Évènement de Avec Courage, îLESONIQ et I Love Neon
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L’alter ego du producteur électronique anglais Alexander Kotz, Elderbrook propose une musique dance entraînante portée par des synthés avant-gardistes. Il connaît un grand succès en 2017 avec sa collaboration sur le titre Cola de CamelPhat, qui le propulse sur la scène internationale. Par la suite, il collabore avec Gorgon City, Clean Bandit, Kx5 et bien d’autres. En plus de plusieurs EPs, Kotz sort son premier album officiel, Why Do We Shake in the Cold?, en 2020, suivi de Little Love en 2023.
The alter ego of English electronic producer Alexander Kotz, Elderbrook delivers upbeat, synth-forward dance music. Making his big breakthrough with the 2017 hit collaboration with CamelPhat, “Cola,” he went on to collaborate with the likes of Gorgon City, Clean Bandit, Kx5, and many more. In addition to a handful of EPs, Kotz released his official full-length debut, Why Do We Shake in the Cold?, in 2020, following it with Little Love in 2023.
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Ce contenu provient d’AllMusic et est adapté par PAN M 360
An all-female, feminist concert and an example of cultural diversity in contemporary music, Ensemble Obiora’s Sororité (Sisterhood) drew a large audience to Salle Pierre-Mercure yesterday afternoon. Led by Janna Sailor, the programme featured the music of Reena Ismaïl, one of the most exciting voices in contemporary music, for a too rare time in Montreal. After a rather academic opening composition (Rachel McFarlane’s When Enchantment Comes, inspired by Oscar Peterson but rather unrepresentative of the pianist’s music), it was the Indo-Western fusion universe of Ismaïl, a composer of Indian origin living in the United States, that provided the most colourful moment of the afternoon. Meri Sakhi ki Avaaz (My Sister’s Voice), for chamber orchestra, soprano and Hindustani singer (the classical vocal style of North India), offered a spellbinding encounter between two very different vocal styles, set against a romantico-impressionist orchestral backdrop (Debussian to be precise, but with evident indian colourings) with no contemporary harmonic asperities, but expertly detailed. The work opens with a tape extract of the famous flower duet from Léo Delibes’s opera Lakmé (set in India), followed by a more ‘authentic’ version of this melody, sung by soloist Anuja Panditrao (excellent).
Lyric soprano Suzanne Taffot joins in later and the two women talk about friendship and sisterhood in an echo of the more than famous opera aria (so often used in advertisements). The meeting of the two types of singing is very well balanced and skilfully constructed by Ismaïl. The finale even demands a great deal of virtuosity from Taffot, who imitates the virtuosic flights typical of Hindustani singing with great precision. Well done!
The concert’s finale was Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony, a work long neglected but almost on the way to becoming a staple of the repertoire. Sailor’s reading called for great precision, generally offered by Obiora, apart from occasional rhythmic inaccuracies. Above all, the orchestra offered a beautiful, full ensemble sound, transcending its character as a ‘large chamber orchestra’ rather than a true symphony orchestra.
The Obiora ensemble is proving to be an important addition to the musical landscape of Montreal and Quebec, because if the large, diverse, family-friendly and above all attentive audience is anything to go by, it has succeeded in winning the loyalty of a new audience to whom it introduces a little-known and inspiring repertoire. An EDI success that must be celebrated!
LEVEL UP, alias Sonya Broner, se sent le plus à l’aise derrière les platines. Ancienne DJ de battle formée par la légende Rob Swift, elle s’est tournée vers la production musicale après avoir découvert le dubstep. Façonner continuellement son son est ce qui la rend la plus heureuse, une forme d’expression authentique. Bien qu’elle soit encore au début de sa carrière, elle a déjà sorti de la musique sur les labels Deadbeats, GRVDNCR et Buygore, avec de nombreux projets en préparation.
