About twenty speakers hung over the Claude Champagne Hall on Wednesday for the opening night of the 2025–2026 season of Ultrasons. For the occasion, a mix of acousmatic pieces, performances, and video installations was showcased through student projects.
The concert opens with the piece Nulle part je n’habite, sauf ici, en moi-même by Aurélie Théroux Sénécale. Surrounded by a console and old televisions, the TV screens project a snowy image onto a giant screen, where the sound and the image are in constant interaction. The oscillations on the “snow” displayed on the televisions evolve in response to the frequency changes emitted by the composer, taking us on a stroboscopic journey.
In Maurice du Berger’s Untitled No. 1, a fully acousmatic piece, we are absorbed by the soundscape that evolves and shifts around us. With a somber tone, the piece unfolds without pushing the extremes too far, featuring moments tinged with lightness before returning to the same dark atmosphere of the beginning.
After setting his violin aside for several years, Zao Dinel returns to his primary instrument for an acousmatic composition titled I Use to Play Violin. Divided into three parts, the opening section showcases the violin in its simplest form, with layered violin recordings illustrating the instrument’s capabilities. The second part depicts a rehearsal in which the performer stubbornly attempts to play a score that is too difficult for his skill level. This exchange between him and the imaginary orchestra leads into a final section mirroring the first, where the violin remains the center of attention, this time focusing on violin pizzicatos.
The piece titled ꙮ, by composer Platon Beliaevskin, begins with a highly rhythmic section before a sudden shift in which we are plunged into pure chaos, punctuated by screams, as the piece attempts—unsuccessfully—to return to the rhythmic stability of the opening.
After a short intermission, Reste de Ziryab El Hihi continues the concert. A structure stands at the center of the stage, with a video projection of a forest unfolding before our eyes. A sudden break interrupts the opening of the piece, giving way to white noise, and the structure quietly comes to life, moving before our eyes, with the aluminum producing sounds against the backdrop of this constant white noise.
Ac Riznar’s piece Yarning Yearning builds toward a massive crescendo that gains momentum as it unfolds. Throughout the piece, we experience a sense of déjà vu as certain sounds recur while traveling through the space created by the dome of speakers.
Alex Ronald Brisson, for his part, titled his piece ⅼ┧″⬤⡂. This piece was certainly one of the most complete of the evening. By making use of the spatialization available to him, he succeeds in immersing us in his universe, where, over the course of the piece, a certain familiarity sets in with the sounds we hear, despite the impossibility of identifying exactly what those sounds are.
A music video—that’s why Matisse Charbonneau chose this format for his piece *Попіл*, a work that depicts the chaos of war, accompanied by ambient music, followed by a moment of rupture where chaos is unleashed both sonically and visually.
Jaden Brown and his composition Mère Michel bring this first Ultrasons concert to a close. Inspired by three CDs that are dear to him, we are swept away on a journey where we hear snippets of this music without necessarily being able to identify it clearly.
Les étudiants ont présenté des œuvres de haut niveau dans un concert où le temps s’est déroulé à grande vitesse sous le talent de ceux-ci.
