Interviews – Page 36

On Tuesday evening, Ensemble Paramirabo will welcome Ensemble Variances to Salle Bourgie. Founded in Martinique in 2010 before moving to France, Ensemble Variances aims to create a meeting place for all musical traditions and to create as much new music as possible. This collaboration between France and Quebec was born by chance, in the United States. A meeting between Jeffrey Stonehouse, flutist for Paramirabo, and Thierry Pécou, pianist, composer and founder of the Ensemble Variances, was the starting point for this great collaboration.

The program to be presented next Tuesday consists almost entirely of new works, including one by Thierry Pécou. At the heart of the musical preoccupations are the idea of the pulsation that follows us everywhere, sometimes going unnoticed, and the ecological crisis, which is now impossible to ignore. PAN M 360 caught up with Thierry Pécou to find out more about the Ensemble Variances and the program to be performed at Salle Bourgie.

PAN M 360: Hello! Tell us a little about the Ensemble Variances, which you founded. How did the project come about?

THIERRY PÉCOU: It’s an ensemble that’s about 10 years old now. My main activity is composition, but I’ve always enjoyed being active as a pianist too. For me, being a composer also means being involved in the concert of sound. So I’ve always enjoyed playing with other musicians, and I wanted to create an ensemble with people close to me, to create a kind of laboratory and explore the interpretation of works. That’s how the ensemble came about.

PAN M 360: What type of repertoire does Ensemble Variances most often perform?

THIERRY PÉCOU: At the outset, our idea was not only to create a performance laboratory but also to explore oral traditions. The ensemble was originally founded in Martinique, and we stayed there for a year to work on a project on traditional Martinican music. Then we came back to the continent, to France, and continued to work on projects with Turkish, Indian, Chinese and other musicians. That’s the ensemble’s DNA. It’s an ensemble that strives for openness, both in contemporary writing aesthetics and in the encounter between orality and writing.

PAN M 360: And how did you come to work with Paramirabo?

THIERRY PÉCOU: With Paramirabo too, it was an encounter. You could also say that with Ensemble Variances, one of the things that really guides us is always to go out and meet others. As it happens, we were due to tour the United States in March 2022, but needed to replace our flautist at the last minute. We had the idea of looking for someone who was already on American soil, and we decided to look for someone from Montreal. That’s how we met Jeff (Jeffrey Stonehouse), whom I didn’t really know, but who had been recommended to me by Claire Marchand, the director of the Canadian Music Centre, who is herself a flautist.

So we did our tour with Jeff, and we felt there was a very strong affinity, so we started putting together a project with his ensemble, Paramirabo. And the project came together very quickly because barely a year later, we’re presenting this program.

PAN M 360: How do you set up a project like this, when the two ensembles are separated by an ocean?

THIERRY PÉCOU: It’s true that our ensembles are separated by an ocean, but at the same time, they have something very similar in the way they work. Also, we realized that we had an equivalent core of musicians, i.e. these are two ensembles of the same size, which can double up. We thought this was an interesting feature to exploit in the architecture of the program and in the line-up we were going to present. After that, Jeff and I had a lot of discussions about the program, the composers we wanted to play…

PAN M 360: And as a starting point for your program, you have this piece by Steve Reich…

THIERRY PÉCOU: Jeff and I were immediately drawn to the idea of playing a piece by Steve Reich. Initially, we wanted to play the double sextet, i.e. exactly the formation of our respective ensembles but doubled. But in the end, we decided to choose a different one, since the double sextet is very often performed and Paramirabo had played it several times recently.

In the end, we chose a piece emblematic of Steve Reich’s last period, called Pulse (which, incidentally, is the title of the concert…) And this idea of pulsation was very inspiring for the rest of the program.

PAN M 360: What does this pulsation mean to you? Does it manifest itself in the same way in all the pieces on the program?

THIERRY PÉCOU: It’s true that when we think of pulsation, we think of something fast, of a clearly identifiable rhythm that allows us to have a pulse that we perceive directly. In some of the pieces on the program, what’s interesting is that there are very slow, very interior pulsations. And so the music unfolds in a way that, when you listen to it, you almost never hear the pulse, but it’s there, underlying it. And if the performers don’t feel it, the music can’t unfold.

PAN M 360: If we read the description of the concert on the Le Vivier website, which produces this concert, we hear a lot about a program that is part of a response to, or awareness of, the current ecological crisis. How do you see this manifesting itself in the program?

THIERRY PÉCOU: It’s true that this is a subject that is present in the consciousness of artists in general. For us, the way we’ve tried to reflect on the issue is through our relationship with the environment and nature. From this came the idea of pulsation, of Pulse, which is the pulsation, the pulse, the beat, almost the primordial beat, the heartbeat.

So it really is life, in the original sense of the word. That’s what we’re trying to convey in our concert, this idea of pulsation. And also, particularly in my piece, which is very much inspired by Balinese gamelan, to turn to a culture which, unlike our Western culture unfortunately, has remained very close to the natural environment. For example, in Balinese music, I find that there are many elements of sound architecture that are like echoes of the natural world.

PAN M 360: And personally, how do you integrate these issues into your own compositions?

THIERRY PÉCOU: It’s a subject I’ve been integrating for a long time, even before it became as urgent as it is today. It’s a subject that’s been with me for several years. I have two examples to give you.

First of all, there’s an opera I composed in collaboration with the Navajo poet Laura Tohe, entitled Nahasdzáán in the Glittering World. The Glittering World is a Navajo expression for the world we live in today. It’s a play about pollution and the need to respect nature. It’s almost a manifesto, really.

There’s also a very emblematic piece called Méditation sur la fin de l’espèce, which I wrote in 2018 and which incorporates real whale songs broadcast over loudspeakers. This piece was composed in the spirit and with the idea of calling attention to endangered species, in this case, animal species, but also plant species. The question of biodiversity is at the heart of this piece.

PAN M 360: Let’s get back to the program for this concert, Pulse. You’ll be performing, but you’ll also be taking part in the creation of one of your own works. How do you approach this dual role?

THIERRY PÉCOU: It’s a role I like to take on. What’s surprising, in fact, is that the composition process is a very solitary thing. When you know who you’re composing for, you visualize and integrate the characteristics and qualities of the performers you’re going to work with. And then, afterwards, when you move on to the realization, I’d say there’s a kind of separation. I almost forget that I’m the one who composed the music I’m going to work with. So I take on the role of performer in my own right, with a kind of detachment from the fact that I wrote the piece.

PAN M 360: Were the other pieces on the program also composed for the occasion?

THIERRY PÉCOU: The initial spark for the program was Steve Reich’s piece. Jeff and I then asked ourselves which composer we could include in the program who would resonate with Reich’s piece and the notion of minimalism, or who would be an extension of it. We also wanted the project to have a strong female presence. So we came up with the idea of having this piece by Missy Mazzoli, who is part of Paramirabo’s repertoire, and who is, I think, part of this new generation that follows in the footsteps of the twentieth century. Then there’s Cassandra Miller, who takes a very interesting approach to minimalism, counterbalancing this notion of pulsation. Finally, Mike Patch’s piece for solo piano is a piece that works a lot on harmony, and for me it gives the image of a mirror that cuts the program in two, putting the two parts of the concert face to face, so to speak.

PAN M 360: Finally, if you had to describe the concert in a few words, what would you say?

THIERRY PÉCOU: I’d say minimalism, pulsation, too. I’d like to say harmony, in other words, musical hedonism, generous sound, beautiful sound, which simply brings us back to the beauty of nature. And all this brings us back to the environmental question.

Ensemble Variances and Paramirabo present the Pulse concert at Salle Bourgie on Tuesday, October 24 at 7:30 pm. Info and tickets HERE.

Aho Ssan closes Akousma this Friday at Usine C, and PAN M 360 is interested in his work not only because he’s a rare Afro-descendant to shine in an electroacoustic world largely dominated by palefaces, but above all because his music is excellent.

Aho Ssan is the other real first name and artist name of Parisian Niamké Désiré. After studying mathematics, computer graphics and film, he began beatmaking and then electroacoustic music.

At a very young age, he won the Fondation France television prize for the soundtrack to the film Dissimulée by Ingha Mago (2015) and subsequently joined several projects linked to Ircam and GRM, French institutions involved in electroacoustic research.

A debut solo album was released in February 2020 on the Subtext Recordings label. Simulacrum was inspired by themes elaborated by Jean Baudrillard, notably on inclusivity and equality.

Recently, a second album of his own was released, Rhizomes evokes the rhizomatic thinking of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and also Édouard Glissant, who also evolved the concept. Artists from all over the world have been invited to take part, including Chilean-American Nicolas Jaar, a favorite among electronic music fans.

So many reasons to talk to him!

PAN M 360 : Still in 2023, few Afro-descendant artists are making their mark in the electroacoustic field and in fundamental research into acoustics, electronics, and you’re obviously a case in point, even a pioneer insofar as there aren’t very many of them. What do you think?

Aho Ssan : It turns out that when I started with the Simulacrum album in 2020, it’s true that most of the references in electroacoustic music or electronic music, quite simply, that I was listening to, there were very few Afros who were African or on European territory. But in the wake of George Floyd’s death, there was a collective on the Internet that started to create a database of Afro producers everywhere. That’s when I realized just how rich the production was. At the same time, I met KMRU, an artist from Kenya who now lives in Germany, and we made an album called Limen, a kind of ambient electroacoustic;

PAN M 360 : So yes, we’re seeing a lot more Afro-descendant human resources. But it’s not yet reflected in perceptions. It was the same thing with techno or house, which were initiated by black Americans and whose aesthetic was then taken over by white Westerners without today’s generations always being aware of it. The same cannot be said of musique concrète, now electroacoustic, which was initiated by white Europeans 75 years ago. In music today, white Western culture has been taken over by people from all over the world. And Afro-descendants are no exception, and you are an eloquent example of this.

Aho Ssan : We have a festival linked to GRM and which is very close to Akousma and we have a whole generation of which I am a part and which allows us to discover all the repertoire of previous generations.

PAN M 360 : But what led you to electroacoustic music? What is your background?

