Headphones recommended for best listening experience

This version was recorded April 12, 2021 at McGill University

For amplified speaking percussion quartet and fixed media.

Performers:
Percussion I - Eric Orosz
Percussion II - Yue-Yin Zhang
Percussion III - Joseph Chang
Percussion IV - Kristie Ibrahim
Conductor - Fabrice Marandola

Included in Electronics:
Guido da Montefeltro (Dante Alghieri) - Simone Cardini
"The women... talking of Michelangelo" - Talia Fuchs, Beatrice Ferreira

Illustration - Federico Zuccari (Dante & Virgil speaking with Guido da Montefeltro in the 8th circle of hell)

This piece is inspired by "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot and attempts to recreate its progression of poetic images and spaces, as well as their associated affects, in music. Both the musical work and the original poem open with a quote from Dante’s Inferno spoken by Guido da Montefeltro in the 8th circle of hell. One of the quote’s functions is to situate both the original poem and this musical translation within the multi-layered architecture of Prufrock's internal world. Like the nine circles of hell, this musical landscape is characterized by a meaningful orientation. As one ventures deeper and deeper, the distance from external reality grows and the sound-scape becomes increasingly abstract. Closer to the surface, the listener is able to eaves-drop on the outside world, where sounds represent recognizable people, places and things. As Prufrock's existential reverie intensifies, the lines between interior and exterior space grow fainter and fainter.

Till human voices wake us and we drown (2021)

Antwerp Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Wim Henderickx

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3clCMEoWrY

Mvmt II: Alter(n)ations

This piece, originally called "Alter(n)ations," is intended to be one movement of a larger three-movement work entitled "Giacometti, tâtonnant." Alter(n)ations juxtaposes musical processes of alternation and alteration as applied to a sound mass. The work aims to emulate the perpetual hesitation and modification which characterize Alberto Giacometti’s sculpting technique. As the sound mass gradually accumulates, it hesitates and periodically rearranges its own contents with each reiteration, never abandoning itself completely but always reimagining its configuration.


Ce morceau, intitulé "Alter(n)ations," représente une partie d'une oeuvre en trois mouvement intitulé "Giacometti, tâtonnant" qui est actuellement inachevée. Alter(n)ations juxtapose des processus musicaux d’altération et d’alternance et les applique à une masse sonore. L’œuvre tente d’incarner l’hésitation et la modification perpétuelle qui caractérisent le geste créatif du sculpteur Alberto Giacometti. La masse sonore s’accumule graduellement, et cependant son contenu se remanie avec chaque itération d’une manière non-linéaire, tout en gardant sa forme et ses composants essentiaux.

Giacometti, tâtonnant (2020)

Henri Colombat - Zootrope II (2018)

Quatuor Bozzini (Clemens Merkel, Alissa Cheung, violons; Stéphanie Bozzini, alto; Isabelle Bozzini, violoncelle)

en concert le 29 mai, 2018
Wong Theatre, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

Christopher Butterfield, ingénieur de son

Henri Colombat - Zootrope II

Headphones or nice loudspeakers recommended for best listening experience

L'Infinie puissance des vagues - Mvmt. III

Le titre et le concept sonore de cette pièce sont tirés d'un poème en prose de mon père. La phrase entière est : "À chaque assaut de la mer, il rit, il joue à avoir peur, car il ne connaît pas encore l'infinie puissance des vagues.” Ce mouvement a été composée avec des prises de son que j'ai faites à la grève mondiale pour le climat à Montréal en 2019, et pendant le déluge sur le mont royal au printemps de 2020. L'énergie de la foule s'oppose au flot incessant de la neige fondante et petit à petit ces masses sonores s'entremêlent et se métamorphosent ensemble. 

The title and sound concept for this piece are drawn from a prose poem by my father. The translation of the full sentence is : “They laugh at each assault from the sea, playing at being scared, for they don't yet know the infinite power of the waves.” This movement mixes together field recordings I made in Montreal at the international climate strike in 2019 and during the thaw on Mount Royal in 2020. The crowd’s pervasive positivity stands in tension with the incessant watery déluge as their sound masses gradually merge and morph together.

composé avril-juin 2022, la haye

Car il ne connaît pas encore l'infinie puissance des vagues.

L'Infinie puissance des vagues - Mvmt. I

L'Infinie puissance des vagues won the student prize of the international electroacoustic composition competition KLANG! 2023 : https://klangacousmonium.wordpress.com/concours-international-de-composition-electroacoustique-klang/

Le titre et le concept sonore de cette pièce sont tirés d'un poème en prose de mon père. La phrase entière est : "À chaque assaut de la mer, il rit, il joue à avoir peur, car il ne connaît pas encore l'infinie puissance des vagues.” Ce mouvement est un labyrinthe sonore. Les portes s'ouvrent et se ferment. Les murs apparaissent et disparaissent. Le sol s'écroule. Les plafonds s'effondrent. Les couloirs s'entremêlent et se délient sans cesse, évoquant une cartographie sonore en constante évolution dans l'imagination de l'auditeur qui s'étalera au long des deux prochains mouvements.

The title and sound concept for this piece are drawn from a prose poem by my father. The translation of the full sentence is : “They laugh at each assault from the sea, playing at being scared, for they don't yet know the infinite power of the waves.”  This movement is a labyrinth in sound. Doors open and close. Walls appear and disappear. Floors fall out. Ceilings cave in. Corridors are incessantly interwoven and unwound, evoking an ever-changing sonic cartography in the listener's imagination which will spread across the two following movements.

composé mars-mai 2022, la haye

À chaque assaut de la mer, il rit,...