Ancienne actrice de théâtre dans sa jeunesse, sa capacité de narration transparaît dans sa musique : des wubs et wobbles d’une lourdeur inouïe, ainsi que des doubles tricks dynamiques qui électrisent le public. LEVEL UP a accompagné Subtronics lors d’une tournée nationale et s’est produite sur des scènes prestigieuses comme Red Rocks, Lost Lands, Beyond Wonderland, Electric Forest et Bass Canyon.
LEVEL UP aka Sonya Broner feels most at home behind the decks. Originally a battle DJ studying under the legendary Rob Swift, LEVEL UP dove into music production after discovering dubstep. Continuously crafting her sound is what makes her feel the happiest and is her truest form of self expression. While at the beginning of her journey, she has already gone on to release music on Deadbeats, GRVDNCR, and Buygore, with much more in the pipeline.
A theatre actress in her youth, her storytelling ability is evident through her music: unfathomably heavy wubs and wobbles, and tricky doubles leave the audience energized and ready for more. She has since gone on a national tour with Subtronics, and graced the stages of Red Rocks, Lost Lands, Beyond Wonderland, Electric Forest, Bass Canyon, and more.
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Ce contenu provient d’Insomniac et est adapté par PAN M 360
La Marche de l’empereur, ayoye. Festival d’un soir seulement au Club Soda orchestré par Maison Pingouin. Des chansons sélectionnées HABILEMENT présentées par les artistes eux-mêmes : Thierry Larose, blesse, Lysandre et P’tit Belliveau en plus de plusieurs invités surprises. La cerise sur le sundae : Marianne Boucher à la direction artistique ; capitaine des transitions pour enchaîner les artistes pingouins / artistes invités. DJ Pingouin en ouverture blastera-très-fort du hip-hop approuvé par la vraie culture. Ayoye!
La Marche de l’empereur, ayoye. A one-night-only festival at Club Soda orchestrated by Maison Pingouin. Selected songs HABIALLY presented by the artists themselves: Thierry Larose, blesse, Lysandre and P’tit Belliveau, plus several surprise guests. The icing on the sundae: Marianne Boucher as artistic director; master of transitions to link Penguin artists / guest artists. DJ Pingouin opens with a blaster of hip-hop approved by real culture. Ayoye!
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Ce contenu provient de Simone Records et est adapté par PAN M 360
There are moments when you feel privileged to be where you are. Such was the case on Wednesday evening at the Maison symphonique. I think the feeling was mutual, at least if I’m to judge by the encore given by violinist Sergey Khachatryan, who gave a superb performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35.
The orchestra provided a setting in which he could express his sincerity, as when the flutes pick up at the end of his very personal cadenza, or again in the opening bars, as the strings introduce the solo violin.
The reminder is a piece by Grigor Narekatsi, a 10th-century Armenian mystic poet and saint of the Armenian Apostolic Church. In 2015, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Pope Francis declared St. Gregory of Narek (Frenchized name), Doctor of the Church, the 36th, for his timeless writings. Timeless, Havoun, havoun is. More than 1,000 years apart, his play resonates.
After intermission, Payare and the OSM attack Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, Op. 103 “The Year 1905”. 11 young instrumentalists from Montreal’s Conservatory, McGill, and Université de Montréal music schools join the orchestra for the occasion. Knowing the history of this symphony is the key to fully appreciating it because it’s not the kind of piece you listen to while preparing a chickpea salad on Monday morning before catching the metro. The program notes are illuminating. Symphony No. 11 is intimately linked to the history of Russia, and later the Soviet Union, both in its writing and its reception by the regime. With the USSR having decreed Shostakovich’s music an enemy of the workers in the aftermath of the Second World War, new compositions had to wait until the 1950s. Composed at the beginning of 1957, Shostakovich recounts in music the popular uprising of 1905 against the Russian Empire.
The first movement, “Palace Square”, opens with a hostile winter scene, where bloody repression soon unfolds. Military snare drums, bugles, and folk song illustrations are all sound manifestations of the violence of the repression. The second movement evokes Red Sunday, and here again, Shostakovich uses musical material to depict the horror of the massacre and the desolation of death. The third movement, “Eternal Memory”, is reminiscent of the Revolutionaries’ Funeral March. As for the Finale, “Tocsin”, this is revolutionary fervor, characterized by trumpets and low strings, interrupted by an English horn melody, and ending with the sounds of cymbals and bells. When the music stops, you wonder what you’ve just experienced. I was moved, disturbed, and thrown to the ground. This concert embodies the human condition in all its fragility.
