Recorded live in MMR (McGill University, Montreal QC), 2014

Gilles Tremblay, Cèdres en voiles (Thrène pour le Liban) (1989)

Performed by David Dias da Silva and Jacob Struzik at the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab 2016. 

The piece is about Poveglia Island, a place in Italy deemed the “most haunted island in the world.” It is closed to tourists and fishermen stay away from it. The island has gained its reputation due to the twisted and quite morbid events that took place on its soil. Indeed, between 1973-1804, Poveglia became a quarantine station for the ills affected by the plague. A total of 160 000 people would have lost their lives due to the disease on the tiny piece of land. Later in the 1920s, a mental hospital was built on Poveglia. The legend has it that patients would witness paranormal activities in the walls of the institution. Moreover, the doctor at head of the institution was cruel and would make gruesome experiment on his protégés. The hospital close in 1968, and no significant activities took place on the island after that.
The two clarinetists represent two ghosts on Poveglia Island, who are simply wandering, unaware of each other’s presence. They go about their bland, day-to-day “activities,” unless they are disturbed by the presence of visitors. Then, the unwelcome guests whom illegally infiltrated the island create a state of panic.
The players are asked to move around the stage according to instructions indicated in the score and detailed in these notes. The work is divided in Tableaux (one Tableau per system). Each has its own texture and set of moves associated with it. The music itself is sometimes unmeasured, sometimes unmeasured, and at times free but with one part in relation to the other.

Poveglia

Plus qu'un ensemble...

L'ECM+, dirigé par Véronique Lacroix, produit des événements musicaux multidisciplinaires à la pointe de l’innovation et fait connaître la création musicale canadienne à travers le pays.

www.ecm.qc.ca

Ana Sokolovic - Ciaccona(extrait)

Ophir Ilzetzki interviews and plays the music of the Berlin based Canadian composer Chiyoko Szlavnics: www.chiyokoszlavnics.org 

-Play List: For TN (2006), performed by Anais Chen, violin; Theodor Flindell, violin; Volker Schindel, accordion – From Interior Landscapes I (2010), performed by Daniella Strastogel & Biliana Voutchkova, violins ————— ——- 2nd movement from Reservoir (2006), performed by Ensemble Zwichentone & guests with sine tone playback —– — Heliotrope (2007), performed by Ostravska Banda conducted by Peter Rundel ———————- Light Falls 2 (2007), performed by Matthias Badczong, bass clarinet; Christine Pate, accordion; Seth Josel, guitar; with sine tones —– ———— Tryptich for AS I (2006), performed by Anais Chen, violin; Theodor Flindell, violin; Volker Schindel, accordion; with sine tones – ——– Gradients of Detail (2005), performed by Quatuor Bozzini — — From Interior Landscapes I (2010), performed by Daniella Strastogel & Biliana Voutchkova, violins

An Hour                       

An Hour with Chiyoko Szlavnics

To see the graphic score : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kStaPT7agy8&t=324s 

Mâ’lesh I – leurs étreintes bouleverseraient la mer
(Mâ’lesh I–their embraces would bewilder the sea)
Symon Henry
For Joseph Petric and Lynn Kuo
Commissioned by the SMCQ  

Program note

« Faisons la paix des corps entravés. »
Anne-Marie Alonzo
[Let’s make peace of the hindered bodies 
—transl. S. Henry]

This piece is a fiery, intense and sensitive dance composed in tribute to the tango of Astor Piazzolla. Its typical rhythms are not there, its harmonies either, leaving only a rather metamorphosed echo of this music to be heard. Indeed, the tango originates in the slums of Buenos Aires, in very approximate imitations and cross-breeding of dances as much Latin, African as European. Clumsy steps between men mixing pride and smugness, sorrow and nostalgia, seduction and desire. This piece is meant to be sung and danced in the same spirit.

Mâlesh I—their embraces would bewilder the sea is also a dance between “hindered bodies,” inspired by the writings of the Québec-Egyptian author Anne-Marie Alonzo, whose words have given life to the passionate love between sublime and quasi-mythological female characters, tinted by an imaginary fed by Gerry Boulet as well as by Oum Kalthoum, just like mine.

Mâ’lesh, finally, is an Egyptianism emblematic of the culture of this country. Its meaning is a cross between “it doesn’t matter!" “sorry!” and “this is life!" A mixture of humour, compassion and fatality that resonates with the spirit I wanted to instill in this piece.

Some verses, finally, complementary to this music, written in parallel:

mâ’lesh, eunuch my love
wolf and djinn
djinn and old clown
formerly star dancers

their embraces would bewilder the sea
their migratory-blood
would offer a stalk of belladonna to the deafest wounds
their breasts would dance and frazzle themselves
between wolf giving rise to djinn and
the soft hair brushing against the red stucco
from the nail to the ground
standing, a breath as tall as

nevertheless some thorns and the drop of blood diminish from wolf’s forehead
the old clown opens his shirt
and prays the deep clairvoyant blackness of the Carmelites
a laughter-glow as diadem
its flamboyant vulva

Mâ'lesh I - Leurs étreintes bouleverseraient la mer

Interprété par l'Ensemble de saxophones de Montréal

Seokgamoni Bul (2018) pour 8 saxophones

Interprété par Jeff Stonehouse (fl.), Robin Best (harpe) et Christopher Goddard (piano)

Variations sur une transparence (2017-rév.2018)pour flûte, harpe et piano

Writing a work for a tour puts into perspective an essential and fascinating problematic of written music: abstract musical principles are distilled into specific individual sound-events created in specific spaces by specific musicians. Rather than write music that neutralizes these circumstances, I have attempted to ‘tune’ a work to the particularities of the various concert spaces where the work will be realized, and the specific instruments and instrumentalists that will realize it.  

