded an honorary mention at the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis 2019 (Switzerland) with the work Transmutación and was the winner of the Flash ACT 2021 programme with the collaborative project Misión 2030, an experimental opera about terraforming Mars.

Elliot Yair HERNÁNDEZ LÓPEZ — Ritual (5:25 / 2021)

Ritual is a sonic exploration that combines day-to-day sounds digitally transformed; It narrates the story of a being trapped in an eternal dream that repeats itself infinitely, each repetition is a stage of dreaming deeper and deeper.

Close your eyes, inhale and exhale, repeat three times.

—What am I listening to?
Move, feel the sound.
—What is happening?
A dream, a dream that becomes real.
—Do you hear the voices?
I feel like I’m trapped, it’s so unreal this feeling.
—What do you feel?
Anguish, as if everything is closing around me.
—Do you hear the bells?
No, I don’t hear anything, I only feel this body holding me, in an eternal illusion.
—Listen closely to the mantra…

Mexican composer Elliot Yair Hernández López experiments with different objects and disciplines to create immersive, reflective and abstract pieces with the aim of creating sensations and emotions for the viewer using audiovisual elements. Among his interests are multi-channel electroacoustic composition, videomapping, data visualization and sonification, programming, electronic art and sound spatialization. Hernández López studied sound art with Manuel Rocha Iturbide, multi-channel electroacoustic composition with Edmar Soria and electronic art with Hugo Solis, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Tecnología Musical at UNAM (Mexico City). His audiovisual and electroacoustic works have been presented in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, USA, Canada, UK, Japan, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria. He was a winner in the international competition Young Lion*ess of Acousmatic Music (Vienna) and First Prize winner (Latin America) in JTTP 2022 (CEC, Canada), and received a special mention in the 2021 Ars Electronica Forum Wallis for Ritual.

Nolan HILDEBRAND — black galaxie V (video — 17:19 / 2022)

black galaxie V is a live video performance of the fifth release from Nolan Hildebrand’s solo noise project. The music and sounds are created and performed on three mini synthesizers, a processed floor tom and an electric keyboard routed through a no-input mixer. Improvising on this unpredictable power electronics setup creates an exciting and spontaneous noise performance that is rooted in experimentation and physically visceral gestures in the vein of artists like Incapacitants and Masonna. The complex, chaotic and dense music embodies a “wall of noise” æsthetic to create an overwhelming and sublime experience through constant movement and interaction between the different electronic instruments.

Nolan Hildebrand is a composer, improvisor, researcher and noise artist based in Toronto. His musical journey which began with playing drums to his favourite metal and math rock albums, has grown to encompass composition in classical ensembles and electroacoustic music, and performance in an experimental solo noise project dubbed BLACK GALAXIE. His music often explores aspects of improvisation and interpretation, kinetic energy, visceral physicality, noise and density. Nolan’s compositions have been performed by artists and ensembles around the world and he has presented his research at national and international events. Most recently, Nolan was a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) in Huddersfield, where he collaborated with music students on his Open Graphic Score Research Project, which culminated in a presentation at the CeReNeM composition colloquia. Nolan began his DMA in Music Composition at the University of Toronto in 2022.

Jaden HO — Mundane Morning (3:13 / 2022)

Jaden Ho is a currently completing his composition studies at the University of Alberta. Though primarily a vocalist, Jaden decided to expand on his artistry by embarking on a journey of learning how to compose and produce music. Jaden’s works span across several different genres of music, with electroacoustic music being a recent venture for him. His style and artistry, which could be described as otherworldly and ethereal, is imbued in all his works, regardless of genre. Jaden continues to broaden his repertoire by creating new and interesting compositions of all different types.

Timothy ISHERWOOD — Signal (3:34 / 2021)

Signal is a sound structure composed of an aluminum pole frame. In the centre are three freely suspended aluminum rods that are resonated by percussion and generative music software. In terms of form and content, the metal structure is also representative of the bell tower or the radio antenna — both revolutionary and transformative in human history, especially as a common signal or sound sign that acoustically transmits information over great distances. The space- and sound-creating construction also presents itself as a visible and audible signal for the freedom of art and the freedom of all people, as an instrument and a temporary place for experimentation, for the perception of conversation and for free gathering.

sir o sir is the alias of composer and sound artist Timothy Isherwood. An academically trained pipe organist and pianist, Isherwood uses diverse sources such as resonators, experimental microphones, spatialized sound and synthesizers to navigate soundscapes at once summoned and subjective. Isherwood is the co-founder of the Berlin-based Famous Grapes label, and the editor and content creator for the experimental art and music publication 20 Seconds magazine.

Rana JOUDAKI — Loknat (video — 15:00 / 2022)

In Farsi, “loknat” means to stammer or to stutter; when you try to say something, but you can’t. The main idea of the piece is based on miscommunication and misunderstanding resulting from people’s different languages. I had struggles pronouncing “water”, so I recorded myself saying “water” in seven different pronunciations, analyzed their sound spectrum and used some parts of the analysis as my pitch material. The first part of the piece is an introduction followed by seven sections. Each two-part section is based on a word, a feeling that I have experienced because of my different accent: the first part is my interpretation of the word, followed by an improvisation based on the performers’ interpretation of the same words. At the end, all seven chords are represented by a glissando from the first chord to the last one. The electronics play an interactive and supportive role to the instruments.