Aho Ssan : I started listening to more abstract music when I was a freshman in college. I was studying mathematics, physics and computer science at the time. And I had a friend who was using software like Max/MSP at the time, which is computer software for making music. I didn’t know anything about these programs at the time, so I started looking for artists who were using them to make music. And so I discovered music that required more attentive listening, and that’s how I also started to get involved in musique concrète. At the beginning, I made links with the music I liked, music that was a little more popular even if already quite experimental, I’m thinking of Autechre, Flying Lotus or other artists on the Brainfeeder label and more.

PAN M 360 : So you were willing to look further into more experimental electronic music.

Aho Ssan : I understood the idea of musique concrète at the time, but I’d never really listened to it. As soon as I discovered this software, I discovered another world, and I started looking everywhere, thanks to the Internet. You start listening to things, discovering Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Henry and so on. And in the same way, the people who went on and influenced me a lot.

PAN M 360 : And so, you didn’t pursue mathematics?

Aho Ssan : I did a degree in mathematics. And after that, I wanted to have something more artistic because that’s really where I saw myself being. So I studied design and computer graphics before switching to film studies. But I didn’t study music.

PAN M 360 : But you do have a digital background. You developed your musical vocabulary in this universe.

Aho Ssan : When I started doing this, I was using software that’s rustic today, like Fruity Loops at the time. On the Internet, there weren’t many tutorials like there are now. I had to do a lot of research, spending hours and hours in the software trying to understand why this button activates this or that, what compression is, what reverb is, and so on. I was trying to reproduce what I liked at the time, and then trying to find my own language;

PAN M 360 : Vous avez grandi à Paris, quelles sont vos origines africaines?

Aho Ssan : My parents are from the Ivory Coast, but my grandfather, who died quite young, was a trumpeter originally from Ghana. My parents didn’t really speak English, but still inherited the culture of Ghana. At home, we listened to a lot of highlife and afrobeat, which for me is the best music there is, even if I listen to very little of it today. So I try to bring groove into my music, even if it’s a deconstructed groove, because I also incorporate other music that I really like. And then, I’d also say that I grew up with an older brother and sister who listened to a lot of popular music at the time; as a result, through them I got to know the French hip-hop of the 90s and so my musical culture has also been marked by this period. And I think you can feel this hip-hop influence even more in Rhizomes, and you can also feel the jazz side, Sun Ra in particular, which my father also listened to at home. And there’s also this big broken-beat influence whose leader was Flying Lotus.

PAN M 360 : You speak of “deconstructed groove” in your music, of Afro jazz or Afro African music being quoted and after that, processed and transformed. But still?

Aho Ssan : Yes, I incorporate music inspired by groove artists but also experimental ones, who played a lot of different instruments that weren’t particularly heard in popular music or even jazz. I’m thinking of Alice Coltrane’s harp, for example, or traditional Indian instruments. In this sense, the groove is deconstructed in another proposal from the electroacoustic family.

PAN M 360 : What are you playing at AKOUSMA?

Aho Ssan : I’ll be presenting music linked to the Rhizome process. I did a piece with the musical research group, GRM, who commissioned a piece from me and so it’s called The Falling Man, in reference to that famous photo by Richard Drewof the man who threw himself off the World Trade Center. Before it became the Rhizome album, these were multi-channel pieces I’d created for GRM, which I played in several venues.PAN M 360 : What are you presenting at AKOUSMA?

PAN M 360 : And so it’s not exactly a piece from the Rhizomes album.

Aho Ssan : The idea was to make it a three-part piece. There’s the first part that comes with the Rhizome book. It’s not in the album that you can listen to on Spotify or Apple Music, those are extras. It’s the first part where I wanted to develop this sound simulation of someone throwing himself into the void : The Falling Man.

The second part is more fantastic, more phantasmagorical. It’s the journey of a character who loses his life, and it’s called Till the Sun Down.

The third part is a sound I made with Lafada, a French artist. I decided to include La Fada’s voice on the last part, because I think it adds hope to the journey.

PAN M 360 : For its broadcast at Usine C, you probably adapted this music to Akousma’s 30 speakers.

Aho Ssan : Because it’s a bit special, it’s a bit like doing multichannel music, at least from my point of view, is that generally, me, I start with stereo because that’s what my software allows me to do or mono. And then you broadcast in multichannel, so you start to create space from these things in stereo. And that creates another room, another space, something physical and something different. And then, when it becomes an album, it goes back to stereo;

PAN M 360 : Lastly, was the title of your new album inspired by Rhizomes, the famous book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, which refers to a structure constantly evolving in all directions at all levels?

Aho Ssan : Yes, exactly, but it also comes from one of my favorite authors, the poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant, who took up the concept. It’s a bit like the journey of my pieces, which evolve formally, designed for different listening, different destinations.

AHO SSAN IS PERFORMING AT USINE C FRIDAY OCTOBER 20TH, 8PM AND CLOSES AKOUSMA / INFOS ET TICKETS HERE

In the aesthetic of ’70s soul, funk, and disco, Kristian North’s Pseudoscience Fiction deals both literally and metaphorically with the pandemic, in a strange and sophisticated way. Blurring the distinction between reality and imagination in a kind of visionary present or augmented version of our world, this conceptual album evokes the soft colour palettes of the ’80s, rock opera, musical theatre, country music with Hawaiian accents, palm trees, beaches, and sports cars. Hiding between these sonic textures, is the dystopian modernity of a collective experience on the brink of collapse, leading us into individual bubbles of reality that are perhaps nothing more than films in their selves. PAN M 360 brings you this interview with Kristian North, for his show at L’Escogriffe on 21 October, in honour of Analogue Addiction’s 10th anniversary.

PAN M 360: Pseudoscience Fiction is your third album as a solo artist. What happened between the previous album and the beginning of this new record?

Kristian North: Passion Play came out in 2021 but the album took a long time to come out. Actually, the pandemic happened, while we were going to release Passion Play. The album was finished when the pandemic was announced. I remember the first week vividly, as everyone was staying home but I was still going to the studio. People were saying that it would only last a few months and it would resolve itself during the fall. But it got pushed even further than that. It influenced the shows and how it was promoted.

PAN M 360: When did you start recording this new album?

Kristian North: I guess it was in 2021. I was compelled to make it about how impactful the pandemic was. It was hard to ignore so it became a point of inspiration. Nobody wants to talk about all these things, myself included. I was just thinking about those things when I wrote the album. It has a mood that is not necessarily super happy or something.

PAN M 360: You recorded the album with Renny Wilson at the Value Sound studio. How important is he to you in the recording process?

Kristian North: I’ve always recorded with Renny. We have a collaborative relationship, we work on arrangements together. He also plays bass on the record. At this point, we sort of co-produce the records and he definitely engineers the records. It’s useful to me, I like to have somebody to share my ideas with. I really like collaborations, even though I promote myself as a solo artist. I prefer collaborative environments in music.

PAN M 360: You kept the previous sophisti-pop genre but you pushed the idea around it even further. You have soul, funk, disco, rock opera, Hawaiian, and country influences. What albums did you have in mind as an inspiration?

Kristian North: I listen to a lot of punk and soul music. That’s more like my basis for everything. I like Sophisto-pop, but I don’t completely relate to that. My favourite music is more like funk and soul. This album also has a more jazzy influence.

PAN M 360: You also kept your lo-fi and DIY aesthetic.

Kristian North : Sort of. I think of it as hi-fi, actually. But there is something fun about doing it yourself, for sure. Music gets more fun when it’s more difficult. It’s boring when it gets too easy. I like to do things the hard way, I like to be involved in the process, in the technological aspect of it. I don’t go for the lo-fi sound, I go for the creative sound. Renny and I have strong ideas we have developed together. They don’t necessarily coincide with norms.

PAN M 360: What do you mean by that ?

Kristian North: At this point, there are formulated approaches to recording. We have very strong feelings about how we want the records to sound. That comes across I think. These are subtle details, not everybody hears these things. I have my opinions on these things.

PAN M 360: You have many guests on this record: bass, flute, sax, violin, etc. Would you like to introduce the people who worked with you on the record?

Kristian North: There are tons of amazing people on the record, most of them are my favorite musicians in Montreal, I’m pretty happy about that. There’s a duet with Elle Barbara, Ari Swan did the string arrangements, and Joe Grass played pedal steel on a couple of moments on the record. My band is on the record too, we’ve been playing for a long time. When you’ve been playing music for a long time, you don’t have to talk about music as much, music is actually a difficult thing to write and talk about. Music gets better as you develop those relationships. It’s another type of language. Once you develop a language together, it just gets stronger and stronger.

PAN M 360 : What can we expect for the live shows of this record?

Kristian North: I also have my own opinions about live shows too. Live music is a sacred thing to me. The cooler thing about live music is that you get a unique experience, it’s not a fixed medium. We do our own interpretation of the songs live and I like to leave room for improvisation.

PAN M 360 : What do you mean behind the title of the album, Pseudoscience Fiction

Kristian North: It was important to me to leave things abstract and to let people have their own ideas. I tried to let go of my own meanings. It was a confusing time. I wanted to write about the internal monologue that a lot of us had to go through. The expression pseudo-science is a meme basically. It kept coming up with the discussions about the vaccines, the pandemic, or what is and what is not scientific. That’s mostly where this idea came from. There was also a sort of experience with the pandemic that was more like science fiction for us to experience.

PAN M 360: By the way, the album cover illustrates the theme of the album well.

Kristian North: It was made by a British artist I’ve never met, Samuel Tomson. I just like his style. I wanted somebody who could do a 1960s paperback science-fiction novel design. I was looking for a retro-futurist style. One thing that the pandemic did was that it felt futuristic and primitive at the same time as if we were going backwards. It feels like that now too in politics. But the album is not really political, it’s more about bringing up questions.

PAN M 360: You mentioned that the album is partially inspired by the author J. G. Ballard. How did it influence the theme ?

Kristian North: I loved J. G. Ballard when I was a teenager. The book Crash is his famous one. He deals with near-future science fiction, sometimes about the present days. Just like how I wrote this album, science-fiction is not just about UFOs and other planets, it’s about putting a different lens on modern society. This concept album is playing on the inside of our isolation, our bubble. If we’ve learned anything from that experience is that life is not stable, you can’t plan for the future anymore. It might be good, as it can change your perspective on life, on how you should live your life, because it is always uncertain. The pandemic made it uncertain for everybody.

