Interviews – Page 6

For its forty-seventh season, the Festival international du Domaine Forget invites Quebec music lovers to discover new horizons. The summer event, which runs for almost two months from June 28 to August 23, features a wide range of artistic expression, from dance and classical music to jazz. From Monteverdi to Farrenc, from Vivaldi to Oscar Peterson, the 2025 program offers a rich array of styles, eras and formats, highlighting renowned artists as well as trainees from the Domaine Forget Academy.

In conversation with PAN M 360 contributor Alexandre Villemaire, Domaine Forget artistic director Mathieu Lussier outlines the program and the must-sees.

To consult the program, go HERE

Queenie is her name. It was given to her by her mother, who already saw in her a “little queen”. After an adventure on Star Académie, the Quebec-born artist from Haiti, who has lived in Florida, presents us with her eponymous album, on which she sings in French, English and Creole. It features pop, RnB and even a little reggae. She has joined forces with the women’s label Disques Juliette, who are accompanying her on this wonderful adventure. Our journalist Sandra Gasana spoke to her, as she prepares for a new adventure in a TV series in which she sings.

Modibo Keita grew up in Montreal, is a trombonist by training and plays as much as he can when he’s not programming at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. Since the introduction of the event’s new artistic direction, jazz has once again become a priority in outdoor programming, in order to revive interest and eventually bring the most unifying artists to the concert halls. To this end, the programming team has recruited a true jazz musician, and a connoisseur of both tradition and the contributions of new generations, in the person of Modibo Keita. Here, he helps us uncover the musts of the program, both indoors and out, far beyond the obvious ones also mentioned in his nomenclature. Alain Brunet interviewed him for PAN M 360.

BILLETS ET INFOS

Here’s the second part of Alain Brunet’s PAN M 360 interview with programmer (and trombonist) Modibo Keita, the top jazz head on the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (FIJM) 2025 programming team. He continues his nomenclature of the festival’s best catches from among the more or less 300 programs presented this summer, from June 26 to July 5. Very instructive!

TICKETS AND INFO

Master class on July 2 with vocal coach Claude Webster. Audition on July 13, Opera Gala on July 24. Mozart’s Magic Flute on July 27. The Canadian Institute for Vocal Arts (CIVA) has been offering its summer programs for the past 21 years, and this is another opportunity to delve into its 4 July programs. Marc-Antoine d’Aragon, Director of the ICAV and the driving force behind this program, provides all the explanations we need to prepare for the Festival d’art vocal de Montréal.

INFO AND TICKETS HERE

With roots in Beirut and a career split between Montreal and New York, Nadim Maghzal is one of the driving forces behind Laylit, a collective and event series highlighting music from the SWANA region and beyond. Also known as one half of the duo Wake Island, Nadim is a producer, DJ, and former molecular biologist who now channels his energy into music full-time. We sat down with him ahead of his performance at Piknic Électronik, where he’ll be playing alongside Casa Kobrae, Manalou, and MNSA, to talk about his journey, the origins of Laylit, and the cultural movement behind it.

PAN M 360: First of all, how would you introduce yourself?

Nadim Maghzal: I’m an artist originally from Lebanon, a musician, producer and DJ. I’m now based in Montreal

PAN M 360: Have you always been an artist and a musician?

Nadim Maghzal: My journey is a little complex. I’ve always made music since I was young, but when I got to Montreal in the early 2000s, I was studying biology at McGill University. I went far with it, I basically got a PhD in molecular biology and graduated in 2013, but I kept pursuing research and teaching. So I’m also a scientist, but music has always been my biggest passion. Before Laylit, I was involved in many bands in Montreal, like rock bands, punk bands, live music. Very DIY. All of it was with my Laylit partner, Phil. We started Wake Island in Montreal and toured the world with this project that has evolved over the years from rock music to electronic music and more recently to ambient experimental stuff. So yeah, music has always been the center of my world. But I’ve done other stuff in life and I’ve been very, very fortunate to be able to explore different things and just to have the privilege to be able to focus on music these days and work in that medium. That’s a blessing, honestly.

PAN M 360: Completing your PhD must have taken a big chunk of your life. How did you manage to still make music?