Born in Iran, Rana Joudaki’s passion for music started at the age of 11 by playing guitar. After finishing high school, she started undergraduate studies in engineering but decided to continue in composition. After finishing a master’s in composition in 2016, she started to work as an independent composer and music teacher. In order to expand her knowledge and experience in composition she began doctoral studies in composition at the University of Alberta in 2021. During her professional career as a composer, Joudaki has composed a number of pieces for different instrumentation. Recently she has focused more on spectral and electroacoustic music. While exploring the different timbres of instruments has always fascinated her, she is also interested in the role of visuality in contemporary music continues to experiment in that area.

Jean-Philippe JULLIN — Songes d’Aus (1:30:00 / 2022)

Aus is the name of my computer. This work explores his anabiosis, that is, his return to life after a period in a suspended state. After composing various dreams collaboratively, Aus sorts them and then navigates them according to characteristics of similarity. Songes d’Aus [Dreams of Aus] invites the surrender of self, to attempt to engage in a state of latency to resonate with a whole.

Born in Marseille (France), Jean-Philippe Jullin is a student in digital music at the Université de Montréal. Holder of a DEC in audiovisual technique, it is through his work in the field of video that his language has been shaped, mixing elements of music, video art and programming. Passionate about sound experimentation, he seeks a different way of thinking about music. His creations aspire to establish a dialogue between man and machine, allowing him to approach a multiplicity of techniques and senses. Recipient of the Faculty of Music’s excellence grant, he released an acousmatic EP in 2020 entitled nioses, broadcast on Radio Québec International. To conceive experiences of active contemplation, various elements are assembled to question our perception of space and time.

Kat KELLNER — Deep Dive (4:24 / 2022)

Deep Dive is an exploration of the worlds above and below the surface, following the journey of a lone diver.

Alëna KOROLËVA — Fracture Resistance (4:33 / 2022)

Storms unzipped the ice covers of Lake Ontario this spring, the new thinning ice showing cracks spreading in a curving pattern. The act of skipping stones turned the lake into a vibrating plate. Each impact created a flexural and bending wave, radiating sound into the air, the short waves (high frequencies) arriving first. These bending waves are the basis of Fracture Resistance, composed entirely from field recordings. These waves track the ice’s vanishing act, a harbinger of both the new season, and the seasons already lost, as climate shifts are written in the math of disappearance.

Alëna Korolëva is an artist and curator who works with sound, photo and video, and curates programmes for film festivals. She holds a master’s degree in documentary filmmaking and has made several short films. She worked as a programme curator at the Message to Man International Film Festival and co-founded and curated the Kinodot Experimental Film Festival. Since 2018 she has dedicated herself to making sound art. Her work is focused on field recordings, acoustic ecology, soundscape studies and acousmatic composition. Her technique employs elements of documentary storytelling and experimental music.

Malte LEANDER, Connor COOK, Charles HARDING — Test Tone for Humanity / Attempts to Find the Square Root of 2 (6:27 / 2022)

Test Tone for Humanity is a collaboratively developed electroacoustic composition that reflects upon the disconnection both between humans and to life itself that has occurred as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. By joining multiple compositional techniques from this group of composers, a merging of styles, personal responses and intentions has woven an intricate sonic reflection on the pandemic’s affects upon humanity. This project was overseen and mentored by Michael Pinsonneault.

Malte Leander is a Swedish composer and artist currently residing in Montréal, exploring voice through text-sound composition and acoustic ecology in his artistic practice.

Connor Cook [he/him] is an emerging artist and composer, recently graduated from the Electroacoustic Studies programme at Concordia University (Montréal). As a solo musician and composer, and as a member of Trajectories, he is interested in approaching what hides between feeling, memory and space, wielding composition, poetry, video and sound art, or physical installation in turn as helpful tools.

Charles Harding [he/him] is an emerging sound maker living in Tiohtiá:ke / Montréal and studying electroacoustic composition at Concordia University. His current focus spans various artistic disciplines including algorithmic composition, soundscape design, creative coding, VR/AR and, more recently, interdisciplinary collaborations in weaving and sound with textile artist Emily Blair. Over the past several years he has had opportunities to showcase research, projects and collaborations involving immersive and interactive audiovisual installations at the likes of ImageFest in Colombia and Visiones Sonoras in Mexico. Through his work with technology, he always seeks to build links to nature and organic material.

Jonathan LEMELIN — 3States (2:00 / 2022)

Since the beginning in Montréal, Jonathan Lemelin has always been driven by a beautiful metropole full of projects and interesting people. Video games, musical creation, post-production and, most recently, electroacoustic are his principals interests. It all began with an application on a cellphone that offered him the possibility to make his own ring tone. Since then, sound has never left his mind. For about ten years, it was only in the back of his mind, as a hobby, but today, fresh out of a course in multimedia sound creation, he is putting everything into developing his art.