Following the success of “Run Away to Mars” and, more recently, “A Little Bit Happy,” Nicholas Durocher, aka TALK, needs no introduction. This Friday, the Ottawa native unveils Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees, a powerful debut pop-rock album that draws on his rock roots. For the occasion, Pan M 360 chatted with him about his new project, his busy past year, and his love for Quebec!

On July 8, 2022, TALK took on stage at the Festival d’été de Québec, just before country star Luke Combs. At the time, the Canadian artist had no idea that his career was about to take off. After his show, a video of his excellent song “Run Away to Mars” at the festival went viral on social networks, propelling him to the top of the Quebec charts and helping him gain popularity around the globe. Since then, TALK has once again performed at the FEQ last summer, and his love affair with the province continues. He even recently got a tattoo of the Quebec flag.

Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees is TALK’s first album, rich in emotional diversity and authenticity. Whether on an energetic track like “Wasteland” or a more acoustic one like “Afraid of the Dark,” his lyrics and voice shine through and connect directly with the listener. His universe is accessible and personal, with catchy melodies. For his Quebec fans, the singer has added a surprise track to the physical copies that will be distributed in the province: his cover of La Ziguezon by La Bottine Souriante, a local classic he’s particularly fond of.

PAN M 360: Hi Nicholas! Congratulations on your debut album. After the huge success of your track “Run Away to Mars,” did you feel any pressure writing this project?

TALK: I think so. I wrote “Run Away to Mars” in 2020 and only started work on Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees in 2022. I wanted to take my time and create the best possible album. I was aware that it would be difficult to release a project after having had so much success with “Run Away to Mars.” I did my best, and I think my team and I did an excellent job. I think the quality of this opus is equal to or better than anything I’ve released before. I think it’s a very good project.

PAN M 360: What have you learned about the music industry since the release of “Run Away to Mars?”

TALK: I’ve learned that you have to be very patient. I’ve also learned that the tracks we decide to release have to be important to us because you never know if people will like them. So it’s vital to love your own tracks and be happy with what you’ve created before you share it. That way, you don’t have to worry about what people will think because you love your music. I really appreciate that listeners like my songs, but it’s important for me to be at peace with my art.

PAN M 360: How does your new project Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees represent you?

TALK: It’s a great representation of my journey over the last few years. It talks about where I came from, what happened to me, and where I am today. In my album, I talk about the times when I didn’t give up, did my best, met new people, and fell in love. It’s really about my life over the last two or three years. It’s a pretty coherent project and I think the different themes work together beautifully.

PAN M 360: How did the creation go?

TALK: It went really well. My last year was very busy because of the growing success of “Run Away to Mars,” and I had a ton of different opportunities coming my way. As a result, I didn’t have much time to go into the studio, and I had to work on the album here and there. The writing took place in several small sessions scattered over a long period of time. Nevertheless, the project came to life and I’m extremely happy with the final product. I didn’t really have any problems during the creative process. Let’s just say that I still have a lot to say, and this album is the first chapter of what I want to tell.

PAN M 360: Even though your track “Run Away to Mars” was released in 2021, it appears on your new album. Why was it important for you to include it?

TALK: It’s simple because it’s the song that started it all for me. “Run Away to Mars” plays an important role in the story I tell. It was important for me to give it another opportunity to shine because that song had an impact on all the others on the project. It was the first song I released, and it launched my career. This album is about my journey over the last few years, and it was inevitable to include it.

PAN M 360: On Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees, we hear a panoply of different influences, including rock, which is very present. What do you listen to on a daily basis?

TALK: I have different phases when it comes to listening to music. I listen to a lot of Foo Fighters, Coldplay and Elton John. I also like Queen a lot, and I think you can hear the British band’s influence on my album. I also like Tom Odell’s music. I think I could name a ton of others, but that’s what I mainly listen to. I also listen to a lot of Disney songs; I think the lyrics are really good.

PAN M 360: The first thing we see of your album is the magnificent cover, which features you in a world reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings. Tell me about the idea behind it.

TALK: I had several ideas for the cover and shared them with my team. At first, I was an astronaut, and then I became a guardian of a special forest. We asked an artist to draw the whole thing, and here’s the result! I think it works with the music on the album. It’s colourful, light and imposing, just like the music on Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees. It’s the perfect cover for my project.

PAN M 360: You describe your music as “colourful, light-filled and imposing”, and this fits perfectly with the opening track “Fall for You.” How did this song come about?

TALK: One day, my team and I were playing with a guitar and some other instruments when we came up with the idea of doing a Broadway-style song, with lots of vocal layers and singing. That’s when “Fall for You” came to life. It’s a love song, about the moment when you meet someone, and you immediately understand that you’re going to fall in love. The idea is that you could do anything for that person because love is so powerful.

PAN M 360: “Afraid of the Dark” is definitely my favourite track, and it stands out from the rest of your project. What is this song about?

TALK: This song is dedicated to my grandmother. When I started writing my album, she became ill, and I had to choose between going to Los Angeles to write or spending time with her. My grandmother told me to go and create, and all I could think about in the studio was her. So that was the first song I wrote for the project. The main message of “Afraid of the Dark” is quite simple; it’s about accepting that there are things we still fear, even as adults. It’s also a reminder of the importance of family and enjoying every moment we have with the people we love. It also says that it’s important to listen to other people’s stories. That’s what this song is about.

PAN M 360: You were back in Montreal last Monday for a private album launch. You seem to have a special relationship with the people of Quebec.

TALK: Yes, certainly! My mother is French-speaking and met my father in Val-d’Or. At the time, my mother was a teacher and my father was a miner. So, I have several family members who live in Quebec, and I spent a lot of time there when I was young. I’m a native of Ottawa, and I’ve often been to Quebec City and Montreal. I’ve always been close to Quebec culture, and the Quebec public was one of the first to welcome me. Two years ago, I took on stage at the Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) before Luke Combs, and it was an incredible show. Videos of “Run Away to Mars” at the FEQ went viral on social networks. Quebec has played an important role in my career, for which I’m extremely grateful. That’s partly why I recently got the Quebec flag tattooed on my left arm. By the way, only the physical versions of my album in Quebec will feature my cover of La Ziguezon by La Bottine Souriante!

PAN M 360: Why was it so important for you to pay special attention to your Quebec listeners?

TALK: First of all, I’ve loved that song ever since I heard it when I was young. Also, I wanted to show my immense respect to my Quebec fans. It’s probably the place where there’s the greatest concentration of fans of my music. It would have been a mistake for me not to think of them after all they’ve done for me. I plan to play it at all my future shows in Quebec.

PAN M 360: I’m sure you’ll want to get this project into shows over the next few months and let it live, but I can’t help asking, what the future of TALK will look like?

TALK: That’s a good question because, over the next few months, I’ll definitely be doing a lot of shows and singing this album to my fans. But I can’t wait to get back into the studio and start creating again. I finished Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees a few months ago, and haven’t really written much since then due to my busy schedule. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

PAN M 360: Do you already have an idea of where you want to go next?

TALK: I think I have an idea, but it changes almost every day. Sometimes I want to go even further into rock, and other times I’d like to tap into folk. I don’t necessarily know what lies ahead, but I know it will always sound like TALK. I’d like my career to be like Coldplay’s, which has managed to evolve steadily over the years.

Photo credit: @iamtalk

Friday, Montreal sensation Rêve released her debut album Saturn Return. With this offering, she makes dance-pop shine in all its forms and once again confirms her immense potential. PAN M 360 talked to her about her new project, her creative process, and astrology.

Since the release of her song CTRL+ ALT + DEL in 2021, Rêve has kept on getting better. Following in the footsteps of British star Dua Lipa, her music is danceable and highly rhythmic. With Saturn Return, the singer-songwriter has just one goal in mind: make dance music shine.

PAN M 360: This Friday, you unveil your debut album Saturn Return. Dance music and its derivatives are at the heart of this project. Where does your love for this style come from?

RÊVE: My passion for this music began when I went out to a nightclub in Montreal. At the time, I was definitely too young to go to that kind of place, but let’s just say I was about to turn 18. Before that, I’d been to concerts, but I’d never seen a DJ set. I remember walking into the club and heading out onto the dance floor. Immediately, I felt a connection with the others and the DJ’s music. The music was transcendent and the mood was euphoric. I immediately fell in love with dance music. Since that night, my goal has always been to recreate that atmosphere through my music.

PAN M 360: How would you describe your music in general on this project?

RÊVE: I’d say it’s a dance-pop album influenced by a multitude of different genres. My aim with this project was to prove to people that dance music can be very diverse and versatile because I find that people who don’t consume it regularly believe that the genre is limited to what you see on a stage like the Tomorrowland festival. There’s so much more to dance music, and you can listen to it on so many different occasions. That’s really what I wanted to show.

PAN M 360: What does the concept of Saturn Return mean?

RÊVE: “Saturn Return” means the moment in a person’s life, around the age of 27 or 30, when the planets return to the same place in the sky as they were at the moment of their birth. In astrology, this is considered to be a time when you learn the most lessons. You learn a lot of hard truths, and anything that isn’t made for you will disappear and you’ll become more aligned with who you were always meant to be. It’s certainly not easy to get through this period, but the result of it all is magnificent. This album highlights my journey over the last few years, the joys, the loves, the losses, and the moments of sadness. It’s also about vulnerability. It’s about all the things we face during the Saturn Return.

PAN M 360: You seem to attach great importance to astrology.

RÊVE: At home, it’s always been a very important thing. My mother was always obsessed with astrology and still is to this day. If I’m signing a contract or getting ready for a concert, my mother says things like “Be careful, Mercury is in retrograde today.” She’s very religious about astrology. I’m not as religious as she is, but it’s still part of my life.

PAN M 360: What impression did you want to leave your listeners with this first album?

RÊVE: It was really important to me that this project serves as a safe place for people to experience and celebrate their emotions. I want my listeners to be able to experience the good and the bad with this album. Saturn Return is a celebration of all the emotions humans experience. Life is hard, and I want people to find comfort in listening to my songs. As I mentioned earlier, I also want people to see how versatile dance music is.

