Akousma

Choreography: Lucie Grégoire
Art Direction: Jean-François Denis, Gilles Gobeil, Robert Normandeau
Interactive dance system design: David M. Birnbaum

The following is from the Akousma concert flyer, auto-translated from the French.

Montreal, January 10, 2005 – NETWORKS presents its new electroacoustic concert series, Akousma, at the Monument-National, January 20 through 29, 2005. This new series of concerts is devoted to electroacoustic music in all its forms: acousmatic composition, live sound installation, video, music, and dance. Viewers are invited to a series of five concerts alternated with five dance performances under the auspices of the choreographer Lucie Grégoire and composer Robert Normandeau.

The five concerts will draw a portrait of the recent production of each guest composer. On Saturday, January 22, Quebec composer Louis Dufort will present a range of different facets of his profession: work with real-time video and acousmatic music. On Tuesday, January 25, Theresa Transistor (Monique Jean with artists Christian Bouchard, Christian Calon and Mario Gauthier) will present a play performed entirely in real time. Thursday 27 January, Annette Vande Gorne from Belgium will offer up some of Knapp’s acousmatic music. Finally, Saturday, January 29, Marcelle Deschenes will close the festival with a concert entitled Smaller Big Bangs—a rare opportunity to meet this wonderful composer.

These evenings will be preceded Thursday, January 20, with a concert devoted to works by winners of the award from the Hugh LeCaine (electroacoustic music) National Competition Young Composers SOCAN Foundation. This year, some winning entries from 2002, 2003 and 2004 were honored. This year will feature music by Nicolas Bernier (Montreal), Ben Wilson (Vancouver), Martin Leclerc (Montreal) Félix Frédéric Baril (Montreal), Mathieu Marcoux (Montreal) and Ryan Dorward (Edmonton). The concert will be presented in collaboration with The SOCAN Foundation.

Alternating with the concerts, choreography will be presented on Friday 21 January Sunday, January 23, Monday, January 24, Wednesday, January 26 and Friday, January 28 to 20.30. The evening will consist of two choreographic pieces performed by Lucie Grégoire to music by Robert Normandeau: StrinGDberg, of which a sample appeared at EYE product show in May 2004 at the Agora de la danse, is here presented in full with choreography by Yoshito Ohno. The second piece, Erinyes, created by Lucie Grégoire, will have its world premiere. This last piece will use real-time video analysis technology. Both pieces will be accompanied by a version concert of music that the composer has done recently for the play Medea-Material.

Finally, throughout the duration of the festival in the National Monument Theatre cafe, an interactive installation by Roxanne Turcotte called The Sound Museum will be shown. This installation, which will present a series of sound and light objects, will be open 19h to 22h.

Akousma is produced with support from Arts Council of Canada, Canadian Heritage, Arts Council of Montreal, and the SOCAN Foundation.

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