Nadim Maghzal: Yeah, it took me about six and a half years to finish it. The best part of it was pursuing music in parallel. It was especially amazing because I drew so many parallels between art and science. A PhD can be really frustrating, especially in science, when you’re doing research in your lab the whole time. So being on the road, touring, being creative, being in the studio, it was always kind of a great escape and a beautiful way to get inspired. One thing inspires the other. And even though they seem like completely different things, weirdly for me at the time they went hand in hand. Another fun fact, since we’re talking about this, the third co-founder of Laylit, Saphe, who’s in New York, is also about to finish his PhD at Columbia University studying anthropology. I don’t know if that’s relevant, but just a fun fact.

PAN M 360: Just so the readers know, when there’s a Laylit event, everyone is safe because there are two doctors. Was there a moment where the music kind of took over?

Nadim Maghzal: Basically when I was in New York, from 2015 through 2020, I still had a foot in the science world. I was teaching a lot to make ends meet because just doing music can be extremely difficult, especially when you’re independent and trying to do interesting projects. Our first Laylit party was in 2018 in Brooklyn in a tiny little bar, and very quickly in 2019 we started seeing how much potential this project had. It was part of a movement in New York that really exploded because of the need for spaces like Laylit to exist in the cultural landscape. I realized that Laylit was going to be very time-consuming. It kind of naturally happened, I stopped teaching science and focused all of my time on Laylit and the other projects we had, like touring with Wake Island and music production.

Then there was the pandemic, that was kind of a very confusing time, of course, because parties and live events and touring are all physical. So there was some questioning around what I should do with my time and whether or not music was dead. Like, should I maybe go back to science? Maybe music is dead as we know it, like it doesn’t exist anymore. But in 2021, when things opened up in New York again, we were reassured and kind of pleasantly surprised because events were crazy. People needed to party, and since then, music has become everything I do.

PAN M 360: What would you attribute to the success of these events? You mentioned a movement happening in New York around 2018. Can you tell us more about this?

Nadim Maghzal: When I was living in New York and participating in the nightlife as an audience member, it became evident that there was a lot of space for our people (SWANA), our culture and our music, to simply exist. Music from all around the globe was being played in clubs and diversity was really cherished. Seeing this as an artist from Lebanon who was in this indie rock bubble in Montreal, it was inspiring. It felt like a long time coming to reconnect with my own roots, and dance music was the perfect medium to revisit and dive into the core of what made me who I am, the rhythms, the culture, the language.

The first party was very informal. We were like, “Hey, let’s just throw a small party on a Wednesday night and invite our friends to come hang out”
We did this thing in a bar called Mood Ring and we were shocked, it was packed. People wanted more of it. It felt, at the time, that there was a need for this. Our community never really had spaces. To be clear, there have always been music events, but most of the time it stays within the community, weddings, parties in the Suburbs, but I never really felt like Arabic music was celebrated in the heart of New York City or Montreal’s music culture. We realized, “We have a chance at this. We should work it.” So we did, and it’s been amazing.

Post-9/11, Arabic culture took a big hit. It took a lot of time for the community to get over the stigma in society, and we’re not quite over it, and to share the beauty and diversity of this culture. We do this in dance music and we’re happy to have a tiny contribution.

PAN M 360: Around Lebanon and the Middle East, there are musical movements that extend between many different countries. The diversity and complexity of genres in SWANA culture can be hard to wrap one’s head around. When curating a lineup, how do you approach this?

Nadim Maghzal: When we first dove into this, it was a bit overwhelming, particularly because of the diversity you’ve described. Growing up in Lebanon and even just listening to Arabic pop, there are so many influences. We learned a lot from this project. It was a challenge to dig into the repertoire, to start listening to things we didn’t know. Trying to understand the social aspects and where cultural movements stem from has been very enriching, not only from a curatorial standpoint, but I believe for audience members as well, by opening the space to DJs from across the SWANA region.

As an example, at the Piknic show we have Manalou and Casa Kobrae, from Algeria and Morocco respectively, who’ll be spinning with us. They bring music and rhythms native from those regions, sounds that I didn’t grow up with but it’s still very close to the music I do know, there’s always this novelty aspect which is really cool.

It’s so rich. We try to bring that diversity of sounds to the audience. It’s not always simple because some audiences have a preconceived idea of what an Arabic music party is, they expect to hear top 40 hits. But sometimes we’ll book a DJ who digs into a more folkloric repertoire, stuff that hasn’t been heard before. As long as we’re learning something new, the project stays interesting and stays alive. We’re here for that, not just to throw events or be party promoters.

PAN M 360: Since Laylit covers artists from across the region without reducing Arabic music to a stereotype, do you think there’s a common thread across the SWANA region?