PAN M 360: Saturn Return features several collaborative tracks with Quebec producers Banx & Ranx, including “CTRL+ ALT + DEL” and “Big Boom.” Tell me about your relationship with them.

RÊVE: They’re like brothers to me. It’s very rare to collaborate with people you adore as much as humans as artists, but that’s the case with them. They’re my favourite people to work with. We speak the same language and understand each other so well. We have a great energy together. We have an incredible relationship.

PAN M 360: What’s your favourite track with them?

RÊVE: I’d say it’s “CRTL + ALT + DEL,” because it’s our first big song together and the one that really helped propel my career.

PAN M 360: Halfway through the album, we find your excellent track “My My (What A Life)” How did this track come about?

RÊVE: Oh my God! My My (What A Life)” is the last track I added to the album. When I was listening to the project, I was thinking “Oh, I’m missing a drum ‘n’ bass track! I’m a big fan of this type of music. I created part of Saturn Return in England, and this style is extremely popular there. I was almost at the end of creating the project, but I decided to go ahead and create the song. I just had to.

PAN M 360: Without a doubt, one song stands out on Saturn Return. “Past Life” is a softer ballad that moves away from dance. Earlier this week, you mentioned that this track took you back to your musical roots. Why was it important for you to have a track of this style on your album?

RÊVE: It was very important to me. It’s a dance album, but I wanted to pay tribute to my musical roots. I started making music while crying, sitting in front of my piano. It was a form of therapy for me. “Past Life” is exactly that. I wrote the chorus “Looking at you when I wake up in the middle of the night I’m thinking ‘God damn, I must’ve been good in a past life'” two years ago, but I’d never managed to finish the song. It’s about a relationship I dreamed of having. At the time, I wasn’t in the best relationship, and I thought, “I’d so like to feel these emotions one day.” And then this year, I met someone who made me feel that way, and I managed to write the rest in less than 15 minutes. That must be the power of love!

PAN M 360: You’ve also said that you need more intimacy to create songs like “Past Life.” Why do you think that is?

RÊVE: When I write ballads like this, I really have to be in my own bubble. As I said earlier, I’ve always used the piano as a therapeutic tool, and it’s in those moments that I write my truest, most honest songs. Being alone at the piano with a glass of wine allows me to really experience my emotions.

PAN M 360: Will you be touring the album over the next few months?

RÊVE: Yes, I’ll be touring across Canada early next year. I can’t wait to connect with my fans and let them experience the world of Saturn Return.

Photo credit: revemtlmusic.com

Tomoko Sauvage’s creativity and inventiveness are a subtle blend of technicality and empiricism. Her electro-aquatic approach reveals itself to be an inexhaustible source of sonorities intertwining the injunction of a mastered touch on ceramic containers and the labile result of aqua-echo.

Poetic and metaphysical, this staging of sound unfolds like an equation of chance where a liquid component metamorphoses into a voluble sonata.

For the past 20 years, this performer-musician, originally from Yokohama (Japan) and now based in Paris, has syncretized a series of practices from her background: jazz piano studies in New York, Indian classical music studies (Hindustani), album productions following the example of the album Fischgeist, released in 2020, recorded in Germany in basins with extremely singular conditions.

Now renowned for her performances with waterbowls performed all over the world, she is one of the quality guests of the Akousma festival.

For PAN M 360, she gives us the pleasure of detailing a few aspects of her past, present and future installations.

PAN M 360: Tomoko, in July 2012, I attended one of your performances at the FRAC -Fond Régional d’Art Contemporain- de Lorraine, in Metz, organized by l’association des musiques nouvelles: Fragment. You performed on a variety of bowls in a meditative, contemplative context. The audience was in raptures. Your gestures resembled a ritual. How has your practice evolved since then?

TOMOKO SAUVAGE: It’s been 11 years now! My memories are more or less vague, because every performance is different. My music has evolved enormously since then, that’s for sure. With my instrument waterbowls, I accentuate repetitions while playing on slow evolutions, all smoothly. In 11 years, I hope it’s evolved well!

PAN M 360: More recently, last February, you were invited by MUDAM -Musée d’Art Moderne du Grand Duché- in Luxembourg, in the European district of Kirchberg, to take part in the exhibition by Lebanese artist Tarek Atoui, entitled: Waters’ Witness. The artist is known for his multi-sensory installations based on sound and objects. Considering sound as a catalyst for human interaction, he collaborates with a number of specialists. How did you come up with this performance?

TOMOKO SAUVAGE: Effectively, I was invited to play echo music. The project was designed so that I could draw inspiration from the sound already existing in the room. Based on Tarek Atoui’s sound installation, I had to develop a panoply of notes. I was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to play and outwit. Sometimes, I was able to anticipate quieter moments or pauses to add my sound. It was a real challenge! The structure and configuration of the MUDAM are very special, as it’s a mixture of reinforced concrete and voluminous spaces that are conducive to strong reverberation;

PAN M 360: Regarding your presence at Akousma, given that each performance is unique, how do you approach it?

TOMOKO SAUVAGE: With waterbowls, the acoustics of the venue are decisive for the sounds I can get out of my instrument. Every venue is a technical challenge. It will be very special to play in the acousmonium with lots of speakers. It can be quite difficult to control the feedback I use as a musical element. That’s why I require a long sound test to get to know the acoustics of the venue and to set up the sound environment for my water bowls.

PANM360: Your latest album, Fischgeist, released in 2020, in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, in August 2019. It was recorded under very specific and particular conditions. Can you tell us more about the conditions and how they had a singular effect on the sounds?

TOMOKO SAUVAGE: It was recorded in an old water tank that has very long reverberations, either 20 seconds or more. To play with feedback, it’s pretty incredible. There were many possible and unimaginable frequencies that I managed to capture, but also very rich harmonics. The tiniest sound was naturally amplified. I loved this unique space made of old nineteenth-century bricks. The setting was damp and cold. The temperature oscillated between 8 and 10°C. It was incredible! It was incredible!

PAN M 360: Do you think this style of music should or will remain dedicated to a well-informed, initiated audience? Is there a way of democratizing it or at least raising awareness among a wider audience?

TOMOKO SAUVAGE: Actually, yes! In Europe, I’m often invited to play in rather mainstream contexts. I’ve already played in small-town media libraries, but also big electronic music festivals. These days, festival programmers want to mix genres. There are a lot of people, especially young people, who are curious to discover music they don’t know. I’m delighted!

PAN M 360: Plans for the near and distant future?

TOMOKO SAUVAGE: A lot of things, yes! I’m currently preparing new sound installations to be presented at an arts biennial in Santiago, Chile, in November. I’ve just completed the music for a short hand-drawn animated film by a French director. I’m preparing an EP release with INA-GRM in Paris. It’s a good period with a lot of inspiration for me. The multiple crises our world is going through today lead me to believe that we need music more than ever.

TOMOKO SAUVAGE PERFORMS THIS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, USINE C, 8PM, AS PART OF AKOUSMA. INFO AND TICKETS HERE

The most surprising aspect about Argentine composer Rocío Cano Valiño is that she also has a career as an interior designer. Perhaps this explains her fascination with the sounds that surround her, and in particular their decomposition into tiny sound particles.

This close examination of sound material then enables her to recompose it using micro-montage, a highly meticulous digital composition technique. Regulars and newcomers alike will be able to hear two of his acousmatic works resonating in the Usine C’s loudspeaker orchestra: Asterion and Oknu.

Although she studied composition in Buenos Aires with Demian Rudel Rey, she did most of her schooling in France, in Lyon. She specializes in mixed music, composing for both instrumental ensembles and electroacoustic tape. She has developed numerous projects within the French contemporary music community.

Akousma welcomes Rocío Cano Valiño and so does PAN M 360 !

Pan M 360: So you’ll be taking part in the 19th edition of Akousma, a festival renowned for acousmatic music.

Rocío Cano Valiño: First of all, I’m extremely happy to have been invited to take part in the Akousma Festival, which I’ve admired enormously for years!

PAN M 360: More generally, how would you describe your artistic approach?

Rocío Cano Valiño: As a composer, I do instrumental, mixed (instrument and electronics) and electroacoustic or acousmatic pieces, and each project is a new adventure. I use a variety of sound sources to compose my pieces. I really like close sounds, granulation and the “physicality” of sounds. I think this physicality is also linked to my dual career as a composer and interior designer; I also focus on exploring timbre using the micro-montage technique, i.e., I work with small particles of selected sounds to explore their constituent elements (partials, internal rhythms, timbral variations).

PAN M 360: What is the object of your quest?

Rocío Cano Valiño: My intention is to generate, through the complex interaction between different sound objects, virtuous gestures in a dynamic (constantly mutating) musical becoming. My sources of inspiration are quite diverse; first of all, music, architecture and design are things I’m passionate about. Literature and painting also allow me to dream.

PAN M 360: What can you tell us about the works featured at Akousma?

Rocío Cano Valiño: For the two pieces to be presented at the Akousma Festival, Astérion and Okno (the latter commissioned by Radio France for the program “Création Mondiale” and realized at Studio GRM Groupe de Recherches Musicales. It had its public premiere on February 14 at the Festival Présences at La Maison de la Radio in Paris), here’s some information:

For Asterion, I used a lot of recordings of zippers, at different speeds, closer, and farther away, also with the stereo spatialization of these sounds. I also integrate other types of machines we might find in a house, washing machines, vacuum cleaners… The use of sounds from machines (electric or analog) interests me enormously, and I often use them in my works.

In the case of the piece Okno, I also integrated recordings of sounds made with machines and tape recorders (buttons, mechanisms, gears…), raising the question of the relationship between human beings and automatism. The idea of the boundary between what is real and what is fictitious is always present in the work. The imaginary is expressed in sounds that may have connotations already determined in themselves. An imaginary sound is constructed outside the original context of each element;

Pan M 360: What was your musical training and background before getting into sound art and the use of digital technologies?