Photo Credit: Antoine Saito
Yesterday the Festival Montréal Nouvelles Musiques presented an unusual programme, Le son de l’encre, at the centre of which was the mechanical and symbolic process of line, drawing and writing. Five works for flute and various additions (video, gesture-animated sound interface, live calligraphy) were performed. The spirit of Asian calligraphy is associated with elegance, harmony and meticulousness. It was also in this state of sound, at least in general, that the music on offer flourished. Although ‘contemporary,’ most of the pieces on the programme were enveloped in more or less explicit echoes of Asian music, thanks to the harmonies on pentatonic scales.
Penned by François Dery, Claire-Melanie Sinnhuber, Tao Yu, Gualtiero Dazzi and François Daudin Clavaud, the evocatively-titled works (Bambous, Fleurs de prunes tombantes, Le son de l’encre, Vent léger, etc.) set the scene in a way that was both modern and timeless, bathed in an atmosphere that was often contemplative, even ritualistic. Some pieces were more poignant than others, such as Gualtiero Dazzi’s La demeure du rêve, a superb sound construction based on drawings by South Korean Kim Yung Gi, one of the great illustrators of our time, who died at the age of 47 in 2022. Gi’s drawings, four in all and admirable for their naturalness but also for their symbolic complexity, took the form of a series of family portraits set against each other. A deeply moving moment.
The presence of renowned calligrapher Shanshan Sun was necessary to accompany some of the works, such as Feu, neige, cendres by François Déry. I wasn’t as convinced by the coherent relationship between Sun’s live gestures and the music. Especially in the last piece of the evening, coordination seemed to be lacking, with Sun finishing his writing on a large piece of paper on the floor, while the musicians had finished playing. I’d say almost a minute passed during which I caught the look on the face of one of the flautists, silently wondering how long he should hold his instrument up…
Be that as it may, I must mention the great versatility of the Trio d’argent, made up of Michel Boizot, Xavier Saint-Bonnet and François Daudin Clavaud. Three flutes together, some would say, is suicide. The French have shown that it can be done very well, and sound magnificently too. The variety of flutes used was also a major factor. Western, Oriental, bass flutes (I love them!), etc., the colours deployed were numerous and beautifully applied, in a contemporary perspective, certainly, but not experimental.
It was an evening that was sometimes bewitching, often soothing, always pleasant and surprising. A lovely offering from the Festival Montréal Nouvelles Musiques, and it’s only just beginning.
Interview (in French) with one of the musicians :
On Monday evening, a handful of audience members braved the icy gusts of wind and mountains of snow to make themselves comfortable on the beanbags of the Satosphère, in the heart of the Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT). All the way from Malta, composer Ruben Zahra and pianist Tricia Dawn Williams swapped the mild Mediterranean climate for the cold of Montreal to present Kafka’s Insect as part of the Festival International Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques (M/NM).
An immersive audiovisual performance, Kafka’s Insect is a retelling of Franz Kafka’s famous novel La métamorphose (1915). Spanning some 40 minutes, the visual narrative features characters from the Austro-Hungarian author’s story, as well as a real insect filmed from various angles and in motion. The narrative is built up in fragments and is supported by sound events taken directly from Kafka’s text: the pounding of rain against windows, the crash of a laboratory flask crashing to the floor, or the clash of apples thrown against a wall. These diegetic sounds blend with the soundtrack that is played live by piano and synthesizers. Towards the end of the piece, a dialogue is established between a violin recorded in the film and the piano played on stage. These interactions reinforce the cohesion between the sound and visual worlds, making the experience all the more immersive.
In addition, these looped elements encourage us to interpret the sound and visual scenes from different perspectives. This process amplifies the strangeness of the work, paying homage to the absurdity that permeates Kafka’s text.