Simon LÉVESQUE — MICROEKLAT (4:45 / 2022)

From and based in Montréal, Simon Lévesque has worked as a sound engineer for more than a decade. Mostly touring with bands, he also does more and more studio work. It is an obsession with sound æsthetics that has guided his work for a long time. Indeed, his creative choices are based on the physical and sensory impact of sound, rather than technique; his approach to the acousmatic arts is therefore a natural continuation which fits in parallel with his career. This music gives him greater freedom, while also being a greater challenge. He took classes at the Conservatoire de Montréal between 2020 and 2022.

Michael LUKASZUK — Touch and Blind Chance (video — 14:08 / 2022)

This piece uses laptop improvisation to reimagine the author’s earlier fixed-media acousmatic work, Przypadek (Blind Chance). By superimposing gestures through musical coding and external controllers, Touch and Blind Chance relies on both samples and the techniques used to form the original work. New variations and relationships are formed between the sounds of synths and field recordings of everyday objects. Here, the addition of a live algorithmic component creates new opportunities between the extended effects of the smallest of choices.

Michael Lukaszuk is a Canadian composer, laptop performer and programmer based in Cincinnati (Ohio). He is currently pursuing a DMA in Composition at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Mara Helmuth. Michael holds a degree in composition from the University of Western Ontario. His music has been performed at events such as the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium, the SEAMUS National Conference, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electronic Music Midwest and New Music Edmonton’s Now Hear This Festival of New Music. In 2015, Michael received 1st Prize in the SOCAN Foundation’s Hugh Le Caine Awards for electroacoustic music. He is the director of the Cincinnati Composers Laptop Orchestra Project (CiCLOP).

Véro MARENGÈRE — Hydra (video — 6:00 / 2022)

Hydra is a 3D video artwork made with photogrammetry, scanning, 3D modeling and animation. The sounds are made exclusively from granular synthesis and voice synthesis via SuperCollider. The work evokes the quiet strength of plant beings. From being nearly totally paralyzed in a “natural” environment to being fully mobile and vibrant in an “artificial” environment, the plant no longer resembles a plant, but rather more an algae or mineral being. The work questions our tendency to oppose the natural of the unnatural. In this meditative and benevolent 3D alterworld, plants explore the ambiguity of their own identity.

Véro Marengère is an audiovisual artist and cultural worker who lives and works in Tio’tia:ke / Montréal. Evolving between 3D video art, sound design and live performances, her practice reflects on the digital manifestation of animist rhetoric and botanist literature. She has a graduate degree in digital music from the Université de Montréal. Her work has been presented notably at MUTEK, OFF Jazz festival, AKOUSMA, MAPP_MTL and Pop Montreal. She has worked at Arsenal Contemporary Art, Art Souterrain and now works at the renowned Indigenous Network of Montréal.

Jérémie MARTINEAU — Distractions, Horizons (video — 5:34 / 2022)

Distractions, Horizons is an audiovisual performance characterizing the dynamics of concentration experienced during meditative practice. It invites us to oscillate between global attention and focal attention, in addition to portraying the difficult exercise that is mindfulness.

Jérémie Martineau is an audiovisual artist, multi-instrumentalist and educator based in Montréal. His multidisciplinary work combines electronics, acoustic, video and spatialization to create an immersive world in which the public can be transported to. With a bachelor’s degree from the Université de Montréal in mixed composition under Pierre Michaud, Jérémie is currently finishing his master’s degree in the same institution under the co-direction of Jimmie LeBlanc and Myriam Boucher.

Jesse Frank MATTHEWS — Log Driver Error (2:17 / 2019)

Jesse Frank Matthews has been playing music since the age of 16 in bands. He attended NSCAD University in 2003 and graduated in 2008. It was during this period that visual art and music formed a sincere bond in his work. Jesse is always looking for something genuine, organic, jarring and engaging.

Gaël MORICEAU — Étude déglinguée (video — 10:15 / 2022)

This project was born from a desire to design an instrument adapted to my practice of electroacoustic music. Establishing a physical relationship with the instrument makes it possible to reunite the performer’s gesture and sound generation. By transferring the performer’s energy from the interface to the music, I aim to find new expressions of musical gesture and to restore the link with the audience. Through the use of digital signal processing, especially FM synthesis, this piece wishes to explore possibilities of constructing a harmonic structure, then degrading its harmonicity until ultimately reaching complete deconstruction.

After working for several years in engineering and science, Gaël Moriceau decided to change career in 2019. Passionate about sound design and electroacoustic music composition, he is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Digital Music at Université de Montréal. Although his music output thus far is predominantly acousmatic, he is interested in designing new digital music instruments.

Ashar MUMTAZ, James PLAYER — Clinch of Katharos (17:48 / 2022)

Clinch of Katharos is a first collaboration between Ashar Mumtaz and James Player through sound and experimentation that sparked an exciting and fulfilling relationship. Led by the musician’s instinct, the piece consists of five moments, composed by superimposing one to five live improvised takes, depending on the movement. The only post-processing, aside from the spatialization, is the selection of layers and slight reductions in conflicting materials.