Nadim Maghzal: There are definitely commonalities. I’ll try to describe them in a way that avoids stereotypes. I would say language is one thing that overlaps the most, but even there, the SWANA region has a lot of diversity in languages. There’s one main language spoken in many dialects, but you also have Armenian, Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, Amazigh etc.

My perspective is that in general, in everything I’ve heard, there is always a generosity in sound. Whether it’s a sad love song or a happy festival song, the emotion is delivered with generosity. There’s less holding back. Obviously, it’s subjective and not unique to Arabic music, jazz can be generous too, but in contrast to minimal techno or other more intellectualized music, Arabic music tends to feel more open emotionally.

Rhythmically and melodically, the region shares deep structures and patterns, from Syria to Egypt to Iraq. There’s a shared musical language, but what makes it fascinating is the mix of influences, Amazigh, sub-Saharan, blues, African music… it gets messy in the best way. There are unifying elements, but also awesome regional differences. That’s what we try to highlight in our events.

PAN M 360: How does being an artist in the diaspora affect your approach to music?

Nadim Maghzal: That’s the third dimension, right? You take all this richness and then open it up in the diaspora, and all this mixing starts happening. For myself, as someone who spent half their life in Lebanon, I’ve learned a lot through this process. As you get older, it doesn’t get easier, it actually gets harder to know who you are, where you’re from. But through artistic expression, the hybridization of sounds creates unique identities for each artist as they dig into their influences.

Also, growing up in Lebanon, our music was always shaped by tradition, yes, but also by western music. The same is true in Egypt and Syria. You can hear Russian ballet influences in recordings from the 1920s. In North Africa, you can find Arabic reggae records. So it’s not just diaspora, Western culture was part of my musical identity from early on. We all try to dig into our childhoods for inspiration because that’s what resonates most.

PAN M 360: When organizing a Laylit event you have more control, but at Piknic you mostly focus on the music. How are you curating this one?

Nadim Maghzal: We adapt to whatever space we’re performing in. The focus is always first and foremost on the music and the lineup. For Piknic, we’re just proposing a lineup of DJs. There will be Manalou, who I spoke about earlier, and Casa Kobrae, a Moroccan DJ from Casablanca who’s now based in Montreal. The focus is on Montreal-based DJs from the SWANA community and shedding light on their musical expression. We hope to have an audience that is receptive and just as curious as we are.

PAN M 360: Last question, what are you looking forward to this summer? What’s motivating you?

Nadim Maghzal: When we started Laylit, it picked up so quickly that we had to put all of our attention on the events in New York and Montreal. Quickly, other cities were added, and we got so busy that I had to put other projects on the side, including, for me, a big part of what I love about music, production.

Now that we have more of a system in place, we’ve been focusing on original music as a collective, softly opening as a record label. We put out our first compilation a few weeks ago. It was such a rewarding experience.

That’s what’s driving me these days, it’s a synthesis of what Laylit has been for me. Putting those feelings into tracks, encouraging other producers to do the same. Not just DJ sets, but tracks that others can play. Saphe in our collective always says, music travels faster than us. It’s so rewarding to see people from Athens or Russia listening and playing our tracks. There’s a lot of new music coming and we’re very excited to share it.

TICKETS HERE

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Summer 2025 in Orford promises once again to be rich in musical encounters. Marc-André Hamelin and Charles Richard-Hamelin, Alain Lefèvre, tango, picnics, lots of fascinating young artists, a quartet on the rise internationally – there’s no shortage of exciting events. I discussed all this with Wonny Song, artistic director of Orford Musique.

This interview on the Orford Musique season is part of a PAN M 360 content partnership with La Vitrine, the largest website devoted daily to cultural outings across Quebec.

Access La Vitrine HERE

For 11 years now, Montreal percussionist Ziya Tabassian has been organizing a series of concerts every summer. So far, so good, especially in Montreal. But his concerts take place in his garage! You go to 5226 Clark street, the door is open, you enter, you cross the corridor, the kitchen, the backyard and you arrive in a garage fitted out as a small stage with chairs and cushions. That’s it. Ten times a summer, you’ll meet artists from all horizons, from Persian music to medieval classical, from China to klezmer, from Mongolia to the Mandinka Empire, all free of charge (but voluntary donations are suggested). I spoke to Ziya Tabassian about the 2025 program.

