Arab World Festival of Montreal | Narcy and Omar Offendum: Two Decades of Friendship in Artistry
by Sandra Gasana
A sword in the shape of Palestine. Here’s what catches the eye right away, in addition to the Arabian-inspired living room that decorates the National’s stage. With red-patterned cushions, a few books and some coffee, it really feels like an evening with friends, featuring art in all its forms.
First, Omar Offendum takes the stage, while Narcy sits in the living room with his guests, including two members of the iconic Montreal hip-hop group Nomadic Massive, Tali and Meryem Saci.
Under a spotlight, cane in hand (his signature), dressed in traditional attire and his black Fez hat, Offendum wields the Arabic and English languages, juggling these two worlds, sometimes mixing them. Narcy serves him coffee from time to time, exchanging anecdotes and teasing each other about Syrian and Iraqi rivalries. An excellent storyteller, he alternates between poetry, storytelling and rapping, all with incredible ease. Building on a twenty-year friendship, Narcy contributes to some of Offendum’s songs, sometimes in English, sometimes in Arabic, and vice-versa. “It’s rare to have an artist friend who still challenges you, even after 20 years,” he says, addressing Narcy. Indeed, you could feel their complicity on stage.
Omar got the room involved with his track I love you, a hymn to love, with old romantic films in the background. The transitions were sometimes rough, juxtaposing classical Arab songs with modern beats. Palestine was in the spotlight during both parts of the show, but also Lebanon, which has been in the headlines in recent weeks. We also learned about important figures in Middle Eastern history such as Nizar Qabbani, a Syrian poet, and Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet and author who passed away in 2008. He ended with his biggest hit, God is Love, which my neighbors seemed to particularly enjoy, but my favorite was Close My Eyes , a tribute to his father. “I dedicate this song to all those who have lost a loved one,” he shared with us as the video was playing in the background.
After a short intermission, Narcy took Omar’s place and took over, opening with one of his greatest hits, P.H.A.T.W.A, with Al-Jazeera footage and personal archives in the background. Dressed entirely in black leather and a white shirt, he performed other highlights of his 20-year career, including Hamdulillah, featured on the 2009 album The Narcicyst , a collaboration with Shadia Mansour. He invited a number of female collaborators on stage, those he calls “sisters” such as Meryem Saci, with whom he recorded the track 7araga, the Palestian poet Farah, who shared a poem in homage to her native land, and Tali, who opted for a poignant text for the occasion.
To close, he offered us Free, a tribute to children from the World War Free Now album , in collaboration with Ian Kamau, as well as Time, written as a tribute to his grandfather. And what better way to end than with the most recent track, Sword, the proceeds from which will go to Palestinian children. As well as having a strong sense of friendship, family is equally important to Narcy. He invited his family on stage at the end of the concert to greet the audience, inviting them to visit his Maktaba bookshop/library in Montreal’s Old Port.
Artiste nomade peulh du pays des hommes intègres, la destinée du bourlingueur Moulaye Dicko relève presque du mythe. Issu d’une lignée de quatorze enfants, il fortifie son pacte musical à la même source que les rois et reines de l’Empire du Mandé que sont Salif Keita et Oumou Sangaré. Au Mali, ces voix célestes le happe très tôt en son âme née la tradition des griots. Puis adolescent, c’est la fougue reggae ivoirienne qui s’empare de lui. En 2014, Dicko Fils devient la star des pistes de danse avec son tube « Denke Denke » entonné dans sa langue natale, le fulfulde. Abonné aux festivals internationaux, l’artiste doté d’un imaginaire théâtral collabore à la création d’univers scéniques dont le chef d’œuvre Antigone, inspiré par la figure de Mandela. Depuis 2018, la capitale new-yorkaise comme la Ville Lumière ouvrent les bras à cet Ambassadeur de la Paix burkinabé.