Ashar Mumtaz is a composer born in Karachi (Pakistan) and currently based in Canada, with acoustic and electronic improvisation and experimentation at the heart of his practice. He is currently finishing his bachelor’s in Electroacoustic Studies at Concordia University. “One could think of two poles when launched into that trip called Ashar Mumtaz. It’s not clear which tags the departure, and which would be the goal, but let us point at a holistic sonic exploration on one hand, and then a local sonic experimentation on the other. One is a confidant of chance. It has a feeling for the weakness of subdermal signals, a sensitivity of hearing, of receiving, of entering the dark, then of responding, amplifying. The other is more muscular, structural, it marks a passage from perplexity to audacity. It disturbs, then selects, then gives a value its direction.”
—Pawel Jankiewicz

James Player is a composer and musician originally from Victoria and is now based in Montréal. He has worked as a touring and session musician, playing with rock bands through Canada, the USA and Europe. He is currently studying electroacoustics at Concordia University. His work is centred around improvisational playing and spontaneous composition, with a shifting focus from pitch-centric music to more textural and noise-forward sound. Predominantly a guitarist, Player has recently been expanding his compositional palette, incorporating found objects and prepared piano into the sonic fold.

Marco NERI — ¿Aún escuchas mi voz? (7:06 / 2021)

¿Aún escuchas mi voz? is a computer-assisted composition for B-flat clarinet, alto saxophone, viola, cello and electronics. A Folkloric Cardenche song, originally from Durango (Mexico) was used for the sound material. This song is performed by a male a cappella trio. The cardenche is a local cactus whose spines are incredibly painful to extract. With this piece, I expressed my personal reaction to the many cultures in Mexico that are about to disappear, losing traditions, languages and worldviews forever. I admire the singing and the people who interpret it. Alas, all the singers of this genre have probably already perished. All that remains is the memory of their voices and lyrics and the testimony of their existence in recording archives.

Marco Neri does not believe in reality anymore; he believes in art. His spiritual-magical thinking has taken him to create all kinds of fictional and dreamy audio sceneries. His music continually switches between electronic and acoustic elements and seeks to motivate the public to enjoy the ecstasy of sound. His music has been presented in Mexico, Canada, United States, Belgium, Cuba, Spain and France. He has collaborated for more than ten years with various contemporary dance companies, notably Ideatracciones Danza. In 2013 he co-founded the Onepanko youth orchestra in Mexico City, participating as a composer and producer. In 2015, he started the ARStudio music label, where as Director he brought to life more than 50 recordings of concert music by young musicians. He is currently exploring film scoring, having so far collaborated with directors from France, Canada and Mexico. Finally, in April 2022, he obtained his Master of Music Composition degree from the University of Victoria.

Amanda NIXON — Circular (3:26 / 2022)

Circular is a triptych that explores the creation of environments through contrasts and climaxes. It is a tense, stressful and provocative interaction between animals, humans and nature. The title was chosen to not only reference the circular spatial movement of the sound objects, but to also signify the continuum of suspense formed by the accumulation of sound in each section.

Amanda Nixon is an undergraduate student at the University of Calgary studying electroacoustic music and computer science. A trained musician in classical guitar and Irish fiddle, Amanda’s interest in music extends to her involvement as an executive board member for Ghost River Theatre, a sensory-based theatre company in Calgary. She is also heavily involved in the electronic music scene in Alberta as part of the grassroots organization PartySafe, an organization that promotes health and safety in the electronic music community. Amanda’s electroacoustic music focuses on creating ominous atmospheres combined with influences from progressive house and trance electronic music.

Salomé PERLI — Noise (13:54 / 2022)

Noise is the result of a walk through New York during which each sound was captured like a small piece of an undervalued treasure. A storyline invites the audience to question their perception of noise, while leaving them free to interpret events as they wish. Commonly perceived as an undesirable entity, noise is also the reflection of an endless flow of life that was muted during the many confinements. Noise is therefore a post-pandemic state of play, gradually inviting the listener to savour and praise every fragment of noise, while deliberately creating a deep confusion in our noise and music relationship.

Refusing any stylistic categorization, Salomé Perli is an original, complete and profoundly touching artist. Cut from the same cloth as such diverse artists as Bjork, Steve Reich and Radiohead, she bridges acoustic worlds with new technologies, creating a contrasting and highly dynamic body of work. Attracted to the concept of gesture in art and musical contexts, she develops electroacoustic performances in real time, newly extending these performances into partnerships with dancers and visual artists. Her latest creation, Tsunami, marks a shift in her body of work, utilizing both hydrophones and a no-input mixer. This immersive work explores the devastating natural force of the tsunami through the use of sound, transporting the listener to far-reaching and at times unfamiliar sonorous territories.