DETAILS OF THE GARAGE CONCERTS 2025 SERIES HERE

Saturday evening at the Sala Rossa, Suoni Per Il Popolo welcome Sanam, an unclassifiable group combining post rock, noise, ambient, Arab classical music and more. Sandy Chamoun (vocals), Antonio Elhatt Moussa (bass and electronics) , Farah Kaddour (bouzouk), Anthony Sayoun (guitars, electronics), Pascal Semerdjian (drums), Marwan Tohme (guitars) will join their friend and fellow musician Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem in my Heart) on stage, before recording new material at Hotel2Tango, home of the Constellation label. The famous label will be Sanam’s for an album to be released next September. Here, we talk about creating in real time under Israeli missiles, continuing the process while resisting this appalling adversity. A most instructive interview for us privileged Westerners.

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Ponteix, real name Mario Lepage, grew up in the French-speaking village of St-Denis, Saskatchewan. His album Le canadien errant, released in February, recounts his personal journey from Western Canada to Montreal, where he now lives. Make no mistake: Ponteix embraces very modern sounds, sometimes reminiscent of Karkwa. His latest album was co-produced by Louis- Jean Cormier. Ponteix will be performing a free concert at the Francofolies on Thursday June 19, at 6 p.m. on the Loto-Quebec stage. Michel Labrecque spoke with Mario Lepage for PAN M 360.

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Inspired by the late Quebec painter Jacques Hurtubise (1939-2004), Hippie Hourrah has produced a lot of music since 2023: first the more pop-oriented, song-based album Exposition individuelle, and then the instrumental album Il y eut un rythme, released in June 2025 on the Simone Records label, whose music magnifies the six cycles of the creative life of this great contemporary visual artist. These audiovisual tableaux are projected at the Satosphère in a 30-minute immersive production for 360° dome. A fusion of the music of Hippie Hourrah and the visual concepts of Normal Studio’s creative team! Saisir le Chaos is presented at SAT’s Satosphère until July 19. For PAN M 360, Alain Brunet absorbed all this material and then asked the concept’s composers many questions: guitarist Gabriel Lambert and percussionist Miles Dupire-Gagnon, both multi-instrumentalists to boot.

TICKETS AND INFO HERE

Guérison is a work by saxophonist, composer and improviser Joane Hétu (words and music) for the Ensemble SuperMusique (ESM) and the Chorale Joker. Built in three movements, the piece addresses the themes of trial, pain and resilience, with healing as the happy conclusion. The inspiration came from a very real event: in April 2021, Joane Hétu’s daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer, which had to be removed, followed by 18 months of intensive treatment before finally going into remission. This dramatic ordeal, experienced by so many women, is the epicenter of the work, which Joane Hétu believes to be universal in scope. A few days before its live premiere, on Thursday June 18 and Friday June 19 at the Espace Orange in the Wilder Building, Joane Hétu tells us more about the construction of the work and its correlation with this most painful of family experiences. Alain Brunet asked her the following questions.

PAN M 360: Is there anything more you’d like to say about this very trying cycle of your daughter and your family life?

Joane Hétu: The writing and realization of this piece, while imbued with the reality of this experience, are strangely detached from it. The project takes on a life of its own and becomes a work of art with its own independence.

PAN M 360: At what point did you decide to evoke it in music?

Joane Hétu: To tell the truth, for more than ten years I’d been wanting to create a major project bringing together the Joker Choir and Ensemble SuperMusique. I dreamed of an opera. But I couldn’t find the subject. Without a subject, there’s no opera, and no opera without a subject.

After my daughter’s diagnosis, I started to keep a poetic “logbook”, without any goal in mind. That way, the words would come and soothe me. And after six months, I realized that I’d already put together a good corpus of texts, and that I had my subject for this big project that I’d been putting off year after year.

To bring these themes to life, Guérison offers a rich, immersive sensory experience blending storytelling, music, poetry and visual art. The piece opens with the anguish of shattered dreams, then evolves into a chiaroscuro of acceptance and struggle. Hope, tenuous at first, gradually blossoms, culminating in a celebration of the survivors and a grand musical finale. Although these are serious subjects, the play is permeated by a breath of hope.

PAN M 360: How can we associate sounds with this dramatic framework?

Joane Hétu: I didn’t compose by associating sounds with the theme as such. Over time, the idea of opera faded and was replaced by the form similar to St. Matthew’s Passion, namely recitatives, big songs, chorales, and song/chorale juxtapositions. As I had a lot of text, this form suited me perfectly. I had a story to tell (the recitatives) and touching moments to evoke (the songs/chorales). So, as a first step, I rewrote the texts and assigned them to the different forms. It was quite a long process, taking several months to achieve the coherence of the booklet.