Rocío Cano Valiño: I first experimented with drums and violin. I soon developed an attraction to contemporary music, to timbre, to the sounds that surrounded me in everyday life, and the sounds I heard in various workshops building wooden objects. It was probably thanks to this that I later decided to take courses in music analysis, history, and instrumentation. At the same time, I was so motivated that I started taking courses in composition, mixing, and sound recording. My interest in new technologies and sound art came naturally from the start, as a kind of deep need to integrate all my artistic desires into my projects;

Pan M 360 : You collaborated with the Montreal ensemble Paramirabo in 2021. What can you say about this project, which brought together several ensembles?

Rocío Cano Valiño: It was a wonderful project! We toured various cities in France and Canada. It was an extremely enriching human and musical experience. Bringing together three ensembles that I admire enormously allowed me to take all the artistic risks I wanted in order to achieve a result that I was (and am) very satisfied with. And here, I tried to highlight the sonic imprint of each group (Paramirabo, Proxima Centauri and HANATSUmiroir). This enabled me to find a sonic confluence of energy in my piece Okinamaro, for 12 musicians and electronics (Commande de l’État du Ministère de la Culture – DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine, et l’Aide à l’écriture musicale de l’OARA).

Pan M 360: You co-founded the Ensemble Orbis in Lyon. What is your role within this ensemble and what projects can we expect in the near future?

Rocío Cano Valiño: I’m on the artistic committee of Ensemble Orbis, which I actually co-founded in Lyon (France) in 2021 and, which is artistically directed by composer Demian Rudel Rey. I am responsible for the electronic part of the ensemble. This project is a dream that has become a reality, enabling us to join forces to create musical and interdisciplinary projects together.

Creative music is at the heart of the ensemble, and we like to program instrumental, mixed, and acousmatic pieces. We do different types of concert formats: “standards”, strolls, shows, with lights, and video. We’ve had the opportunity to commission several composers, and now I’ve been given the chance to write a piece for Ensemble Orbis, for all its instrumentation and electronics, which will be premiered at the Lyon 2024 Biennale de Musiques Exploratoires organized by the GRAME Centre national de création musicale.

Pan M 360: Do you have any expectations from the Montreal audience, or in relation to Quebec more generally?

Rocío Cano Valiño: I’m looking forward to a great encounter, a connection with them through my musical universe, and maybe, if I’m lucky, a chance to chat with them after the concert. For me, it’s always very important to create a connection and exchange with individuals from different parts of the world! That’s what nourishes my pieces too!

Pan M 360: Thank you very much!

Rocío Cano Valiño : With pleasure!

You can hear the works of Rocío Cano Valiño during Block 2 of Akousma’s first evening, October 18, 2023 at 9pm. INFO AND TICKETS HERE

A sound and multimedia artist invited to the Akousma festival, Montrealer Mourad Bncr gives pride of place to texture and detail in order to arrange virtual worlds traversed by a diversity of cultural legacies but also post-apocalyptic science fiction marked by his fascination with the obsolescence of humankind and its technologies.

Responsible for multimedia artist residencies at the Société des Arts Technogiques (SAT), and deeply involved in the practices carried out at the SAT’s Satosphère, Mourad Bncr has established himself as a sound designer specializing in the creation of immersive environments, spatialized audio and mixed reality.A sound and multimedia artist invited to the Akousma festival, Montrealer by adoption Mourad Bncr gives pride of place to texture and detail in order to arrange virtual worlds traversed by a diversity of cultural legacies but also post-apocalyptic science fiction marked by his fascination with the obsolescence of humankind and its technologies.

Starting out as a beatmaker and producer of beat-music and abstract hip-hop, our interviewee also works on a more conceptual level, and that’s what we’re talking about here. Needless to say, this work will be presented this Wednesday in the context of the Akousma festival.

PAN M 360 : Mourad, how long have you been based in Montreal? Where did you live before that?

Mourad Bncr : Born of Algerian parents, I grew up in Pau in the Western Pyrenees, then lived in Toulouse. I arrived in Montreal in 2016, first as an artist and student, to then work at SAT from 2017.

PAN M 360 : Was your work as an artist different when you lived in Europe?

Mourad Bncr : It was in particular electronic beat-music and abstract hip-hop, so I began a practice in electronic music programming. I refined all that when I arrived in Montreal.

PAN M 360 : So you came from musical practices that had little to do with electroacoustics.

Mourad Bncr : Yes and no. When I was younger, I was already doing sound design, sound design, instrumental music, but also electronic music, DJing and other things. A variety of things.

PAN M 360 : In Montreal, then, your career has taken another direction, as your work is more linked to multimedia and electroacoustic exploration.

Mourad Bncr : Yes, and I’ve been working as a collective since I arrived in Montreal, we’ve had a label, we’ve organized events. The label side of the collective is on hiatus right now, but that’s what also allowed us to keep a studio shared with other artists.

PAN M 360 : In Europe, did you benefit from a musical education?

Mourad Bncr : No, I was self-taught. Initially, moreover, I came to Montreal to further my academic knowledge at the Université de Montréal, namely in a digital music program that comes from electroacoustics but encompasses a broader corpus.

PAN M 360 : Along the way, you got into multimedia, as evidenced by your involvement with SAT and your own productions.

Mourad Bncr : It was multimedia that kind of found me. I was lucky enough to work on quite a few multimedia collaborations that made me practice and practice and deepen a lot of technical aspects, find solutions to problems on several installations. It was a second learning curve for me;

PAN M 360 : Today, would you define yourself as an electronic music or multimedia artist?

Mourad Bncr : I think the two feed off each other, but I don’t define myself as a multimedia artist. Of course, I’m interested in different forms of multimedia expression, but after a while it gets pretty hard to define the boundary between what comes from visual expression and what comes from sound. One thing’s for sure, I always find myself around music.

PAN M 360 : What are you presenting at Akousma, a festival more inclined towards acousmatics than multimedia.

Mourad Bncr : There’s no visual component in this work presented at Akousma, it’s really a sound performance.

PAN M 360 : So let’s talk about this sound work that nevertheless takes its source in multimedia…

Mourad Bncr : I’ve done research work on several films, in collaboration with Quebec director Nicolas Lachapelle. He in a very interesting approach to documentary, that is, he works with documentary material by exploring all its narrative and meta-narrative aspects. In particular, there’s a body of work I’m presenting inspired by his work. Le monde après nous is a title I took from his film with his permission, What Remains after We’re Gone? For my part, I had done a whole body of work around spaces inhabited by humans and the presence we might feel of what remains of these places after our passage on Earth.

PAN M 360 : A post-apocalyptic angle?

Mourad Bncr : It’s a bit like that, but let’s just say that it stems mainly from thoughts I’m having a lot at the moment too, which is that there are places whose properties we’ve been lucky enough to record a little bit because we like them, because it allows us to make nice reserves. Nowadays, there are a lot of places that are disappearing and for which we no longer have any real imprint, hence the idea of trying to reproduce a place and create an immersive space. For this, I worked a lot on convolution reverberation.

PAN M 360 : Convolution reverberation consists of a digital simulation of the reverberation of a physical or virtual space. What purpose does this process serve in your work?

Mourad Bncr : Sound imprints allow you to generate reverberations in these reconstituted spaces and link this process to dialogues and vocal intonations and thus discover new sound textures. It’s still going to be pretty ambient, but it’s material that’s based on working with space.

PAN M 360 : Now, you talk about working with a director, so what’s the link between this work and the concert without images presented at Akousma?

Mourad Bncr : All the work I’ve done with Nicolas Lachapelle, it’s often confined to film music, but I’ve nevertheless remained in a similar research vein. Several of my pieces are inspired by this working method developed during my collaboration with the filmmaker, and which I apply in an acousmatic context, this time dissociated from the image.

PAN M 360 : Can we talk more specifically about this working method?

Mourad Bncr : I work a lot with sound textures that define spaces. I try to work on the sonic imprint these spaces leave on us and the fact that we can stay with the sonic imprint of a place. It’s a bit like finding yourself in a place and listening to it in silence, and then you end up concentrating on a particular sound in that place. That’s the starting point for a more introspective exploration of how we listen to these spaces. Then it gets richer as the timbral or textural exploration continues.

PAN M 360 : Are timbres and textures fundamental to your approach to sound?

Mourad Bncr : Yes, but not exclusively. In beat-music, I’ve worked a lot with other materials, modal or tonal music, more classical melodies. Here, I try to develop something that comes from the sound material. Afterwards, I may also incorporate some instruments in certain parts, Berber flutes for example, whose breath elements I try to process and then incorporate into the piece. Instead of working with a keyboard or an instrument to compose pieces, I work with sound material.

PAN M 360 : But you don’t systematically do this work in all your compositions.

Mourad Bncr : There are different ways of working with music. There’s the one that really comes from studio work where you still have a lot more control over the composition, and it’s work of this type that’s presented at Akousma. Then there’s the second, more instinctive way, where I work live on rhythms, with an instrumental approach that’s closer to drum’n’bass or abstract hip-hop. I’m moving away from this approach on this project;

PAN M 360 : When I watch and listen to your own audiovisual productions, the music is more ambient, abstract in general.

Mourad Bncr : It’s more cinematic, it takes a little more time.

PAN M 360 : And it could be close to the acousmatic work presented at Akousma. An unpublished work?

Mourad Bncr : Presque. There are things that have been released or that have remained very confidential. Around all that, a project based on this material could evolve after this concert, and eventually be made public.

Mourad Bncr presents his work in the context of Akousma, this Wednesday, October 18 at 7:30pm at Usine C/ INFO AND TICKETS HERE

[indistinct voices over PA] – In Between (2022) from Mourad Bncr on Vimeo.

The third North American tour of the high priestess of contemporary fado stops next Wednesday, October 18, at Théâtre Outremont. Fans of the genre, including music lovers in our Portuguese community, have already acclaimed Carminho in 2015 and 2019. Without a doubt, this 39-year-old Portuguese artist can lay claim to diva status, and comes to defend the material on her recent album, Portuguesa, on the Warner Music label. Reached this week at the Chicago airport, our interviewee proves to be a (very) strong personality. Carminho knows what she’s talking (and singing) about, and has the confidence and stance of the giants of world music. Read on to find out, as did the author of these lines!