David PIAZZA — L’électro-organisme (6:46 / 2022)

While a primary level of programming defines the machine’s response, another layer describes the change of this response in time. This machine, thenceforth, vector of its own utterance as well of its operator, is in constant mutation. The unpredictability of its state generates sound matter, the units of which are projected into the listening space and act in a similar manner as the trajectories displayed by the members of a hive, mobilized by swarm dynamics. A dialogue is born and is continually renewed with the operator. The encounter is fortuitous and involves the fusion of systems of intuition and calculation in a seat of shared virtuosities.

David Piazza is a composer and a student currently pursuing a bachelor’s in Digital Music at the Université de Montréal. His passion for fixed-media composition and real-time performance of electroacoustic works pushes him to envision ways in which both modes may converge so as to concurrently explore their potentials for musical expression.

Kasey POCIUS — A Series of Postcards, Blurring Together (video — 36:19 / 2022)

A Series of Postcards, Blurring Together is a work for sopranino t-stick, hand tracking, live-coded video and fixed media. In an attempt to explore the passage of time during the pandemic, the piece is roughly divided into four sonic postcards, which overlap and blur together, creating one piece.

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.

Nonis PRADO — La hermana agua (9:19 / 2021)

Based on an homonym poem by Amado Nervo (Mexico, 1870 – Uruguay, 1919), this piece is made with processed recordings of some instruments and of water in diverse containers, depths, water bodies and fluxes interacting with different objects. It takes the metric of the poem and plays with the image of the different states of the water, as well as the idea of the cycle of water in nature.

Primarily interested in music for audiovisual media, Nonis Prado has composed the music for several short films. Her music has been presented in different forums inside and outside of Mexico. In 2015 she was selected to participate in the Film and Creation Laboratories organized by Berta Navarro. Prado was part of the interdisciplinary project El gesto along with Hayde Lachino and Rosario Romero, and she participated in MUXIC (Paris), a collaboration between UNAM and the Université de Sorbonne. In 2020 she was a recipient of the Resiliencia sonora call of the UNAM. She has been coordinator, moderator and organizer of several events in institutions such as UNAM, CENIDIM and CMMAS, and was a member of the ruling committee for the first two editions of Ecos sonorous, organized by CENART. She is part of the editorial team of Sonus Litterarum. Nonis Prado holds a master’s in composition from UNAM and is currently developing her doctoral research in composition.

Thomas QUIRION — Ice Melted (6:16 / 2022)

The story beyond our individual understanding of the world is but our own conditioned ontology; the result of our ancestor’s use of the landscape, in what kind of relationship they had with land and its habitants of all life and form, fauna and flaura, mammals and human beings. That’s what’s in the cold for me, the story of human life, the still as much as constant movement, exchange of energy, water, shapes and temperatures. This composition stems from a recording of ice and how that texture inspired the compositional process as much as the sonic æsthetic of the piece.

Born in Tio’tià:ke/Montréal, Thomas Quirion is an artist and electronic music composer presently completing a BFA in Electroacoustic Studies at Concordia University. Recently, his composition Consequential, was awarded third place in the 2021 edition of the SOCAN Awards for Young Composers in the electroacoustic category. Throughout his compositional work, he seeks to balance sonic experimentation with rhythmic and tonal concision. In his practice, which consists of musical work as well as a visual arts component of collages, he seeks to explore the concept of the grain, the creation with samples and the use of infinitely small units to generate vast and tangible auditory structures.

Hubert RHEAULT-BLAIS — Unité stellaire (5:46 / 2022)

Dominic SAMBUCCO — Versenkung (12:32 / 2018)

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to the Magic Theatre! Free admission, but not for everyone, only for crazy people…

Kindly drop your respectable personality in the cloakroom and follow me through the halls of your consciousness. Dear audience, I must warn you that my little theatre is very special, because you are the actors of this spectacle.

For the next few minutes, I invite you to close your eyes and to sink into yourself. SSSHHH! … the show is beginning.

Dominic Sambucco is an Italian-Canadian composer and performer. His works are inspired by nature and technology and are positioned between the academic and the popular, with a constant intent to cross the boundaries of what has already been heard. He studied electroacoustic composition at Université de Montréal and modern guitar at Music Academy of Rimini. He has been awarded First Prize in GroundSwell’s Emerging Composers Competition in 2020. Now, while living in the mountains of Sardinia (Italy), he is exploring the performative potential of water and electronic sounds and composing new music inspired by the Sardinian land.

Alfredo SÁNCHEZ — Drago (8:00 / 2022)

Drago is inspired by the sounds of nature produced in the area surrounding the Peña de Bernal in Querétaro, Mexico. Endless and rearticulating echoes, passing birds with their characteristic sounds, and fluctuations of air that collide with and pass through the dry and chipped stone are some of the sound phenomena that occur in this characteristic region. The piece transits between the distortion generated from rubbing and striking the strings of a piano and the FFT processes that are applied to these varied sounds, which become almost unrecognizable elements throughout the piece, thus generating echoes of the magnitude of the piano itself.

