Semaine du Neuf | “Listen with your eyes closed”: Acousmatic Music by Annette Vande Gorne

Genres and styles : expérimental / contemporain / musique acousmatique

Additional Information

In the wake of Sunday’s concert at McGill University’s Music Multimedia Room (MMR), which immersed the audience in a 3-hour immersive sound ecosystem featuring works by Annette Vande Gorne, Julien Guillamat, David Piazza, Ana Dall’Ara-Majek, Francis Dhomont and Robert Normandeau, PAN M 360 put these questions to Annette Vande Gorne, a leading figure in acousmatic music. We talked about her career, the artistic ties that unite Quebec and Belgium, and the evolution of acousmatic music.

PAN M 360: You were taught by Guy Reibel and Pierre Schaeffer at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris between 1977 and 1980. What attracted you to the medium of musique concrète and acousmatic music?

Annette Vande Gorne: The chance discovery of musique concrète and acousmatic music (Pierre Henry’s Le voyage and François Bayle’s Les espaces inhabitables) caused a complete upheaval in my musical perception: a sensation of the body floating, abstract forms in spatial movement, white on black, in my mental imagination. The immediate communication beyond any specialized knowledge and cultural barrier (through archetypes, iconic images and their traces) that freely leads our personal imaginations, immediately diverted me from a smooth and predictable path as a classical musician and composer of instrumental music to the rockier, yet innovative paths of acousmatic music: nothing to see, everything to imagine.

PAN M 360: The links between Belgium and Quebec in the development of acousmatic music are significant and marked by important encounters. How did these links come about, and what impact have they had?

AVDG: These links were forged thanks to Francis Dhomont, who was a professor at the University of Montreal at the time and a guest at the first “L’Espace du Son” festival in Brussels in 1984. He had set up a summer electroacoustic workshop in Arles in which some of his students participated, and suggested that one of them take up a residency in the Musiques & Recherches analog studio. I chose Robert Normandeau in 1987. Since then, links have been forged, notably between the Conservatoire Royal de Mons, where I created an electroacoustic section – a master’s degree in acousmatic composition – and the Université de Montréal, where five students are currently in residence in Mons. But also editorial links between Jean-François Denis’ Empreintes DIGITales label and 6 composers living in Belgium. Last but not least, ties of exchange and friendship are perpetuated through a constant back-and-forth of residencies, concerts, commissions and conferences between Musiques & Recherches, a number of Belgian composers and myself, and associations or concert series such as Réseaux, Akousma, Le Viver aujourd’hui, in addition to numerous Quebec composers.

PAN M 360: The voice, the primary emotional and musical vector and ancestral medium of all communication, is at the heart of your Vox Alia cycle, which will be presented in its entirety. How did you incorporate this element into the sound treatment of the work?

AVDG: All strata – from sound to meaning, from cry to language, from spoken to musical – are explored in the use of the voice. The voice as a purely sonic entity is particularly suited to electroacoustic studio processing, as it is to spatial polyphony. Reforming virtual, spatialized choirs throughout the concert venue using autonomous voices is one example. The CIRMMT hall in the basement of McGill University’s Elizabeth Wirth Music Pavilion is a marvel of sonic precision, thanks to its 66 high-quality loudspeakers. Other acousmatic concerts would be perfectly suited to it.

PAN M 360: How would you describe your creative process? What inspires you as a composer, but also as a researcher? Is research always present somewhere in your compositions?

AVDG: Research is indispensable. I can’t imagine innovative creation without a theoretical humus to support and justify it. Thanks in this respect to François Bayle, whose constant research, itself based on his pertinent readings, enables the particular genre of “acousmatic” to exist on a reasoned basis. I extend this by integrating these reflections into a musically broader context, as a kind of bridge to practice applied to the sensitive. And it works! I’m currently writing a treatise on acousmatic composition.

PAN M 360: The performance on March 9 tells a bit of a generational story too. The first part will feature your work Vox Alia with Vol d’arondes by your friend, the late composer Francis Dhomont, while the second part will present works by composers who have been marked by your respective teachings. What strikes you about the way young composers approach composition today? What changes have you noticed?

AVDG: The question is vast and, it seems to me, cannot be generalized, as cultural environments are different, for example, between Montreal, Quebec, and Europe, France, Belgium and so on. Obviously, technology and its evolution (from analog to artificial intelligence) is general and shared by all, but its use differs, and also depends on the orientation of new generations of teachers. Here, we’re leaving the world of pure listening for that of multimedia and screens, whereas in Belgium, thanks to the multiplicity of spatialized concerts on acousmoniums or loudspeaker systems (there are 5 in Belgium) and contemporary orchestras (6 in Flanders and Wallonia-Brussels), listening alone is at the heart of musical practice.

PAN M 360: What advice would you give to newcomers to acousmatic music?

AVDG: Listen with your eyes closed! Internalize, focus your attention, let yourself be guided by mental images, cultivate your memory. Take an interest in the repertoire (the Musiques & Recherches “electrodoc” site lists over 7,000 composers and 1,500 works: and electrocd.com has a vast electro-library.

Start recording, headphones on, all the sounds that attract and intrigue you, listen to the recordings, choose and don’t hesitate to erase what doesn’t seem musical enough.

Live happily, passionately. Committed.

As part of Semaine du Neuf and in collaboration with the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and Vivier InterUniversitaire, two masterclasses open to the public with Annette Vande Gorne and composer Linda Catlin Smith are offered.