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.

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This page is predominantly live recordings - please check out studio recordings here:
https://bekahsimms.bandcamp.com/
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Composer Bekah Simms hails from St. John's, Newfoundland and is currently based in Glasgow after nine years living and working in Toronto. Her varied musical output has been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music), “tough, even gutsy...with a sure sense of original and vibrant colours” (Vancouver Sun), and lauded for its "sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity" (The Journal of Music.) Propelled equally by fascination and terror toward the universe, her work is often filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy electroacoustic musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.

Bekah's music has been widely performed across North America and Europe. She has worked with some of the top interpreters of contemporary music internationally, including Crash Ensemble - with whom she is currently an artist-in-residence - Riot Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. Bekah has also been the recipient of over 35 awards, competitive selections, nominations, and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize and the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. The resulting work from the Barlow Prize, "metamold," was nominated for the 2022 Gaudeamus Award. Works from her debut album “impurity chains” were nominated in both 2019 and 2020 for the JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Her music has thrice been included in the Canadian Section's official submission to World Music Days (2016, 2019, & 2021), and in 2016 the CBC included her among their annual 30 hot classical musicians under 30.

Bekah is a Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, following previous academic positions at the University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario.  Her principal teachers during academic studies were Gary Kulesha and Andrew Staniland, alongside significant private study with Clara Iannotta and Martin Bédard.

inquiries: rsazegari10@gmail.com

I'm also Amby Doosters:
https://soundcloud.com/ra1sa

"albumblatttt" incipitsify feat. --- {score + audio} : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85yHzVqM8l0

interview:
https://fdleone.com/2018/06/26/ramteen-sazegari-a-synthesis-of-perspectives/

Patrick Ellis (b. 1994, UK) is a composer, performer and curator based in London. His music has been described as being "focused, intense and unrelenting" (Gaudeamus Jury, 2024), with much of his work utilising limited musical materials, small developments and juxtapositions.

He has worked with many acclaimed ensembles including Terra Invisus (UK), Ensemble Klang (NL), collective lovemusic (FR), XTRO Percussion (NL), the Residentie Orkest (NL), Kluster 5 (NL), Orkest de Ereprijs (NL), The Tantrum Saxophone Quartet (NL), The Spaceship Ensemble (NL), Kirkos (IE) and 315 Ensemble (US/UK), and has collaborated with soloists such as Kathryn Williams (flute), Huw Morgan (organ), Alfian Emir Adytia (cello), Dauphine Van der Velphen (saxophone), Chris Cresswell (electric guitar) and Carson Cooman (organ).

Upcoming projects include a new multimedia work exploring burnout within the classical music industry for the ensemble Standard Issue, a new piece featuring accordion, string trio and fixed media for the Toronto-based group Freesound, an audiovisual piece for To Your Ear Collective, as well as a long-form collaboration with the French-Canadian cellists Laurence Gaudreau and Audréanne Filion.

Patrick's music has been presented at numerous festivals and concert series across the European, North American, Asia and Australasia, including, Gaudeamus Festival (NL), Festival Dag in de Branding (NL), November Music (NL), Rainy Days Festival (LU), Mittelfest and Mittelyoung Festival (IT), De Link Tilburg (NL), Lilium SoundArt (IT), Sundays at The Hugh Lane Gallery (IE), AżTak Festival (PL), New Music Now NL's Dag van de Componist (NL), Click Fest (US), Sounding Here (NL), Kirkos Ensemble's Biosphere Festival (IE), Union Musicale (IT), Mainly Slow Organ Music (UK), Kammer Klang (UK), the Frequency Series Chicago (US), Ideas of Noise Festival (UK) and the Harmos Plural Festival (PT).

In 2024, Patrick was nominated for the Gaudeamus Award and in 2022, he was the Artist in Residence for the AMPA Fontys/De Link Residency programme in Tilburg, The Netherlands. He has also been a part of the Psappha Composing For Piano Scheme in 2019-20, the 25th Edition of Orkest de Erepijs’ Young Composers Meeting and Kathryn Williams' innovative Coming Up for Air Project.

