Interviews
An immersion in local art and the living heritage of the Saint-Michel district. That’s how the director of A portée de mains, Alban Maréchal, describes the festival, now in its third year, which runs from September 26 to 28. On the menu: shows, entertainment, kiosks, and even a radio show hosted by our colleague Keithy Antoine.
And it is all free of charge.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: FESTIVAL DES SAVEURS | apdm
From October 4 to 10, the new FLUX festival will present artists from the contemporary jazz and experimental music worlds, a new departure from existing festivals such as FIMAV, Suoni Per Il Popolo and Akousma. Formerly associated with Suoni, Peter Burton is the initiator of FLUX, and explains its spirit to Alain Brunet for PAN M 360.
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Lori Goldston/Stefan Christoff + Christelle Saint-Julien + Elissa Kayal
04.10.24 ▴ 19H30 ▴ La Sotterenea
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SlowPitchSound + Bana Haffar
05.10.24 ▴ 19H30 ▴ La Sotterenea
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Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra + Tatusuya Nakatani solo + ARTS CARE
06.10.24 ▴ 19H30 ▴ La Sala Rossa
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Wadada Leo Smith / Sylvie Courvoisier duo + Rehab Hazgui
07.10.24 ▴ 19H30 ▴ La Sala Rossa
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GIFT: Louise Campbell, Naomi Silver-Vézina, Amy Horvey et Rebecca Barnstaple
08_09.10.24 ▴ 13H – 19H30 ▴ Édifice Wilder
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Phew + Celestial Cabbage Foundation
09.10.24 ▴ 19H30 ▴ La Sala Rossa
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Architek Percussion plays Julius Eastman and Andrea Young + Video Projection of Amahl Arulandam
10.10.24 ▴ 19H30 ▴ Conservatoire de musique
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Improvising Care: Conferences, round-tables
04_08.10.24 ▴ CIRMMT
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Double launch: the Canadian New Music Network’s Healthy Creative Music Resource and the new issue of Circuit, contemporary music magazine on Participatory Music Creation.
07.10.24 ▴ 18H00 ▴ Édifice Wilder
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A Montreal artist of R&B and soul inspirations, Fernie had already demonstrated the full extent of his musical talent in 2021 with his debut album, Aurora. With the single Pain, released last spring, his most recent composition, Bones & All, marks a move away from the quietly optimistic tones that made him famous, in favor of exploring darker sounds and more difficult subjects. Once again, his magnificent counter-tenor voice successfully conveys all the sensitivity, delicacy and emotion required for such a project. Ahead of her appearance at the Pop Montreal festival, on Thursday September 26, 8:30 p.m., at Le Ministère, Fernie talks to us about the process. Marianne Collette conducted this interview for PAN M 360.
Originally from Mozambique, SAM.IITO moved to Montreal in 2005. Trained in jazz at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, he has done a lot of instrumental music and new pop of African inspiration, then electronic, notably with Pierre Kwenders and the duo SPRLUA. On the occasion of the POP Montréal festival, he has undertaken to create a series of new songs that will reconnect him with music that is less electronic than his latest work. These songs will premiere on September 26 at Rialto, at 10 p.m. Michel Labrecque talks to SAM.IITO about his new pieces.
Returning from a triumphant tour through China and South Africa, Montérégie pianist Jean-Philippe Sylvestre will be in Montreal and Quebec City on September 26 and 27, respectively, for two concerts at the Maison symphonique de Montréal and Palais Montcalm in Quebec City. In this program, he invites audiences on a musical journey on the frontiers of twentieth-century jazz and American music and the piano music of such Romantic masters as Chopin, Liszt, and Scriabin. What links such works as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromtu? The “poet of the piano,” as Yannick Nézet-Séguin calls him, spoke to Alexandre Villemaire a few days ago before leaving for a short stay in Nova Scotia.
This interview was realized in French
Rhapsody in Blue – Jean-Philippe Sylvestre
Programme
Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin
Fantaisie impromptu, Frédéric Chopin
Nocturnes op.9 1-2, Frédéric Chopin
Ballade no.1, Frédéric Chopin
Liebestraum no.3, Franz Liszt
– Entracte –
Sonate no.4, Alexander Scriabin
West Side Story – Symphonic Dances, Leonard Bernstein
For tickets, it’s HERE
Is Nabihah Iqbal where you may not expect her ? Not at all. Let’s avoid any colonialist bias from the outset and agree that British-born Nabihah Iqbal is a citizen of the world. Of Pakistani origin, she grew up and lives in London. She released Dreamer on Ninja Tune in 2023, we then observed that her musical influences were rock, ethereal wave, a little shoegaze, post-punk, ambient, but also slightly West African, South Asian and more from non occidental sources. Roughly speaking, the result is quite rock, and is presented on stage as a quartet or duo with electronic and pre-recorded additions. The slimming formula will be chosen at Rialto Hall, next Saturday in the context of POP Montreal. Reached this week in Philadelphia at the heart of her tour, Nabihah Iqbal talks about the foundations of her art, as well as her interesting studies in ethnomusicology. Alain Brunet interviewed her.
In 2022, Jeanne Laforest is not far from her student days at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. She released an album of songs characterized by their rich orchestrations. The songs on Puisque les heures nous manquent are infused with romantic classical music, early music, contemporary music and jazz, as well as electro, jungle rhythms and autotuned vocals. The songwriter, composer, arranger, keyboardist and singer went on to reach the semi-finals of the Festival international de la chanson de Granby. Freed from competitions and university studies, she is now at the helm of a variable-geometry chamber orchestra that performs her music and songs. The first incarnation was Buissonor, soon to become Forestuor. Jeanne Laforest’s real Montreal debut will take place at Centre PHI, this Saturday, September 21, 8pm. PAN M 360 interviewed this resourceful young artist, who explains the Buissonor and Forestuor concepts to Alain Brunet.
Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Juana Molina, Patrick Watson, The Dears, Barr Brothers or The Fleshtones are the “well known” artists among the 150 sets that will be presented at the 23rd Pop Montreal festival, from September 25th to 29th – Wednesday to Sunday. And that’s saying a lot! In fact, what is so cool again with POP MTL is not about comford food but about discovering the live sets of so many underground artists, from the local scene to the international scene. Presented in a lot of venues including unusual ones, those artists may remain confidential but there are always some who will reach a much bigger status for the best reasons. Most definitely, POP Montreal is staying the course and submitting the results of its researches over 12 months. “This is Hipster Christmas time ! ” laughes Dan Seligman founder and still main artistic seeker of this great Montreal happening. So let’s get his picks before customising our schedules! Alain Brunet met him for PAN M 350, they spoke English and French. Montreal way, of course.
The Université Laval Jazz Competition was created in 2014 by the excellent pianist and associate professor Rafael Zaldivar. The competition had originally been set up to “enhance the expertise in performing and creating in the jazz tradition within the Faculty of Music at Université Laval”. Today, the competition attracts performer-creators from across Quebec’s academic community, providing a unique forum for exchange between university and college students. The competition’s evaluation criteria are based on interaction, composition, improvisation, transcription, transposition and sight-reading. A hand-picked jury will evaluate the candidates, who will perform on October 3 and 4, starting at 6 p.m., at Université Laval’s Théâtre de la Cité Universitaire (TCU). The winner of the first Université Laval Excellence Award will receive $7,000, plus the opportunity to perform in concert at the Festival Québec Jazz in June 2025. He or she will also have the chance to shoot a professional-quality video at Université Laval’s LARC studio, accompanied by the festival’s production team. The second-place winner (best artistic talent) will receive $5,000 and a guaranteed presence at the Festival Québec. 3. Third place (Gabriel Hamel Emerging Talent Award) will receive $3,000 and a concert at the Festival Québec Jazz. All good reasons to interview Rafael Zaldivar on PAN M 360. Alain Brunet conducted this interview.
Living a century before JS Bach, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was a key composer at the end of the Renaissance – or at the dawn of the Baroque period – whose major contribution was to clarify the expression of human feelings through song and instrumental music. A great specialist of the Renaissance, whose every nook and cranny he has visited, the eminent Jordi Savall returns to Quebec to present a program built around Monteverdi, entitled Les larmes et le feu des muses (Tears and the fire of the muses), a reminder of the extremes of the emotional spectrum and a way of filling out this palette. These include works by Monteverdi, English composers John Dowland (1563-1626) and Anthony Holborne (1545-1602), and German composer Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654). The lyric quintet La Capella Reial de Catalunya and the 5-viola ensemble Hesperyon XXI will perform. The concerts will take place on October 6 at Palais Montcalm and the following day at Maison symphonique de Montréal. In advance, PAN M 360 caught up with the Catalan maestro to find out more about this program and other artistic projects close to his heart.
A seasoned performer of multidisciplinary artistic projects, lyric singer Stéphanie Pothier invites audiences to the immersive concert De la mer aux nuages [From the sea to the clouds], to be presented at the Maison de la culture de Pointe-aux-Trembles and the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on September 21 and 24 respectively, before touring to Carleton-sur-Mer on November 9. Integrating songs from the classical repertoire with works by Berlioz, Debussy and Ravel, with an original composition for voice, piano and electronics by Julien-Robert, the program takes the listener on a sonic and visual voyage from the depths of the St. Lawrence River to the heights of the skies and clouds. With our collaborator Alexandre Villemaire, she presents the genesis of this project.
21 septembre 2024 – Maison de la culture Pointe-aux-Trembles
24 septembre 2024 – Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, pavillon Monkland
9 novembre 2024 – Quai des arts, Carleton-sur-mer
The Confluents audiovisual exhibition, presented in conjunction with the concert, runs until October 6 at the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more info, click here
photo: Pierre-Étienne Bergeron
The 59th season of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) highlights three great “boreal composers”: the late Kaija Saariaho (Finland), Nicole Lizée (Quebec) and the late Jocelyn Morlock (Canada), in three eclectic programs. In addition to a selection of eight pieces by these visionary creators, the 2024-25 season will feature works by Hans Martin, Keiko Devaux, Margareta Jeric, Philippe Macnab-Séguin, Samy Moussa, Tanya Tagaq and Rita Ueda. Among the pieces are five new SMCQ commissions.
To interpret all this music, the performance was entrusted to The Ensemble de la SMCQ (Cristian Gort, conductor), Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, Voces Boreales (Andrew Gray, conductor) and Trio Kalysta (Emily Belvedere, harp, Lara Deutsch, flute, Marina Thibeault, viola) with soloists Pamela Reimer (piano), Marie-Hélène Breault (flute), Chloé Dominguez (cello) and Mélanie Harel (oboe and English horn).
The SMCQ’s 59th season will also see the 12th presentation of the Montreal/New Music (MNM) international festival, from February 14 to March 2, 2025. The eclectic and explosive program, which explores the diverse facets of the relationship between music and images, will be unveiled in autumn 2024.
The intensification of the aurora borealis this year prompted a general theme, evoking the “multicolored spectrum of creative music”.
SMCQ Artistic Director, composer Simon Bertrand, explains his plans for the new season… and will unveil the MNM Festival program later this autumn.