Alfredo Sánchez’s artistic output includes ensemble compositions, acousmatic works with live processes, multi-channel mixed works interconnected with mobile devices through the Internet and audiovisual installations. He has created music in collaboration with the Contemporary Music Experimentation and Production Center, CMMAS, White Noise and tiZa 2, among others. His work has been performed at Palacio de Bellas Artes, Blas Galindo, CMMAS, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Fonoteca Nacional, Centro Nacional de las Artes de San Luis Potosí, etc. Sánchez holds a bachelor’s in composition from the Escuela Superior de Música (Mexico City) and is currently studying a master’s degree in Subjectivity and Violence at the Colegio de Saberes, where the subject and its occurrence is problematized from philosophy and psychoanalysis. His research refers to the amorphous and the grotesque nature of the human body, representationally limited by video and photography, where the æsthetic discourse is built from member dislocation and the disintegration of corporal matter, resulting in an interwoven multiplicity of layers.

matías SÁNCHEZ GRECO — alquimia, magia, sueños (10:05 / 2020)

This work was composed from the study of different objects, their sound projection and the possibilities of transformation. It intends to be an approach and a tribute to Pierre Schaeffer. A poetic search on the dialogues between materials. Thus, one goes from a dream to an ethereal field or to more iterated articulations. The concrete, the acousmatic, the immaterial as a poetic encounter.

Trumpeter and composer Matías Sánchez Greco studied with Jorge Sad Levi (composition), Daniel Crespo (trumpet, Buenos Aires Filarmonic Orchestra) and Andrea Escobar (chamber music) at the Alberto Ginastera Conservatory in Buenos Aires. He was invited to participate in the 2019 Monaco Électroacoustique biennial, directed by French-Argentinian composer Mario Mary at the Académie Rainier III in Monaco. He has also taken part in masterclasses and conferences by such prestigious composers as Ricardo Mandolini, Daniel Teruggi, Mario Mary and Maria Cristina Kassem, as well as renowned ensembles and musicians like Sigma Project ensemble and Gagik Gasparian. His 2020 work alquimia, magia, sueños was premiered in the 2021 Transversal Sonora festival in Manizales (Colombia), and he recently completed two mixed works, desde tu corazón, un rayo rojo (trumpet and tape) and Los pájaros siguen su canto (flute, piano and tape).

Joseph SIMS, Katie FINN — e (mi) (video — 7:11 / 2022)

e (mi) is an audiovisual composition created by Joseph Sims (sound) and Katie Finn (animation). The piece explores contemporary and traditional æsthetics for visual music, displaying a wide variety of gestural and textural sound-image relationships. The sonic palette finds unity in a variety of materials (field recording, digital and analogue synthesis, concrete recording, etc.). Similarly, the image uses a range of techniques such as hand-drawn animation, coding and 2.5D animation. The focus was to create even hierarchical status in both the sound and image. This was achieved by each artist influencing both mediums at every stage of the creation. The macro and mezzo structures were determined by a visual score, while gestural energy and textures were realized through the sonic material.

Joseph Sims is a composer and musician born in London (Ontario) and is currently based in Montréal. His work acts as an amalgamation of sonic styles, frequently exploring the relationships between concrete and electronic sources. With roots in folk music, his compositional approach remains grounded in intuition and narrative — and continually explores new sonic pallets as a means of expression. Multi-channel, fixed-medium composition is his primary focus, but a love for visual media is expressed through frequent collaboration with animators and film makers. He is currently finishing his bachelor’s in Electroacoustic Studies at Concordia University and received the Marguerita Award in Electroacoustic Studies in 2020.

Katie Finn is an emerging illustrator and animator born in London (Ontario) and currently living and working in Montréal. Her work incorporates a mixture of analogue and digital techniques, exploring new mediums in order to service the experiential and narrative possibilities of animation. Katie will continue to animate forever.

Omar SORIANO LÓPEZ — A Tantrum Gave Her Nightmares (5:24 / 2022)

What started as a sonic intervention of an audio recording of vocal sounds from a female dancer for a contemporary dance project from 2016 ended up as a sound journey depicting the nightmares of the mother of her child’s tantrum.

Multi-instrumentalist musician, beatmaker, sound artist and videographer Omar Soriano López’s current musical work focuses on improvisation and sound experimentation with electronic media. In his performances, he employs techniques from electroacoustic and electronic music, djing, hip hop and live looping, such as live sampling, sample flipping, finger drumming and granular synthesis, with his voice, synthesizers and occasionally random tuning of traditional world music or radio dramas on FM, AM or internet radio as sound sources. He takes elements from dark ambient, concrete music, hip hop and African tribal rhythms. He has participated in the Mexico Y2K Live Looping Festival (2018–22) and in the NW Loopfest 2021 and 2022 (USA) online. In March 2022, he participated in the first edition of WASI FEST by MUSEXPLAT with Inercia Distal (Omar Soriano and Pedeplei).