His music has been broadcast on Dutch radio stations, including NPO Radio 4, NPO Klassiek, Concertzender,and Stranded FM, as well as on the US station WCNY, and has been featured on releases from Birmingham Record Company and Huddersfield Contemporary Records.

Patrick is also the artistic director of Open Union, an electric guitar and modular synth duo with composer-performer colleague Peter Bell. Described by the treasured composer Howard Skempton as being 'sometimes subtle and unstable; sometimes rich and dense', the duo aims to build up strong collaborative relationships to create new works. Their current collaborators are Christine Cornwell, Wilson Leywantono, May Chi, Paolo Griffin and Seán Clancy. The duo have performed across the UK at events such as SAOM, Ealing Extranormal, AMOK, Don't Mind Control, Birmingham Modular Organisation and CODA Festival. In 2025, they co-hosted a portrait concert with saxophonist David Zucchi featuring music by Paolo Griffin at the Hundred Years Gallery; earlier in the year, they supported Passepartout Duo at Centrala Space, Birmingham as part of their UK Tour, and in 2023, undertook a mini tour of The Netherlands as part of the Sounding Here concert series, where they performed at Splendor in Amsterdam and Batavierhuis in Rotterdam.

Alongside composing and performing, Patrick works as the creative director of PRXLUDES, an online contemporary music magazine, platform, and resource dedicated to the promotion of the work of emerging and early-career composers. Together, with the artistic director Zygmund de Somogyi and a team of contributors, they have written about more than 125 composers, ensembles and music organisations from the UK and abroad. In 2025, they began hosting events, presenting Alex Groves' DANCE SUITE (performed by Zubin Kanga) as part of PRS Foundation New Music Biennial 2025. Recently, PRXLUDES have been awarded a multi-year partnership with The Hinrichsen Foundation in order to help platform emerging and early-career composers through a series of concerts, conversations, and commissions throughout the UK from 2025 to 2028. The first of these events, the PRX.LIVE Launch Party, will be taking place on the 5th of February 2026 at Folklore Hoxton in London, featuring a new commission by Millicent B. James and existing works by Rylan Gleave, Holly Gowland, Blasio Kavuma, Kian Ravaei and Aileen Sweeney, all performed by the London-based ensemble Standard Issue.

He holds a Masters degree in composition from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag (Royal Conservatoire of The Hague) and a Bachelor's degree from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. His principal tutors have included Martijn Padding, Guus Janssen, Andrew Hamilton, Seán Clancy, Ed Bennett, Howard Skempton and Michael Wolters.

Veronique Vaka, born in 1986, is an Icelandic-based Canadian cellist and composer. She studied classical cello performance at Vincent-d’Indy and continued her studies in electroacoustic composition at the University of Montreal. She recently completed a Master's degree in music composition, from the Iceland University of the Arts, under the guidance of Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Þuríður Jónsdóttir and Daníel Bjarnason. Veronique took a step towards a more abstract approach to her music when she started her research: From Landscape to Music Notation. The intention of her work is to create a poetic context between what she sees, hears and feels in the unspoiled nature, and combine it into a musical composition. Her composition style can be described as organic, with an emphasis on small details such as rhythmic, textural, and timbral elements.

Veronique Vaka has composed works for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Sinfóníuhljómsveit Áhugamanna's orchestra, Ensemble Paramirabo, Duo Harpverk, Ensemble Synaesthesis, Ensemble Dasein, Ensemble Adapter, Caput Ensemble, Nordic Affect and Una Sveinbjarnardóttir.

Veronique Vaka is currently writing new works for Siggi String Quartet (IS) 

Society of Icelandic Composers / Tónskáldafélag Íslands
Associate Composer, Canadian Music Center / Compositrice agréée, Centre de musique canadienne

Erlendis, released Mai 25, 2015. Moderna Records. modernarecords.bandcamp.com/album/erlendis

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