The video projections – usually broadcast on a two-meter-diameter inflatable sphere placed at the center of the stage – have been specially adapted for this event, exploiting a large part of the surface of the SAT’s immersive dome. The film, shot for the most part with a vintage Daguerreotype Achromat lens from 1838, featured a singular aesthetic: soft light, with a blur evoking a flourishing imagination, just like Kafka’s protagonist. The circular image was projected onto the dome. Projections of the protagonist, depicted as a giant insect, were thus projected onto an imposing screen, creating a captivating atmosphere.
The integration of projected texts, while making the story easier to understand, sometimes broke the immersion. On the other hand, the moments when synthesizers were added to the piano created a particularly enveloping atmosphere. Finally, the impeccable synchronization between live music and video, facilitated by a click in the performers’ headphones, was an appreciable element that enhanced the fluidity of the performance.
This show marked the final M/NM event presented at the SAT, but the 12th edition of the festival continues with several more concerts to be discovered in the coming days. Focusing this year on the dialogue between music and images, M/NM offers no fewer than 18 concerts over 16 days.
photo: Emma Tranter
For its third edition, Immersion plunged us into a meeting between two African women artists, Dalie Dandala, from Congo-Brazzaville, and Lerie Sankofa, from Côte d’Ivoire, and an Atikamekw woman, Laura Niquay. Together, they shared with us the fruits of their 21-day artistic creation residency, during which they got to know each other, created together and sang in each other’s respective languages.
Under the direction of Fredy Massamba, himself a renowned artist, the art of staging had its place in this show. From dress to dance to the many instruments played by the three women, nothing was left to chance. Each woman took her turn to explain her songs, with the others participating in the chorus or playing an instrument. At times, it was hard to tell whether the language was African or native, as the boundaries were so porous.
Singing, dancing, instruments and their arrangement came naturally, allowing the artists to tell their own stories. Ngoma, percussion, guitar, handpan drum and ahoco: it was all there. Each artist sang in her mother tongue, with occasional bits of French.
“Nzobi, in my language, means ritual or prayer, a bit like vodou,” explains Dalie Dandala before intoning her song in Nyari. She is joined by Lerie on percussion and Laura on backing vocals before dancing away, all dressed in red.
In turn, Lerie shares a song in Avikam about women and their desire for freedom when mistreated by their husbands. Dalie and Laura accompany her, one on the ahoco and the other with poetry in the Atikamekw language, with a touch of French.
Despite a string coming loose on her guitar in the middle of the show, this didn’t stop Laura from playing it on the track “Stéréotype”, which denounces prejudices about the role of women, with Dalie and Lerie on backing vocals and percussion.
These women even got the audience involved on one track, when Fredy Massamba couldn’t hold back from dancing. Indeed, he did so at one point in the evening when he joined the trio on stage, quickly accompanied by Louise Abomba, a visual artist from Cameroon.
They closed the show with a tribute to twins, considered a blessing in many African cultures, in song, music and dance. The complicity was more palpable between the two African artists, of course, but Laura managed to carve out a niche for herself while giving them the space to create a stronger bond between themselves.
This was followed by a question-and-answer period, during which the audience had the opportunity to ask the three artists a few questions. The theme of women was central throughout the show, the power conferred on them, their role in society and the prejudices to be deconstructed about them.
To the question “What’s next?” from the audience, we learned that Laura, who is currently working on a blues album with an all-female band, has invited Dalie and Lerie to participate in her project. So we’ll have to wait for a follow-up to this artistic immersion that resulted in a cultural symbiosis between Africa and one of Canada’s aboriginal peoples.
On s’imagine facilement et même presque exclusivement le grand Johann Sebastian Bach en homme âgé, pétri des plus grands savoirs musicaux que seuls l’expérience et le temps apportent. C’est pourtant un tout jeune homme, au début de la vingtaine, qui nous lègue les puissants et parfaits chefs-d’œuvre que sont ses toutes premières cantates. Des œuvres qui ouvrent l’une des plus importantes sommes musicales de tout l’Occident, livrées ici avec La Chapelle de Québec, dans toute leur splendeur.
