Suoni / Le Vivier | Guérison by Joane Hétu, When Drama Becomes Music

Genres and styles : expérimental / contemporain / musique actuelle

Additional Information

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!

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