Headphones or nice loudspeakers recommended for best listening experience

L'Infinie puissance des vagues - Mvmt. II

Le titre et le concept sonore de cette pièce sont tirés d'un poème en prose de mon père. La phrase entière est : "À chaque assaut de la mer, il rit, il joue à avoir peur, car il ne connaît pas encore l'infinie puissance des vagues.” Ce mouvement se déroule en vagues successives. Parfois timides, parfois menaçantes. Petit à petit, une masse humaine se révèle dans le va et vient du bruit blanc et des clapotis de la masse aquatique. 

The title and sound concept for this piece are drawn from a prose poem by my father. The translation of the full sentence is : “They laugh at each assault from the sea, playing at being scared, for they don't yet know the infinite power of the waves.” This movement is animated by a progression of waves. Sometimes timid, other times menacing. Little by little, a human crowd is revealed in the come and go of the white noise and wavelets of the watery mass. 

composé juin-septembre 2022, la haye

...il joue à avoir peur

Saxophone Soprano: Florence Garneau
Saxophone Alto: Lacie Marchand

Créée le 11 Août 2017 au Conservatoire de Montréal dans le cadre du Laboratoire de Musique Contemporaine de Montréal.

Marées (2017)

Performed and workshopped by Quatuor Bozzini at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC as part of the Bozzini lab. 

"Juggle" throws different combinations of repeated gestures into its contrapuntal apparatus. These combinations then run the gamut from a series of isolated solos and duos to filled out polyphonic textures. As the quartet takes on more gestures than it has players (or more objects than the juggler has hands), the resultant sonic mass begins to shift with each toss.

The "Zoetrope" pieces mix together disparate elements in teeming masses to see if they can be made to sound as one. How does their coming together and falling apart enrich or erase the individual motifs' identities? And which of their qualities do the individual motifs end up contributing to the whole? The Zoetrope series is inspired by the pre-cinematic animation device the "Zoetrope" and emulates its achievement of cohesion through speed, varied imitation and repetition.

Composed April/ May 2018 (Montréal)

Zoetrope IV: Juggle (2018)

James Alexandropoulos-McEwan (electric guitar), Annick Odom (clarinet/double bass), Rob Jones (saxophone/piano)

A flexible, “ambient chamber glitch group”, SQUEE! is a collaboration between three composer/performers who met while studying at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. The ensemble strives to create a musical world that lies between the diverse backgrounds of all the players, in performing pieces that are composed collectively, which include notated, aleatoric and improvised elements.

Squeaks and Screams (by SQUEE!)

Piano I: Paul Çelebi
Piano II: Olivier Rabu

"Neige" d'Anne Hebert: http://www.barapoemes.net/archives/2016/09/07/34290920.html

Program Note:
Cent traces, sur de vastes plaines was inspired by Anne Hébert's poem "Neige" (snow). Submerged in its poetic image, the music follows its emotional trajectory and attempts to embody it through a language of resonance, harmony, and temporalities. The work was also peripherally influenced by the novel "Kamouraska" by the same author. Both texts depict a wintery dream-scape that devolves into a fever dream peopled with hazy memories. The opening five minutes contain three musical dreams composed using a collection of altered paraphrases from other piano pieces 'about' snow. These quotations appear the way characters in these dreams do: one might have an idea of who they represent from daily life (memory) even if for some reason they do not fully resemble that person. Over the course of the piece the boundaries between dreams erode and the recurring characters' identities become increasingly distorted. Musical memories appear, disappear and intermingle, culminating in a blurred mass and then a rupture.

Commissioned by the Luba Zuk Piano Duo Composition Competition.
Performed November 11th, 2019, Tanna Schulich Hall, McGill.
Composed January-May 2019 (Montreal/Baltimore).

Note de Programme:
Cent traces, sur de vastes plaines est inspiré du poème "Neige" d'Anne Hébert. Submergée dans son image poétique, la musique suit sa trajectoire émotionnelle et tente de l'incarner dans un langage de résonances, d'harmonies, et de temporalités. L'oeuvre a aussi été influencée par le roman "Kamouraska" de la même écrivaine. Les deux textes décrivent des rêves hivernaux qui s'écroulent et deviennent des rêves fiévreux éveillant d'ambigus souvenirs. Les cinq premières minutes contiennent trois rêves musicaux, chacun composés d'une citation altérées d'autres pièces pour piano 'au sujet de' la neige. Ces citations incarnent la façon dont ces personnages habitent ces rêves: on sait qui ils représentent dans notre vraie vie même s'ils ne se ressemblent pas exactement. Au fur et à mesure les frontières séparant ces rêves se déconstruisent et les identités de ces personnages se tordent. Les souvenirs musicaux apparaissent, disparaissent et se mélangent, menant à une masse nuageuse puis une rupture.

Pièce commandée par le concours de composition pour duo de piano Luba Zuk. 
Interprétée le 11 Novembre 2019, Salle Tanna Schulich, McGill. 
Composée janvier-mai 2019 (Montréal/Baltimore).

Cent traces, sur de vastes plaines (2019)

A singer, bassist, and clarinetist, Annick Odom performs in various chamber groups in and around The Netherlands and also has several solo projects. One of these projects is "West Virginia, My Home," which includes commissions of composers to write pieces inspired by the state. She enjoys exploring the folk music and history of her home state, West Virginia and is especially interested in connecting to socio-political issues by mixing "traditional" folk music, improvisation, storytelling, and new music. The music that makes her most excited connects to community and has a strong sense of place.

Squeaks and Screams (by SQUEE!)

Annick Odom

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