The Christmas concert season for Quebec ensembles is always a highlight for music-loving audiences. Messiah, Christmas Oratorio, Christian Midnight and other traditional carols echo through concert halls and churches. The program for the Orchestre symphonique de Laval’s final concert of 2024 is no exception to this grand tradition. Under the title Fêtes et célébrations, the orchestra proposes an encounter between tradition and novelty, where well-known and lesser-known tunes will rub shoulders in a festive outburst.
At the helm of this concert is young conductor Thomas Le Duc-Moreau, who explains what awaits Laval audiences in this Christmas program.
Photo Credit : La ptite photographe
Very active on Quebec stages as accompanists, but also classically trained musicians working in the more serious spheres of music, four instrumentalists have chosen to take up the challenge of pop melody by becoming the “singers” of their new album. Homonymous, their third studio album is aimed at a wider audience, with an eye on the neoclassical, film music and instrumental pop markets. Released in November on the Juliette Records label and produced by its owners, the Twenty-Nines (Julie Lamontagne and Anthony Albino), Esca is making headway and its members plan to defend it on stage in 2025. In the meantime, they are defending the material, notably in this interview with Amélie Lamontagne (Esca’s 1st violinist) granted to Alain Brunet for PAN M 360.
Album credits Musicians: Amélie Lamontagne, Edith Fitzgerald, Sarah Martineau, Julie Dessureault, Kaven Girouard, Julie Lamontagne, Anthony Albino Production and arrangements: Les Twenty-Nines Sound recording and mixing: Rod Shearer Matrixing: Le Lab Mastering Publishers: Disques Juliette, Les Éditions Esca, Éditions Clémentine
Violinist Emmanuel Vukovich is one of Montreal’s hidden treasures. Of Croatian origin on his father’s side, he has dual Canadian and German nationality, and his relationship with Montreal dates back to 2004, when he began a new academic cycle at McGill after studying at Juilliard in NYC. He went on to study at the New England Conservatory in Boston, then completed a doctorate at Stony Brook University (Long Island NY) and spent long periods in Vienna as an interpreter. Based in Montreal, he enjoys an international career and teaches at McGill. Released at the end of 2023, his album Resilience is more than a calling card; it’s also the vision of a solo violinist with a passion for modern and contemporary classical music, but also for traditions that are atypical for the vast majority of Western ears. What’s more, Resilience evokes its performer’s deep commitment to planet earth and the human beings who inhabit it. What’s on your mind? Let’s get to know Emmanuel Vukovich! Alain Brunet met him for PAN M 360.
Since their first album, Don’t Think You Can Escape Your Purpose, and perhaps their split EP with Acid Mother’s Temple in 2020, the local post-krautrock titans, Yoo Doo Right have been spreading their sonic influence and super high decibels worldwide. Their latest offering From The Heights of Our Pastureland is somewhat of a closed chapter in their album trilogy, not forgetting to mention their fantastic second album, A Murmur, Boundless To the East—as the band is now already thinking about new music on the horizon.
Yoo Doo Right recently had their album release show From The Heights of Our Pastureland at Théâtre Plaza (you can read our review here), and two members, Justin Cober (guitar/synth/vocals) and John Talbot (drums/percussion) gave a brief but exploratory interview with PAN M 360 just before their soundcheck.
We spoke about the catharsis of playing at ridiculously high volumes, writing the new music during a snowstorm, and a hint of their political edge through music.
Christopher Pravdica is often associated with being the bass player of the legendary experimental rock group, Swans, as well as a number of other projects like Xiu Xiu, The Medicine Singers, and The Gunga Din, but last week, he played his first ever live show in Montreal under his solo project, We Owe—opening for other Mothland label bands, Victime and Yoo Doo Right. Pravdica was supported live by his longtime friend, drummer Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The show was an explosive debut of bassy and sinister post-punk with trippy visuals in the backdrop.
PAN M 360 spoke with Pravdica in person in the basement of Theatre Plaza just after his soundcheck and learned more about the solo project. Pravdica wrote a whole new batch of songs for the show and will soon be recording them for another album to follow-up last year’s Major Inconvenience.
We discussed the band name origins, shifting into more of a vocal frontman, and learned about some of the musical lore surrounding Pravdica and his many projects.
The flagship of Quebec trad music, Le Vent du Nord is continuing the symphonic experiment it began in 2007 with arrangements by Tom Myron, two of which will be retained in this unprecedented encounter with Maestro Kent Nagano. The rest of the repertoire has been reworked by composer Régis Campeau, responsible for the interludes between the pieces on this program and three new arrangements from the Vent du Nord repertoire. Two pillars of the group, Olivier Demers and Nicolas Boulerice, co-founders of the band, were joined on stage by André Brunet, Réjean Brunet and André Gagné, and spoke to Alain Brunet for PAN M 360. This unique program with the OSM is presented on Thursday, December 12 at the Maison symphonique de Montréal, and we have no doubt that this creation will outlast this performance. So, Le Vent du Nord invests every possible field, and this is the right one!