Lucca TOTTI — terramuda (I) (10:47 / 2021)

Terramuda is an experimental electroacoustic-soundscape composition by Brazilian sound artist Lucca Totti. Its main sonic focus is exploring a “zone of uncertainty” between organic and synthesized sounds through the manipulation of field recordings of a local Atlantic Forest and found objects gathered in this place. The work is an attempt to imagine fictional soundscapes that make audible other sonic dimensions of the native soundscape, amidst a period of record-setting environmental destruction. The title of the work could be translated as “Mute Earth”, or as “Earth Changes”.

Lucca Totti is a sound artist, composer and improviser from Río de Janeiro. His work has been featured in the 2021 Topia Sound Art Festival (Berlin), Museu de Arte Moderna do Río de Janeiro, Biennial of Contemporary Music (Brazil), MonteAudio20 International SoundArt Festival (Uruguay) and Centro de Arte Sonoro (Argentina), among others. Recordings of his works have been released by SONatório, Residência São João and Música Insólita. He also works as a teacher and researcher with a focus on the intersection of Sound Art and new musical pedagogies.

Timour VANDERMEULEN — Ophelia (8:30 / 2022)

My research on objectification and eroticization of women in contemporary æsthetics has led me to the phenomenon of the “sublimation of dead woman” in the arts of the Romantic period. Many illustrations have been æstheticized by the omnipresence of the male gaze on the inanimate body of a “heroine”; such was the case for certain representations of Ophelia’s death. Drowned in despair, Ophelia, first faced a psychosomatic death before sinking in the waves of troubled waters. An endless drowning, a torrent of darkness inoculated by emotions, swallowing all forms of reason in a hypnotic nothingness. This piece is the cry of an idealized death, a dissonant poetry taking shape in the darkness of a patriarchal consciousness that insidiously attributes existence through beauty.

Student at Université de Montréal.

Georgios VAROUTSOS — Pieces of Covid Memories (15:00 / 2021)

Pieces of Covid Memories is an exploratory, reflective piece based on 76 soundscape recordings of Covid-19’s effects in urban places across Belfast and Montréal in 2020–21. By manipulating the original sound recordings in a musique concrète fashion, the piece emphasizes the perception and emotional responses to different Covid lockdowns. It follows a timeline of the events to represent the fluctuation of phenomenological understandings. Isolation and social distancing created a personal awareness to balance the interpretation of the pandemic situation, as well as connecting the sonic changes in the environment over this period. The piece is not only a creative extension of the documentative soundscape recordings, but a way to review personal growth and comprehension of how Covid-19 affected the self. As a creative sound composition, this piece reflects one person’s journey through the pandemic, but it is also an expression of global connectivity as we each try to overcome these challenges.

Georgios Varoutsos is a sonic artist from Montréal, Canada. He is currently completing his PhD studies in Music at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) at Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland). He has graduated with a Master’s in Research, Pass with Distinction, in Arts & Humanities — Focus in Sonic Arts at Queen’s University Belfast. He has also completed a BFA with Distinction in Electroacoustic Studies and a BA in Anthropology, both from Concordia University in Montréal. He explores the field of sound through an extensive range of projects and performances. His audio creations derive from different inspirations such as field recordings, digital recordings, amplified sound materials, audio processing, synthesis and experimental techniques. Georgios is merging his various backgrounds of study into research projects comprising immersive audio, sonification, urban arts, sonic arts and socially engaged arts. This has been presented by using sound as a platform for cultural storytelling.

Steven WEBB — iSAD v.1.0 (video — 13:51 / 2021)

iSAD or “Internet Separation Anxiety Disorder” is a term used online to describe the anxious feelings associated with being separated from the digital world for an extended period. During the pandemic, this digital separation manifested with real consequences, as any loss of signal led to a loss of communication with other humans entirely. Exploring online forums during the first Covid lockdowns of March-December 2020 led me to encounter other peoples' stories of their battles with loneliness, and highlighted to me the importance of digital spaces in contemporary social life. Intersecting with these spaces are AI Bots, which are becoming an increasingly frequent part of moderating online communities. I posed questions to the AI GPT-3, asking it about happiness, predictions for the future and how it felt to be separated from humans. Compiling these answers, I interspersed them with the sounds of 1990s Apple Macintosh computers and a poem by Victoria Liao.

iSad — a friend
Or a closet face
at home to mend
and clothed to send
to caustic space?

Is ad a friend,
or made to end?
A cause to pace
home to amend
that sad’s a face,
lost to a rend.

I sat a friend
at home to mend.
—Victoria Liao

Originally from South Africa, Steven Webb is a Toronto-based performer, composer and audio engineer. His current compositional work is concerned with examining the human experience — with the disorientation, confusion and dread that arises from living in a world dealing with a climate crisis, growing conflict and marginalization towards minority groups, and the increasing isolation of the individual despite our hyper-connectivity. Steven has written music for a wide variety of ensembles, and his repertoire includes choral, chamber, electroacoustic and orchestral music. His compositions and arrangements have been performed by The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, The Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, The Thin Edge Music Collective, Pro Coro Canada, The Hamilton Children’s Choir, Exultate Chamber Singers and Prairie Voices, among many others. Steven is a member of SOCAN, an Associate Composer at the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada.