Bernard Labadie, chef
Myriam Leblanc, soprano
Daniel Moody, contre-ténor
Hugo Hymas, ténor
Stephen Hegedus, baryton-basse
Avec La Chapelle de Québec
It is easy to imagine the great Johann Sebastian Bach almost exclusively as an elderlyman, steeped in the greatest musical knowledge that only time and experience can bring. Yet it was a young man in his early twenties who handed down to us the powerful, true masterpieces that comprise his very first sacred cantatas. These works are the first of one of the most important musical collections in the whole of the western world, delivered in all their splendour here with La Chapelle de Québec.
Bernard Labadie, conductor
Myriam Leblanc, soprano
Daniel Moody, countertenor
Hugo Hymas, tenor
Stephen Hegedus, bass-baritone
With La Chapelle de Québec
Programme
J.S. BACH
Cantate Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4
Cantate Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106
Cantate Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131
Cantate Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150
Program
J.S. BACH
Cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4
Cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106
Cantata Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131
Cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150
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Ce contenu provient des Violons du Roy et est adapté par PAN M 360
The three-day event Le quatuor selon Ali Zadeh (The quartet according to Ali Zadeh), organized by the Molinari Quartet, reached its climax on Saturday evening, February 15, at the Salle du Conservatoire de Montréal. In the presence of the composer, a small, elegant woman of 78, we listened, probably for the very first time, to all her string quartets in one go. This was made all the more special by the fact that it included the premiere of a work written specifically for the Molinaris, her Farewell quartet.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH OLGA RANZENHOFER FROM THE MOLINARI QUARTET (In French)
After a full and fast-paced introduction by multidisciplinary artist Nicolas Jobin, who is also a “specialist” in the work of Franghiz Ali Zadeh, the seven quartets by the Azerbaijani composer were launched in non-chronological order, contrary to the Molinari Quartet’s usual practice for this kind of event. An idea of Mrs. Ali Zadeh’s which, I think, turned out to be a happy one, as it favored an alternation between harmonically “modernist” works and those more openly “folkloric”.
I won’t summarize each piece here, but the final impression of the many listeners present is probably that of an authentic fusion, sophisticated without abstruse cerebralism, of Eastern and Western musical universes. The language of Azeri sacred chants, called mughams, is omnipresent in Ali Zadeh’s expressive palette, but with variations in intensity and explicitness depending on the quartet. While 2015’s Reqs (Dance), and especially 1993’s Mugham Sayagi, her most famous work (commissioned by Kronos), are strongly tinged with what Western ears perceive as obvious orientalism, others such as Dilogia (1974, rev. 1988), In Search Of… (2005), and even the premiere Farewell (2025) are more strongly in the wake of chromatic modernism, or even the Second Viennese School (Farewell is explicitly inspired by Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto). That said, even in these, the soul of an art music linked to Islamic sacred chant remains perceptible, for those who know how to listen.
Franghiz Ali Zadeh’s music is an authentic fusion, a brilliant syncretism, all the more natural as it has been personally experienced by the artist throughout her life (Nicolas Jobin’s lecture was very enlightening in this respect). This music is even more powerful in its expressiveness because Ms. Ali Zadeh possesses two additional major assets: firstly, she is an excellent musical narrator, who knows how to tell stories with sufficient focus to set a lively scene, but also to leave interpretative space, both for the musicians and for the listeners, so as to allow each and every one to immerse themselves with a certain freedom of perception. Secondly, Ali Zadeh is a fine colorist, using almost the entire palette of string techniques such as col legno battuto, tremolos, glissandos, pizzicatos, mutes and so on. Elsewhere, the musicians sing, or (in Mugham Sayagi) also play percussion, moving around the stage and playing backstage. The rhythms used by Ms. Ali Zadeh, often demanding but propulsive, endow her music with an infectious accessibility.