I have researched the acoustics of the concert halls of the tour to generate musical material that will respond to their resonant frequencies. The form of the work mirrors the trajectory of the tour, structured as a sequence of spaces demarcated by an orchestration of the acoustic response of each hall. Features specific to Chloé Dominguez’ cello have guided the materials of the work as well, treating the cello as an interior space-within-a-space. Finally, field recordings from the larger environments around the work’s performance sites are a further source material.  

The work’s title emblematizes the problematic relationship between the abstract and the particular with the homographic word pairing ‘close’ and ‘close’. The two words are written the same but could mean either the adjective ‘close’ (near to) or the verb ‘close’ (to shut or bring to an end). The work hopes to examine the tension between these related ideas: first, the intimacy of the solo instrument and the sensation of being familiar with one’s environment. Second, the idea of ‘enclosure’ (the cello and the concert hall as enclosed spaces) and claustrophobia. 

Close / Close was commissioned by l’Ensemble contemporain de Montréal  with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Recording: 11 November 2018, The Music Gallery, Toronto. Recording engineer: Paul Hodge

Close / Close - Chloé Dominguez + Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Véronique Lacroix

Prologue au Désert Mauve
projet d’opéra de Symon Henry d’après un roman de Nicole Brossard (2019)

Enregistré en concert le samedi 27 avril 2019, 16 h à La Nef de St-Roch (Québec) – Festival Viens voir ailleurs d’Erreur de type 27

Interprètes :
Sarah Albu, artiste vocale
Rémy Bélanger de Beauport, violoncelliste
Benoît Fortier, corniste
Symon Henry, direction artistique et musicale
Émilie Payeur, artiste électroacoustique

Prologue au Désert Mauve

Depuis sa fondation en 1987, l’Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM+), un grand ensemble aux configurations multiples, s’est consacré entièrement à la création musicale canadienne. Sous l’inspiration et la direction de sa chef fondatrice, Véronique Lacroix, l’ECM+ s’est spécialisé dans la présentation d’événements musicaux d’envergure visant à explorer et apprécier cette musique sous l’angle particulièrement créatif de la multidisciplinarité, voire sous l’éclairage d’oeuvres classiques correspondantes « Une expérience artistique de haut niveau, méticuleusement construite et raffinée. » Wolfgang’s Tonic, Toronto, 2015.

Une quarantaine de ses concerts thématiques / multidisciplinaires ambitieux — dont les deux opéras graphiques novateurs Madame Merveille et Hockey Noir d’André Ristic et Cecil Castellucci — ont vu le jour devant des salles montréalaises bien garnies et donné naissance à de nombreuses reprises en régions québécoises et canadiennes, voire sur la scène internationale.

D’ordre plus pédagogique, le projet Génération de l’ECM+ — concours pancanadien de composition devenu quasi légendaire — a fait connaître et récompensé les plus beaux fleurons de la jeune création musicale canadienne pendant plus de deux décennies (1994 à 2020) jusqu’à devenir l’axe de développement principal de ce secteur, au pays. Avec une tournée pancanadienne propulsant la carrière de quatre compositeurs lauréats chaque deux ans aux quatre coins du pays depuis 2000, c’est, au total, 66 jeunes compositeurs que l’ECM+ a fait connaître au cours de 11 tournées Génération (77 concerts), en plus de réaliser, à l’échelle nationale, 87 ateliers de composition et 165 lectures d’oeuvres.

Faisant valoir un ensemble de 9 à 20 musiciens lors de ses deux volets principaux de « concerts thématiques » et Génération, l’Ensemble a progressivement complété sa programmation avec différentes prestations de jeunes solistes prometteurs formés par Lacroix dans un répertoire international, tout en présentant occasionnellement des musiciens de chambre et compositeurs invités provenant d’autres pays.

Autre particularité, la dizaine de concerts pour « grand ensemble de flutes » présentés par l’ECM+, un ensemble original et dédié, pour lequel la directrice de l’ECM+, aussi flutiste, a commandé et créé de nombreuses oeuvres au grand plaisir des compositeurs y trouvant un défi rafraichissant et contrastant, dans l’ensemble de leur opus instrumental.

Au total, après 35 ans d’activités et au terme de la saison 2021-2022 qui a clôturé ses activités officielles, l’ECM+ aura participé à la création de plus de 300 oeuvres au cours de 159 concerts diversifiés, à de multiples Festivals internationaux (Festival Cervantino au Mexique, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Festival Montréal Nouvelle Musique (MNM), World New Music Days - ISCM) et enregistré 11 disques compacts.

Parmi ceux-ci, mentionnons les 3 albums Nouveaux Territoires sur ATMA parcourant l’éventail du répertoire de l’ECM+ qui l’a d’abord fait connaître. Mais aussi deux albums consacrés à la musique de chambre instrumentale et vocale d’Ana Sokolović, compositrice canadienne réputée découverte par l’ECM+ en 1996 pour laquelle l’excellence d’interprétation de ses oeuvres par l’ECM+ est rapidement devenue une référence.

Finalement, notons que les concerts de l’ECM+ ont été diffusés sur les ondes de Radio-Canada pendant plus d’une décennie, le diffuseur lui ayant aussi confié le rôle « d’Ensemble désigné » pour les éditions 2003 et 2009 de son Concours National des jeunes compositeurs.

Ana Sokolovic - Ciaccona(extrait)

ECM+

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