Established in 2006 by businessman and philanthropist Seymour Schulich, the Golden Violin Award is an annual competition that recognizes the excellence and talent of the Schulich School of Music’s string cohorts. The 2024-2025 edition will take place on December 11 and 13 at Tanna Hall. “The winner, chosen after a rigorous selection process by a jury, will receive a substantial bursary, which in its 18th year has reached a value of $30,000; a 14-carat gold pin, a smaller replica of the gold violin; and the opportunity to perform in concert as part of the Schulich School of Music’s regular season.” Last year, violist David Montreuil took top honors in this prestigious competition. PAN M 360 contributor Alexandre Villemaire spoke to Montreuil to learn more about his background and what his experience as a candidate and laureate has brought him.
This interview was conducted in French
December 10th: Semifinal Round
December 11th: Final Round
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To look at the webcast of these events, click here
The former OSM Principal Conductor and Artistic Director returns to Montreal to conduct 2 distinct programs, spread over 3 consecutive evenings, at the Maison symphonique, from Tuesday December 10 to Thursday December 12. Based on a blend of creation and interpretation of well-known repertoire, both programs highlight the work of composers Régis Campeau, for new orchestrations of Le Vent du Nord and the composition of interludes, Matthew Ricketts and Alain Farah featuring the great contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and Ariza Sadikova for her singular evocation of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Between rehearsals, Maestro Nagano kindly agreed to grant this interview to Alain Brunet for PAN M 360.
From February 14 to March 1, 2025, no fewer than 18 generous programs of new music will be presented by the SMCQ, in the context of its biennial event Montreal / Nouvelles Musiques (MNM). Under the broad theme of “music and images”, this is the first large-scale operation for the new artistic direction of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, embodied by composer Simon Bertrand. Its editorial line is first and foremost to spotlight many of Quebec’s most remarkable composers. And, as has been the case with other MNM presentations over the past two decades, to present a substantial aeropage of creation from abroad. Alain Brunet chatted at length with Simon Bertrand, who gave an exhaustive overview of the 18 programs to come next February. To make it easier to digest this imposing program, the interview is broken down into a few parts.
On December 8, 1974, guitarist, composer, improviser and bandleader René Lussier gave his first concert in Chambly, at the local cinema. On December 8, 2024, at the Ministère, 8pm, René Lussier commemorates 50 years of atypical, world-renowned musical practices in the contemporary music filter.
He was electric guitarist with the Conventum collective in the ’70s, then embarked on a solo career that continues to this day. His album Fin du travail was released in 1984, and his solo discography now boasts 22 opuses, as well as dozens of collaborations. A revolutionary transposition of spoken language into music, his masterwork Le trésor de la langue won international awards and was performed on stage with eloquent narrations by Richard Desjardins and Patrice Desbiens. Le corps d’Étienne marked his work with filmmaker Pierre Hébert, a master of film etching. With multi-flute and multi-saxophonist Jean Derome, he founded the excellent duo Les Granules, and with British guitarist Fred Frith, he has recorded and performed many times. With clarinettist Robert M Lepage, he has also made some magnificent collaborations public. With the other Robert Lepage, he set to music the gigantic Le moulin à images installation in Quebec City in 2009. He has recorded with explorer DJ Martin Tétreault. He has also sporadically joined one of Fred Fortin’s bands, Gros Mené.
He’s also done songs, in short, the most variable of orchestral geometries. So, what do you think? No need to justify posting this interview with Alain Brunet for PAN M 360.
“Be on the lookout, a sound is so quick to arrive!” we warn. Sound can become an aggressor, an annoyance, a source of mental pollution, and that’s exactly why Ensemble SuperMusique proposes here a musical pharmacopoeia whose aim is to devise real-time antidotes to the sound alarms that surround us, to toxic background noise, to tinnitus and other elevator or supermarket musaks. This Sunday, December 8, at the Espace Orange in the Wilder Building, six improvisers of all styles and generations propose to alarm the sound by planking on frequencies conducive to soothing and well-being, in order to bring peace back to the auditory canals. Co-founder of SuperMusique, saxophonist, singer, noisemaker, improviser and composer Joane Hétu suggests some elements of understanding before living the experience at the end of a Sunday afternoon. Alain Brunet met her virtually for PAN M 360.
Released on October 25 on the Mothland label, En conversation avec…, Victime’s most recent album, will be embodied on stage by its atypical trio: Laurence Gauthier Brown, Simone Provencher and Samuel Gougoux will defend the material of this opus. Bruitism, rock, electro, primal poetry, vocals – these are the obvious sounds in Victime’s composite approach, to which are grafted a few mysteries of the psyche and other creatures arising from the unconscious. Laurence Gauthier Brown, who teaches a class in Quebec City, helps us get to grips with Victime. Alain Brunet interviewed her for PAN M 360, shortly before the launch of the album, which will be performed Friday December 6 at Théâtre Plaza, 7:30 p.m.
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