For this ease of reception, combined with an elaborate academic knowledge and structural complexity that is anything but obtuse, Franghiz Ali Zadeh’s musical proposal is one of the most inspiring of our time, and perhaps one of the most promising for the future of contemporary creation.
This kind of world-class event (which also included two previous days of conferences and discussions) is a landmark event. The Molinari Quartet gave us the kind of privilege that music lovers in Berlin, Vienna or Paris know so well. The ensemble has benefited from the support of a far-sighted and essential patronage (the Lupien Family Foundation), to which we are grateful.
I’ll end with an arrow aimed at a few media “competitors” (forgive me, but you’ll understand): to my knowledge, no one from Radio-Canada, La Presse or Le Devoir was present. This just goes to show the deplorable cultural state of the mainstream media, unable to grasp the unique and historic nature of this event.
Les Violons du Roy’s first concert of 2025 finally took place not in Quebec City, but in Montreal’s Salle Bourgie. The weather having forced the postponement of the February 13 performance at the Palais Montcalm to a later date, it was Montreal audiences who got to hear violinist Kerson Leong and the world premiere of Kelly-Marie Murphy’s Found in Lostness, to a full house.
The evening’s repertoire was structured around works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn. Bringing together the figures of Bach and Mendelssohn in a program is not a new or innovative idea. As first guest conductor Nicolas Ellis, in charge for the evening, rightly reminded us in his introduction. Indeed, Mendelssohn made a major contribution to the rediscovery of the Leipzig cantor’s music, which had been somewhat forgotten in the 19th century, when he presented The St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829. Mendelssohn, himself an organist, was greatly influenced by Bach, as were many other composers who saw him as a spiritual master.
The first work on the program was Mendelssohn’s Symphony for Strings No. 10 in B minor. A youthful composition – he was fourteen when he wrote it – the influences are clearly classical in the treatment of the strings, reminiscent of Haydn, but the conduct of the voices, particularly in the first movement, marked Adagio, is eminently Bachian. In fact, the choice of the key of B minor, the same as that of his famous Mass, is a nod to Bach. For the rest, the form remains classical, but is peppered with the lyricism and passionate dynamic changes characteristic of Romanticism. It is clear that this is a young Félix exploring musical language, who has not yet found his style.
This was followed by a sensitive, meditative interpretation of the organ chorale O Mensch, bewein’ dein Sünde groß [O man, weep for your great sin]. Nicolas Ellis guided the musicians into an intimate, pleading world. The arrangement for strings by German composer Max Reger (1873-1916) lends a hushed, more interior character where, right up to the last note, we are left in a state of suspension. It’s another nod to Bach’s legacy to include Reger, who is said to have said: “Bach is the beginning and the end of music”.
What an excellent idea to seamlessly link the arrangement for soloists and string orchestra of the aria “Erbarme Dich [Have mercy, my God]” from St. Matthew’s Passion, featuring the evening’s guest soloist Kerson Leong, with Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy’s Found in Lostness. With a sound of purity, Leong is accompanied by violist Jean-Louis Blouin in this vocal duet that perpetuates the dynamics of the previous chorale. Seconds that rub against each other to create dissonance magnify the imitation of the Apostle Peter’s guilt-ridden weeping after denying Jesus.
The transition into Kelly-Marie Murphy’s world is a natural one, as the aesthetic of the piece explores the theme of loss. The piece opens with chilling high notes, following a double bass solo by Raphaël McNabney that exploits the unnatural treble of his instrument. The piece then takes off in an energetic burst, featuring vivid melodic lines, extended violin playing techniques imitating shrill cries, tense chords and constant dynamic changes. After this wild ride, calm returns with a harmonic string carpet over which Kerson Leong’s violin brushes a dissonant line that the rest of the orchestra lightly joins. This finale reminded us of Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question. Coherent, accessible and engaging, it deserves to be heard and, above all, listened to!
After opening with the music of the young Mendelssohn, the concert concluded with his last work, the String Quartet in F minor, composed after the death of his sister. The language of maturity asserts an unabashed romanticism, where the development of ideas is more developed, personal and marked by emotionally charged orchestral lines and treatments.