PAN M 360 : Wel are diving in an interesting chapter of your career at the sixth album, Portuguesa. And you’re coming with this material in Montreal? Are you going to sing mainly this material or something else?

Carminho : Mainly the new album, but I always sing some fado from other albums. Sometimes I think also from theTom Jobim album, it depends on the night or the audience and what they ask.

PAN M 360 : Do you sing to the requests sometimes?

Carminho : Sometimes, yes. It’s nice.

PAN M 360 : You’re totally rooted in the tradition. When we listen to your music. I listened to a few albums, and especially the last one. And it’s a very classic approach. How do you see it yourself?

Carminho : Fado is my language, Fado is just a medium to reach what I love to do. It’s not an exercise of memory, so I don’t see myself as a traditional singer. Well I see myself as a traditionalist, but I use it to serve my own speech, a sensibility according to my age, my generation, my experience today. Somehow I’m contaminated by the music of my generation, music that I listen to, artists that I see and that inspire me. So there’s a lot of new things running ! And I also see some experimental opportunities in my own style of Fado. For me, it’s not something that is over, you see, the tradition is not finished at all. Fado is so alive, so dynamic, we are doing and continuing what we believe that can be done. Fado could be a lot of things, it depends on each artist.

PAN M 360 : So your relation with tradition is sort of endless renewal.

Carminho : It’s a dynamic relationship and I don’t have the pretension to change Fado. I’m just practicing my art and small things happen through my own experience.

PAN M 360 : Then in what way the modern times your generation is influencing Fado formally in your music, in your expression and your singing?

Carminho : It’s not easy to give examples because it’s a process in the studio; when you practice or record, you are open to new textures, new instruments. My experience in Brazil for example; while working with them, I was so inspired by their freedom for sharing different ways of writing songs or playing. When I dig in the old traditions, I also find that artists have built their own repertoires originally, not just doing classical or standard. For example Marceneiro composed all his Fados, so he was a progressive artist of his time. So I was very inspired to compose new traditional Fados because it’s possible, it’s just the way you compose. Also putting new lyrics on old songs is also something that we can do, so we can bring the tradition and say new things.

PAN M 360 : Your instrumentation is, you know, is drawing into classical music from your rendition and revision. So you have Portuguese guitar, you have classical guitar. Interesting. So, you mix different traditions into this one.

Carminho : Yes I have Portuguese guitar and classical guitar which is the traditional Fado instrumentation of, okay, and then the three are the traditional formation. And I also have electrical guitars, lap steel and also Mellotron.

PAN M 360 : Mellotron and lap steel? This is a sort of innovation in a way.

Carminho : This is a process, I don’t use the word innovation because I don’t feel myself innovating. I just I just be myself doing experiences in the studio and being happy with it. I also want to get the emotion through this storytelling you see. Then sometimes new textures and ambience can help the storytelling and for me, Fado allows me freedom. So we can not define what is exactly the true tradition. It may be something different to you. It’s something else to me…

PAN M 360 : You’re right, tradition never ends. It’s not a matter of being revolutionary, you just follow the flow. Expressing yourself through this, something new can emerge without wanting it. If you play Bach, you will find some new ways to express it, but at the same time you must play the score properly.

Carminho : Exactly. There’s something that can contaminate what you’re doing in music, even if you are doing it in a traditional way.

PAN M 360 : You also have been invited to perform work with famous artists. Caetano Veloso is one of them. How was it?

Carminho : I met him in Brazil. So nice! And yeah, he’s a great artist. It became a huge friendship between us. He’s a master, he is a personality, a performer, a musician, a composer that I admire the most. He is one of my favorite artists in the world. And, it’s an honor for me to share the stage with him. We had some interesting discussions about the Portuguese language when I put out my album of Tom Jobim – I have been invited by the family of Tom Jobim to make this album with the original band, that was such an incredible experience. Then Caetano started some discussion with me because he disagreed with my options of Portuguese language and Brazilian Portuguese.So I was looking for my own expression and maybe I was misunderstood. So Caetano has his point of view about my choice. It was incredible to discuss that with him. In the end, he invited me to sing! And then, and then he invited me to tour with him in Portugal. It was an incredible moment for me to be with him to be with his incredible team. A very special moment.

PAN M 360 : Montreal might be also a special moment. After this North American tour, will you work on new projects?

Carminho : I’m always working on new projects, I’m always in the process of getting new repertoire, new opportunities to record with my band.

Carminho sera à Vancouver le 15 octobre, à Montréal le 18 octobre, à Toronto le 21 octobre. Elle interprétera la matière de Portuguesa,son plus récent album, répertoire assorti de chansons enregistrées antérieurement.

INFOS AND TICKETS HERE

PERSONNEL :

Carminho : chant

André Dias : guitare portugaise

Flávio Cardoso : viola de fado

Tiago Maia : basse

Pedro Geraldes : guitare lap steel

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Rani Jambak is a composer, producer and vocalist based in Medan, North Sumatra (Indonesia). She began her performance career by working on the Goethe Institute’s Sound of X project and launching Medan Soundspectives, a festival celebrating the acoustic diversity of her home city. Jambak is a dedicated environmentalist who produces music to raise awareness on environmental issues through a music-ecological campaign entitled #FORMYNATURE. Her new project #FUTUREANCESTOR is inspired by her Minangkabau ethnic identity and uses sound to explore connections between traditional knowledge and nature. For her purposes, she built a unique invented instrument called the “Kincia Aia”, inspired by the traditional west sumatran water wheels.

This October, Rani Jambak will be touring Canada alongside electronic duo Gabber Modus Operandi and DJ Wok the Rock, showcasing some of Indonesia’s best experimental music of the hour. All the artists have released music through Yogyakarta-based label YesNoWave, a force in the javanese underground. The artists’ October 15 stop in Montreal will be a rare occasion to hear new music from maritime Southeast Asia in this part of the world. We took the opportunity to ask a few questions to Jambak in preparation for the event.

Pan M 360 : Can you describe your sound and artistic approach to Canadian audiences who may never have heard of your music?

Rani Jambak : My music is a mixture of nature and city soundscapes, including animals and traditional instruments of Sumatra, Indonesia. Those sounds are part of my personal journey on finding ancestral roots as Minangkabau (ethnicity in West Sumatra) living in Medan (North Sumatra). In 2019 I started a field recording journey and found a way to learn my history and culture through sounds. One of Minangkabau philosophy, “Alam takambang jadi guru” (nature is our teacher), is a big theme of my music. So I will talk about environmental problems and how nature, humans and ancestors are connected to each other. I call it #futureancestor , as how I see the connection of humans from the past and future.

Pan M 360 : What are the artforms or music traditions that influence you as an artist?

Rani Jambak : I got influenced by many traditions and musical culture from my own roots as Minangkabau and the place where I was born, Medan. Medan is a unique city as it has 8 original ethnicities and it makes Medan very rich in sound diversity. For the last 3 years, Minangkabau philosophy and ancestral knowledge has been my main focus to re-interpret in musical form. Starting from learning the culture and history through sounds, to creating instruments from water wheels named “Kincia Aia”, then understanding history through “Tambo Alam Minangkabau”, a manuscript about the origin of Minangkabau from the early 19th century.

Pan M 360 : Those who are not familiar with the Javanese music scene may not know, but there is a strong community around experimental music in Java and Indonesia in general. What role do you feel that you play in this community?

Jani Jambak : Women in the electronic experimental scene in Indonesia are still very rare. So I hope my music could inspire other women artists to embrace their confidence to share their music and believe that women are also important in this music community and for the diversity of music itself.

Pan M 360 : How much do you identify with collectives such as Jogja Noise Bombing or a band like Senyawa, which is now well-known in North America? Is there any connection or are these different networks from yours?

Rani Jambak : Because I live in Sumatra, I never experienced Jogja Noise Bombing. But I follow their activity online. However, I met Rully (vocalist of Senyawa) many times and we had a good chat. Since I also connected with Wok The Rock and YesNoWave, I feel the network between electronic experimental artists around Indonesia is so much easier. Also, the presence of Yes No Stage in the 2022 Pestapora Festival (in Jakarta) made the connection even stronger because we could meet in person.

Pan M 360 : What are your plans for the near future? Any notable releases or upcoming performances?

Rani Jambak :After this tour I will perform in Jakarta for Pekan Kebudayaan Nasional (October 22nd), playing new compositions with my instrument Kincia Aia.

Pan M 360 : Thank you!

Rani Jambak : Thank you so much for the questions.

The Montreal stop for the Indonesian YesNoWave Tour is Co-presented with Festival Phénomena, Festival Accès Asie, Québec Musiques Parallèles and Arts in the Margins. Catch it on October 15th at La Sala Rosa

INFOS + TICKETS HERE

Berlin-based, Roderick Cox was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, a town in the Deep South from where also come Little Richard, Otis Redding to name a few icons of African-American music history. But his destiny is quite different: still, at an early phase of his career, he is becoming an internationally renowned conductor, emerging from a new generation of highly talented classical musicians from all over the world.

Roderick Cox is a Berlin-based Black American conductor. In 2018 he won the Sir Georg Solti Conductor Award, the largest of its kind for an American conductor. Since he’s been invited by the Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, Seattle and New World symphonies, Minnesota orchestras, and the Aspen Musical Festival Chamber Orchestra. He has made debuts with the Houston Grand Opera and the San Francisco Opera and recorded Jeannine Tesori’s Blue with the Washington National Opera. Upcoming highlights include debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and Barcelona Symphony, and his return to the Los Angeles and BBC Philharmonics.

He attended the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, then graduated from Northwestern University with a master’s degree in conducting in 2011. At Northwestern he studied conducting with Russian maestro Victor Yampolsky and Mallory Thompson, a master conducting pedagogue. He then studied with Robert Spano at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, Colorado. He has also been involved in the project Song of America: A Celebration of Black Music, conceived at Hamburg’s Elbphilarmonie. In that project, he has been leading William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, which he recorded with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and will be performed at the Maison symphonique.

In Québec, he was invited for the first time by Orchestre Métropolitain at the Festival International de Lanaudière, in 2018. He was then formerly associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra (Osmo Vänskä ). On Thursday, October 12 and Saturday, Oct 14, he was invited by MSO to conduct a program including the famous Barber Violin Concerto featuring the great young Canadian soloist Blake Pouliot and other pieces by Tchaikovsky and the African-American composer William Levi Dawson.