Robert Jackson WHITE — Traffic (7:45 / 2022)

Robert Jackson White (aka Jack White) was born into a family of musicians, artists, doctors and researchers. His first instrument was electric bass, which he started playing at age five learning The Beatles’ songs and classic rock. His love of music led him to play in a number of bands through high school and expanded his instrumental abilities to drums, guitar and trombone. In 2017, he formed the psychedelic punk band Harmony on Mars with his brother Max White. The band is active in the Toronto and Montréal music scene and has had a number of their original songs placed in movies and TV series. He has also scored several short films and recently worked on a few feature films in Toronto as a set production assistant. Currently, Jack is living in Montréal studying composition, synthesis and audio production systems at Concordia University’s undergraduate Electroacoustic Studies program.

Willyn WHITING — for Dancer and Projection (2:39 / 2020)

For Dancer and Projection is an accompanying work for Danielle Willis’ video dance work Celestial Bodies, a project she premièred in Fall 2020. The sound source for the piece, a drone of five sine tones, is decidedly simple and abstract, much like the direction of the choreography. The granulation of this sound source is inspired by the particle effects that Willis designed to be projected onto her dancer. A simple heartbeat like pulse persists throughout the work, for the solo choreography to be edited to. The work was the result of a collaboration between the Dance Faculty at Texas Women’s University and the Music Faculty at the University of North Texas.

Willyn Whiting is a Canadian composer of concert music who is currently pursuing a PhD in music at the University of North Texas. His works have been performed and read by professional and emerging ensembles such as the Bozzini Quartet, Vaso String Quartet, NOVA Ensemble and Ensemble Atlantica. His music has been presented at SEAMUS, ICA Clarinetfest and Groundswell Linked, among other festivals and workshops. Willyn’s acoustic works since 2017 have explored spectral techniques and simple algorithmic designs. His electroacoustic pieces have explored improvisation, generative scoring, audiovisual design and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Kitty XIAO — In Flesh (8:00 / 2021)

In Flesh is a work about body, contact and tactility. The composition and electronics take on a Frankenstein-esque approach, composed entirely from samples of the cello — field recordings that have been stripped down, taken apart and put back together. There is a gestural persistence and compulsiveness in the work, a desire for sound to envelop, enter, leak or seep through, to completely embody one’s own skin.

Kitty Xiao is an Australian composer, electronic musician and pianist based in Canada. Kitty’s works are fascinated by the physicality of sound, the movement of sound and interaction with sound as a living object. Central to her æsthetic is a search for unity in contemporary culture, human psyche, art and machine. Her music moves between the world of concert music to performing as an electronic artist of experimental noise and techno. Her music is represented by the Australian Music Centre and she is the current recipient of the 2020 Belle S. Gitelman Award, 2019 Howard Hanson Large Ensemble Prize and is an Alfred Kitchin scholar. Kitty holds a Master of Music (Composition) from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music (Performance) from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, a Master of Teaching and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Melbourne.

Michael ZAJNER — Hu (3:00 / 2021)

Hu is an auditory frame tale composed through various techniques of synthesising the human voice (syllables recorded by the artist) with animal recordings (taken from the BBC archive) and modular synths (designed on the Doepfer A-100 series). The artist creates a new language which provides the mythological foundations of modern man. The artist attempts to create an anti-soundscape where previously composed material is used as the source material to explore an ecological disequilibrium through the creation of new hybrid voices. The result is a frame tale of mythological associations, where sounds are understood not as a linear progression but in relation to one another. The voices which emerge from the piece express the Age of the Anthropocene.

Michael Zajner attended the University of Windsor, receiving a BA in philosophy in 2016 and is currently enrolled in a BFA in electroacoustic studies at Concordia University (Montréal). Over the course of ten years of audio experience, he released several collaborative EPs and albums as part of the duo Strickland (2011–present), and was one of the founding members, performers and curators for Windsor’s LavaHause (2014–16). Zajner made his radio debut in 2014, the album being released on the Museum of Skin label, and he has since put out many singles and albums. He has been active in Montréal’s arts scene since 2016, helping to curate shows on CKUT radio. In 2018, he composed his first electronic film score for the experimental, feature-length film Planet Sarajevo by Tyler Tesolin. As of 2020, Michael Zajner’s art has expanded into the realm of interdisciplinary research and creation, and auditory experimentation in electroacoustics, generative compositions, audio/visual installations, sound design and film scores.

Anton ZHELYEZNYY — Souffle d'une machine (9:06 / 2022)

Souffle d’une machine is a piece that brings together sound synthesis, sound recordings of various electronic objects such as appliances, fans and faulty cables, and more organic sounds like sausages cooking in hot oil, boiling water and a can of compressed air. The combination of these sounds expresses a universe in which mechanical, electrical and repetitive objects attempt to conquer natural, organic and softer ones. However, they are unsuccessful and run out of energy after a while, like a machine trying to catch its breath.

Anton Zhelyeznyy is a multidisciplinary artist who composes electronic music and designs sounds for video games. He is also called upon as a bassist to record pop and rock music in the studio.