PAN M 360: How did you choose the materials to illustrate anguish, acceptance, struggle, redemption and the celebration of victory over adversity?

Joane Hétu: I’m not sure I consciously decided on the melodic character of each text. The words were already powerful enough and the music imposed itself. It’s hard to explain, but the music emerged from the unconscious.

PAN M 360: In a tonal context, references have existed since the beginnings of written music, but in a contemporary context, how did you go about it?

Joane Hétu: Initially, I wanted to work in an improvisational context with the participants, including the improvised music conducting gestures I use, because the ESM and the Chorale Joker share knowledge of these gestures. However, I didn’t receive all the necessary subsidies – in fact, I received very few – and I had to modify my project. Improvising takes a lot of time, and I didn’t have the money to do it. So I composed all the music in advance. It sounds like my music, it’s actual written music.

PAN M 360: How did you go about choosing the instrumentation and performers?

Joane Hétu: It’s a bit of a coincidence. I started out with the members of ESM and Chorale Joker. They’re all very busy, because the fees are so low that you have to do a lot of projects to make ends meet. Because of the budget I had, I had to reduce both ensembles to 7-8 ESM instrumentalists (strings, winds and percussion) and 8 participants for the Joker Choir. I already knew I had several songs, so I looked for female singers who inspired me, in total 5 female singers and 3 male voices to provide the basses. It was a real headache to work out the schedules. I made my choices according to availability and my work schedule.

PAN M 360: How much is structure (writing, instructions, etc.) and how much is improvisation in this context?

Joane Hétu: In the end, there’s almost no improvisation. I’m surprised myself. It’s a unique musical project that’s unlike anything I’ve ever composed. I’m far out of my comfort zone and at the same time, surprisingly, totally in tune with the project. And as the project became really written, I asked Jean Derome if he’d be interested in arranging the music. And here again, the project took a turn. It’s still my music, but arranged by Jean Derome, so Jean’s musical knowledge is part of Guérison. It was the first time Jean had worked so intensely on my music.

PAN M 360: How did you imagine the vocal part of the work?

Joane Hétu: At first, it was a matter of assigning the songs to each singer. And we spent a lot of time structuring and mastering the songs. Slowly, the role of the Joker Choir began to expand, and we’re still adding lines.

One important thing to mention is that I asked Camille Paré-Poirier to take on the role of narrator for the concert. She’s a singer-actress in her thirties, and she plays my daughter.

PAN M 360: How does choral singing relate to the instrumental part of the work?

Joane Hétu: In the end, the Joker Choir is very much present. There are no strictly instrumental pieces.

PAN M 360: We’re talking about storytelling, music, poetry and visual art? How is the multidisciplinary part constructed? Who wrote the story? Who designed the visual part?

Joane Hétu: As I said earlier, the story is written mainly by me, and I borrowed a few phrases and words from other writers. In the end, the theater was put aside, as there wasn’t enough money or time. It’s a music concert with video projection by Poli Wilhelm and Andrea Caladeron-Stephens. A colossal pictorial work that marries the musical framework.

As for the story, I’d like to say that it’s not my daughter’s words, it’s my projection of what she felt. It’s a project that belongs to me, and that’s what makes my daughter so comfortable with it. She’s very supportive of this project, she’s my totem and my inspiration. She’s been so powerful in all this turmoil. I really hope to pay tribute to her.

PAN M 360: As I understand it, your aim was to make a more ambitious work than usual. Why this particular work? Could it be because it evokes the most important personal event in your life? Any other reasons?

Joane Hétu: I feel I’m coming to the last phase of my career, and I really wanted to do a big project with the Joker Choir and Ensemble SuperMusique. It was an obvious choice. In fact, the theme had such an impact on me that it was the perfect choice to support this project. The piece lasts around 100 minutes.

And finally, I’d like to say that the realization of this project hasn’t lessened my pain. I thought it might help me, it did, but the pain is still there. A creation can’t heal us of our wounds, just lessen them and, above all, help us to face our destiny. I cried a lot when I was composing Guérison, and I still sometimes cry a little during rehearsals, getting a little teary-eyed, as they say. I’ve been working on this project for 4 years now, and it’s sometimes hard and very demanding to carry out a project that’s so much a part of your life.

I’m really looking forward to presenting this concert. I’m ready to go. And here I am!

INFO AND TICKETS HERE