Moreover, Roderick Cox is deeply concerned by the neglect of African American composers, and their lack of representation in music institutions. Actually, a vast majority of music listeners don’t know much about Florence Price, William Grant Still, Amy Beach, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Leslie Dunner…

This is why he will conduct in Montreal the Negro Folk Symphony by African-American composer William Levi Dawson, « a unique fusion of spirituals and post-Romantic symphonic aesthetics, with a few discreet nods to European composers ».

PAN M 360 met him this week, after a rehearsal to talk about this program and his own engagement in the classical world as an African-American conductor.

PAN M 360: In the Deep South where you’re from, how have you become a classical musician?

Roderick Cox: I grew up in Macon, Georgia, and I was very fortunate to be a part of a robust music education program as a young student. And so I was able to be immersed and have the opportunity to be in a musical ensemble quite early. Around eighth or ninth grade, the local band teacher came to my school and let us try out and play different instruments. I was first chosen to be a percussionist.

PAN M 360: Did you have a musical family background?

Roderick Cox: Music was a very important part of my family. Growing up, my mother was a gospel singer, very active in the church. And therefore, it seemed as if music was always playing in our house and in our, you know, on the ride to school or music was just always playing. And of course, Macon, Georgia has such a very rich musical heritage with Otis Redding. Little Richard, etc. Of course, I didn’t meet Otis Redding but I met Little Richard, he would come to our church and sit right in front of me.

PAN M 360: But your path has been totally different from Little Richard and Otis Redding.

Roderick Cox: And so when I went to high school, I continued music, it felt something as to it felt very natural to me. Of course, I didn’t think that I would become a conductor. The idea of this never crossed my mind. But I thought being in the band and being in the orchestra was the coolest thing. And I actually felt when I found out it was a possibility to continue this into college with what I had to determine what I was going to do. I thought I wanted to be a music educator. So I actually have a degree, a degree in music education first with a concentration in French horn, I switched to French horn when I was in high school.

PAN M 360: After high school, you attended Northwestern University (Illinois).

Roderick Cox: Then I studied conducting still with the idea that I would be a professor at a university because my passion was around young people and education. At Northwestern I studied with Mallory Thompson, and I interacted with an orchestral Professor Victor Yampolsky, who was former second violin at the Boston Symphony, escaped Stalin’s Russia, and came over to, with the invitation of Leonard Bernstein. I suppose he sort of planted the seed in my head that perhaps I could make a life as a professional orchestral musician. I still remember him saying to me, you should conduct an orchestra. It was a profound statement that immediately broadened my horizons. And I guess when I made the decision to focus on becoming a professional conductor, I never questioned it again and never turned back.

PAN M 360: Is being an African American musician in the Western classical world becoming a normality?

Roderick Cox: I don’t think it’s a normality in that sense. I mean, I still think that’s a very, very rare occurrence. And, you know, even when thinking about this music that I’m conducting this week, the Negro Folk Symphony, it’s, it’s one of the rare pieces of music that infuses my own cultural background into the classical music idiom. And so a number of the styles, the Ragtime, Jazzy styles that’s in the music, but also African-American folk tunes and spirituals and things that are innately in our culture is on the concert stage. And that feels actually quite, quite natural for me to work on this music.

PAN M 360: But you and your African American colleagues have to be yourself a promotor of Black American legacy in the Western classical world, don’t you?

Roderick Cox: So I think we’re still certainly pushing the barriers here. But still, there are very, very few, maybe a handful of conductors. And when you think about the percentages, in classical music, it still hasn’t shifted that much, perhaps it’s a bit more visual now that we live in a more visual society. When you think back, we had Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman Leontyne Price, and Shirley Verrett. All of those great singers had a special moment, they were in the spotlight at some of the big houses of the world. But today, I think we have fewer people in those sorts of positions.

PAN M 360: So there’s still much to achieve!

Roderick Cox: So it is not a normality. And if the question is… is it better? I’m not sure. And so I think what’s important and what’s necessary is, is an artist’s career, lifespan has to be cultivated. There still must be opportunities and exposure given to elevate artists through years of engagement to a certain level where they can be at the level of Jessye Norman and Leontyne Price.

But then again, it’s very hard to say, when is it enough? And is there a point in saying that we’ve reached a certain place? I think my motto has just been to every place I go, you know, to focus on connecting with the orchestra and with building those relationships and making great music together. That’s what I want the focus to be on, and anytime one goes to still, when I program this piece, the Dawson Negro folk symphony, sometimes I’m a bit apprehensive because I’m thinking, oh, you know, will the orchestra like it? Will they? Will they think it’s a piece on the program, just because it’s a black composer? Is it some sort of agenda that this piece is there? Or is it you know, is it some sort of diversity, initiative or activity for why this piece is there, but actually, I program only music that I really, I try to program music that I really enjoy and really love. And, and that’s why I programmed this piece, often. This is a piece about the folk music of the United States. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to play it because we don’t have, we don’t have much of that. I think that music has to live and breathe.

PAN M 360: You also have to think about the evolution of its interpretation.

Roderick Cox: Yes, it breeds through performances and different interpretations. And what I find is, every time I do work, even with a new or new orchestra, and even this morning with this particular orchestra, hearing it in this space, the music was speaking to me differently, it was saying different things. And perhaps a little slower here, perhaps a little faster here, perhaps a little heavier here, do you want to be and that’s the beauty of the process of a rehearsal, and, and allowing music like this to breathe. Because as we change, the interpretations change in the orchestras. And so I’m very much even more invigorated and inspired by the work in just the rehearsal we’ve just done and immediately after I was in my dressing room thinking about this, this and perhaps we can do this or perhaps this might not be right. And that’s what music needs. The good. The great masterpieces have been there. Many of them are, are great because they’ve been interpreted and played many many times and have gone through scholarly research and so forth to put them at the forefront of our repertoire.

PAN M 360: And so there’s an interesting tension between letting the musicians breathe with the score while having your own touch as a conductor. How do you see this balance?

Roderick Cox: Well, sometimes when you’re doing a piece for the first time, you have many more question marks than then later. And I think after doing this work a number of times, I have fewer question marks, but I also have a bit of self-assurance of I think, what the music is telling me, that may not be necessarily in the score. And that involves you, as an artist being open and listening to what the music is trying to say and what you feel the music is trying to be. That means if there’s tension building, you know, do you want to speed this up? Or do you want to slow down? How much time do you want to create for this sort of impact moment or climax? What type of colour do you want to create here? And so I think that’s where my personal experience with the work comes into place a bit more in interpreting the music and, with these players also explaining a bit, of what the piece is about and allowing and seeing their interpretation. It’s also revealing, it’s also revealing… a good orchestra will be able to see a phrase or see a line and play a phrase with their ideas of what this music wants to say as well.

PAN M 360: So you’re looking for a fair balance between you and the orchestra.

Roderick Cox: Of course, always, always, there has to be a collaboration.

PAN M 360: Let’s have a few words about the Montreal program.

Roderick Cox: The program is quite romantic in scope. So we start with Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest, which I think is a rather unknown poem here in the same sort of scope as Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. This is based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. And of course, it’s the story of a sorcerer on this isolated island in the middle of nowhere, he’s been placed there by his enemies, Italian nobles, who is cursing his enemies by creating a storm to destroy them.

It’s also a story about colonialism because this sorcerer takes over the island. And you have two spirits on the island. And you have the sorcerer who’s trying to destroy these. You also have this beautiful love song where one of the spirits falls in love with one of the noblemen and tries to save him from the darkness of the sorcerers. It’s a gorgeous work, one of my favourite works by Tchaikovsky because I think it also has this sense of impressionistic writing to it, similar to some Debussy work or Mendelssohn, Hebrides overture. I love how he creates this tension in the orchestra. And of course, Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest melodic composers ever, and this is absolutely shown in this work.

PAN M 360: Regarding Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto?

Roderick Cox: This work has been written in the shadows of the World War Two before it broke off. So Barber first started writing this in Paris and abroad in Europe before America came into the war. So he knew the turning of the tide was building in Europe at this time, and he finished the work in the United States.

I think it’s a very intimate work. And sort of a personal confession of the composer his feelings in this music, but you hear very much also the shadows and darkness of the war to come in the work, especially in the second movement. The first movement begins, it’s very picturesque, I think I think of a beautiful summer landscape the way this piece begins, and, and its orchestration is really quite small. You have a piano which creates this, this sense of intimacy and chamber-like, feeling and this music. And, of course, the third movement is just riveting, vigorous, exciting music that I think is fascinating to witness and to hear on the stage.

PAN M 360: Is it your first time with Blake Pouliot?

Roderick Cox: This is my first time with him, but we’ve known each other since we went to the Aspen Music Festival in 2014. So this is our first time actually working professionally together.

PAN M 360: And finally we have this piece from William Levi Dawson.

Roderick Cox: This piece was also written in the 30s, so very much in the time of Barber’s Violin Concerto, and this Dawson piece was one of the three black American symphonies at the time played with major US orchestras – we had William Grant Still, Florence Price and then William Dawson. Out of those three at the time, the Dawson Symphony was the most celebrated, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra in Carnegie Hall with a rousing reception by the critics, and enormous applause after the second movement, which is called Hope in the Night.

What’s beautiful about this work is that it reminds me very much of my own culture and that Black American culture is in the midst of such turmoil, turmoil as slavery you know, 300 years of backbreaking work, where families were displaced or cultures were lost. If you listen to a number of the spirituals and folk tunes from this time, it talks about Moses crossing Egypt, seeking a land where life will be better. And I think that black American folk gave people hope. When you think about gospel music, it’s all talking about the hope for a better tomorrow.

This piece was among the primary themes of the civil rights movement.

And so in the midst of this work, you also have many very exciting, beautiful, celebratory moments. So you can have many of these sorts of dance rhythms reminding this: after slaves finished their backbreaking work, they would often get together in a drum circle around a fire and, and, and clap and stomp their feet and keep their spirits alive. And so they were keeping their spirit hopeful and alive while keeping their body moving. And that’s what I love about this music: because in the midst of darkness, especially the second movement, you’ll hear this very static theme which represents Black children, completely unaware of the situation around them, and represents their naivete and innocence. When you’re a child, you don’t know that you’re black or white. Young black children would be best friends with the slave masters’ children and play in the house, and finally, they have to be told that they are not white. And so you have this happiness that builds until finally, this discord and these shadows come.

The last movement begins in the E flat major, similar to Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, and the other great works of music, but begins in this key, which represents sun and hopefulness and beauty. And so the last movement is very much celebration and looking into the future.

PAN M 360: So this piece was celebrated at its time. And now we’re bringing it back. It’s been recorded by Yannick Nezet Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and you will conduct it with MSO among other orchestras.

Roderick Cox: Absolutely. I mean, it was sort of lost and wasn’t really performed for 90 years. And I discovered it myself during COVID. And really worked with the editors to bring out this new edition.

PAN M 360: History will tell but now we just realized that many composers who became obscure after being celebrated almost a century ago, are coming back in a way. Yes. Because of people like you.

Roderick Cox: Thank you and, of course, others and I mean, and again, It’s important to play the works because a lot of the material, a lot of the time the works aren’t done because they’ve been so poorly managed. They’re still, I mean, this work before a couple of years ago, was hardly readable, badly copied with mistakes. And it took, it takes a lot of work. And it takes a lot of resources for the publishers. I think this Dawson work is one of the great American symphonies written and should be alongside Copeland, Barber, Gershwin, Charles Ives, and John Adams.

It’s so unfortunate that Dawson only wrote one symphony, I would be so interested to hear that we had 4 at least. But I think life circumstances for him, he had to raise a family. He took a teaching job in Tuskegee, where he wrote mostly choral music, which became famous, but the fact that he wrote this lovely symphony at a young age. I would have loved to see his compositional life.

Roderick Cox will conduct the MSO on October 12 and 14. For info and tickets, click HERE.

Photo credit : Susie Knoll

Ruiqi Wang is perhaps China’s answer to Japan’s Hiromi and South Korea’s Youn Sun-Nah. And Montreal has something to do with it! The McGill student has developed a solid background in jazz, which she combines with her Chinese cultural roots and the European classical and avant-garde traditions. Ruiqi will be releasing her debut album on 27 October, which I urge you not to miss (listen to it opposite). In the meantime, I urge you to go and hear her tomorrow evening at 5 pm as part of the OFF Jazz at Improv Montréal, on Notre-Dame Street West. Don’t miss this chance while she’s still easily available, it shouldn’t stay like this for long! Ruiqi will be surrounded by a chamber orchestra adept at improvisation, with Stephanie Urquhart – piano, Summer KoDama – bass, Mili Hong – drums, Sadie Hamrin – violin, Eddie Rosen – violin, Dannick Bujold-Senss – viola and Julian Shively – cello.

PAN M 360 conducted an interview with this inspiring, creative, original and articulate young lady.

PAN M 360: Tell me about your musical background and family upbringing…

Ruiqi Wang: I am the first and only musician/artist in my family. My parents like music from

time to time, but music to them was only a small occasional addition. I knew I loved singing from a very young age. I felt tremendous joy whenever I sang. My mother sent me to piano lessons, starting when I was 7. I never made big achievements with the piano, but going to lessons for almost ten years meant that my life structure included spending a consistent amount of time with music for all those years. When I was in elementary school, I was a huge fan of a Taiwanese singer called Jay Chou. I think I knew more than 100 of his songs by heart, and I loved singing them whenever I could. Music got interrupted when I was in my teens. There was a lot of academic pressure for teenagers in China, and I spent all my time studying and doing extra school work. I started at McGill as a psychology student, and I almost forgot that I had always wanted to be a singer growing up.

PAN M 360: What is your family thinking of your career choice?

Ruiqi Wang: They are very supportive. They think it is really cool that there is an artist in

the family now because my parents did not really have the option to participate in art when they grew up. I think they feel happy seeing how passionate, alive and clear-minded my state of being is now. It’s a big change from before I studied music. There is still worry and doubts, because no one in my family knows anything about the music industry, and I didn’t study much music growing up. So I think once they see me being able to support myself independently, they will be 100% relaxed and happy.

PAN M 360: What brought you to Montreal?

Ruiqi Wang: When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to pursue an undergraduate education abroad to experience different kinds of education and different ways of living. I decided to come to Canada because it costs a lot less than in the US or the UK. McGill’s psychology major also has a good reputation. I also thought Montreal seemed cool because people speak French here. It was really just a few intuitive thoughts that brought me here.

PAN M 360: How do you evaluate what studying at McGill has given you?

Ruiqi Wang: I am extremely grateful for this experience. As I mentioned, I did not start university in music. So I was just really grateful that I got to study music at McGill. I felt very welcomed by the community, and I felt there was space for me to grow. I met amazing teachers such as Ranee Lee, Camille Thurman, John Hollenbeck, Christine Jensen, Jean-Nicolas Trottier, Jacqueline Leclair. They are great musicians and also great people. Studying with them was life-changing.

However, towards the end of my degree, I definitely felt it was time for me to explore a different kind of art institute. I think McGill’s music school has a “conservatory” style. There is a strict curriculum with a heavy focus on the jazz tradition. It served me well because I wanted to dive deep into this culture, but I also was aware that only playing jazz was not for me. I still wanted to do more school, but I was craving an environment where self-expression and exploring one’s own artistic vision and identity are more prioritized.

PAN M 360: What are your career plans? Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?

Ruiqi Wang: I plan to build a career in Europe. I am considering moving to Berlin after my master’s. I would like to keep performing and composing for various ensembles in the realms of avant-garde jazz and new music. I would also like to tap into interdisciplinary work, incorporating movement and music, and making installations. I would love to maintain my connection to Montreal through projects and festivals. In 5 or 10 years, I would ideally be floating between Berlin, Montreal, China, and maybe New York City.

PANM 360: If I told you that you could be China’s answer to Japan’s Hiromi and South Korea’s Youn Sun Nah, what would you say?

Ruiqi Wang: That is motivating to hear. I do want to work towards that level of musicianship, and it would be nice to receive that kind of recognition one day. But I don’t think about end results like that very much. In my day-to-day life, I just focus on having a good work-life balance, keeping my creativity flowing and staying in good health. If I keep living a creative, healthy and sustainable lifestyle, I don’t think I will care very much about whether I get that kind of recognition. But at the same time, I am an ambitious person and I have high standards for myself. So hearing something like that is a nice motivation.

PAN M 360: Your music is influenced by so many things: traditional Chinese, Classical, Jazz. What is the proportion of each in your final results, would you say?

Ruiqi Wang: It’s hard to measure the proportion since it often gets so dynamic and fluid. But they do play different roles. I think my musical foundation lies in jazz. I learned to compose and improvise mainly through studying jazz. Classical music is an important source of inspiration for composition. I always feel that it broadens and deepens what I learn in jazz. It makes me think of music and composition differently.

Traditional Chinese music is something that’s in my blood. Despite the fact that I have never studied it with any teacher, I feel it is an inseparable part of me. I am bringing elements of traditional Chinese music into my performance and composition very carefully because I know there is so much more that I need to study. But what I do end up bringing into my music world feels very authentic and close to me.

PAN M 360: Where do you start when you compose? A written figure and then you make it grow? An improv that you “organize” after? What is the process?

Ruiqi Wang: I like to experiment with different ways and processes of composition. “A written figure and then you make it grow”, A Descent of Lilies came exactly from that process. I heard a melodic phrase in my mind on a morning walk. I figured out what that was after the walk and wrote it down. Then I developed the whole piece out of this one short phrase. I didn’t compose anything more than that one phrase. The concept, or the story I want to tell through a piece of music is always the most important thing. So when I compose a piece, I always figure out what I want to say first. Sometimes it is a need to compose because there is something I want to communicate to the world through the music I write.

PAN M 360: Evil Question: Do you improvise with contemporary sounds or do you write contemporary music that improvises?

Ruiqi Wang: Evil Answer: I do both! I am an improviser, and I consider myself to use contemporary sounds,

because I try to develop my own improvisation language, instead of being a medium to continue a certain type of improvisation tradition lineage. I think it’s important to study the traditions deeply, but it doesn’t feel authentic for me to just improvise in any traditional way. I look for sounds that belong to myself and the present moment. I write music for improvisers. Improvisation is usually a part of my composition that brings the music somewhere. It’s like an X factor, and I like working with that kind of unpredictability and giving musicians the freedom.

PAN M 360: You will be pursuing studies in Bern, Switzerland. Is that farewell?

Ruiqi Wang: Definitely not. I still need to see and live in more places to decide where I want to live long term. But one thing I do know is that I have lots of friends here in Montreal, and a lot of them are really incredible musicians and artists that I want to create music and art with. I cherish those friendships and I would come back for them.

PAN M 360: About the concert on the 12th (tomorrow night), what can we expect? How much will it be like the album?

Ruiqi Wang: Yes, we will play the album. But it will be different from the recorded versions, just like when you tell a story for the second time, you still tell the same story, but more or less you will change things around so that you don’t bore yourself, and things remain natural and fresh.

Pan M 360: Can you tell me about Orchard and Pomegranates (the label under which your album will be released)? What is the mission?

Ruiqi Wang: Orchard of Pomegranates is an international community of improvisers, vocalists, musicians and artists that Ayelet Rose Gottlieb founded in 2019. I got to know Ayelet in 2020 by taking the workshops and lessons she offers through this community online. Eventually, I started studying with her in person. And it is through this mentoring process that we started brewing ideas about the album. I think the mission is to create a worldwide community where people share creative ideas, improvise, sing, and listen deeply together.

PAN M 360: What does it mean to play at OFF Jazz?

Ruiqi Wang: It is my first major show in Montreal not as a jazz student, but as myself, as Ruiqi, as an artist, as someone who sings and creates. It is a very special and personal show for me. I feel very honoured to have

this opportunity to play at OFF Jazz, and feel grateful that I get to share my cultural lineage.

Ruiqi Wang will perform on October 12 at Improv Montréal, at 5 PM. For info ant tickets, click HERE.