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Moulaye Dicko is a nomadic Fulani musician from a land of respectable men, a rolling stone whose journey is the stuff of legends. From a family of fourteen children, he upholds his musical pact to the kings and queens of the ancient Mali Empire, the same source as Salif Keita and Oumou Sangaré. While he was living in Mail, it was their divine voices bearing the griot traditions that first captured his soul. Later, as an adolescent, it was the ardour of Ivorian reggae that pulled at his heartstrings. In 2014, his single “Denke Denke,” sung in his native Fula language, quickly became a dance favourite. A regular at world festivals, Dicko Fils gives expression to his theatrical flair by collaborating in theatrical events, such as the masterpiece Antigone, inspired by the life of Nelson Mandela. Since 2018, the Big Apple, like the City of Lights, has been welcoming this Burkinabé ambassador of peace with open arms.
Le ney fut-il taillé dans le bois de roseau pour imiter le chant aimable des oiseaux? Si cette interrogation mythologique reste sans réponse, le ney est bel et bien un des plus anciens instruments encore utilisé de nos jours, avec une histoire qui remonte à au moins plus de 5000 ans dans l’ancienne Mésopotamie. De cette terre fertile, il a voyagé à travers la Perse et l’Empire ottoman, se faufilant dans les cours royales, les cénacles mystiques des derviches tourneurs, pour finalement résonner dans les traditions musicales contemporaines. C’est dans ce contexte que Ziad Chbat, maître du ney, initiera le public aux secrets de son instrument, oscillant entre exposé didactique et illustrations musicales. Glâneur de mélodies qu’il forge d’improvisations en improvisations, le musicien révélera à quel point sa flûte constitue un pont entre les âges. Aux sonorités tantôt éthérées et spirituelles, tantôt sensuelles, le ney a inspiré ses créateurs, à travers les siècles, à combiner un souffle ancestral souvent mystique aux techniques plus modernes et liées aux émotions humaines.
Gifted ney player Ziad Chbat reveals the secrets of this beautiful age-old instrument. With a history stretching back over 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, this reed flute saw the rise and fall of the Persian and Ottoman empires and continues to enchant audiences to this day. With its haunting, evocative tone, the ney conjures memories of a bygone era. Don’t miss your chance to experience this fascinating instrument up close !
Ce contenu provient du Festival du monde arabe de Montréal et est adapté par PAN M 360
Second stop on Friday October 18 for the Orchestre Métropolitain on its Beethoven marathon at the Maison symphonique with Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
After a heroic introduction the day before, the next kilometer to be covered by the metropolis’ orchestra was devoted to symphonies no 6, known as “Pastorale”, and no 7, preceded by a premiere by young composer Francis Battah, already the recipient of several distinctions in Europe and Canada. His Prelude to Urban Landscapes, which opened the evening, was specifically conceived to precede the first movement of Symphony no 6. In this short piece, Battah reuses several thematic materials from the “Pastorale”, deconstructing and modifying them through complex language and writing. The use of several playing modes (arco for strings, flatterzunge for winds) lends the work a dynamic character and a strong timbral dimension. The piece ends with a ghostly string glissando, before moving straight into the first movement of the Sixth Symphony. The transition is naturally astonishing and fluid, so much so that the musical quotations, which we do not necessarily recognize immediately, but which we distinguish by the evocation of timbre, have prepared our ears for “l’Éveil d’impressions agréables en arrivant à la campagne”.
One of the most descriptive pieces in Beethoven’s symphonic catalog, Symphony no 6 is also one of the composer’s best-known works, in which it can be easy to fall into easy listening and autopilot, so familiar are its themes that they have been played and heard over and over again. Yannick doesn’t take the easy way out. Conducting the entire symphonies by heart, the conductor calls on every musician in his orchestra to sculpt meaningful phrasing and lines. After the luminous energy of the first movement, the second (“Scènes au bord du ruisseau”) plunged the audience into a soothing, restful state with ethereal sonorities. The third movement exuded a genuine village festive spirit, with the winds standing out overall, despite a few minor inaccuracies. After the festivities, thunder is heard in the fourth movement, heralding the storm. A storm that YNZ gently initiates, as if in the distance, before building in intensity to the point of eruption. With careful control of dynamics, the pastoral song that follows concluded the symphony with serenity.
The second part of the concert, dedicated to the Seventh Symphony, offered a contrast in its bright, rhythmic and vital character. The first movement was regal in character, with a tempo that Nézet-Séguin deployed with elegance. Magisterial was the transition from attacca to the famous second movement, a dramatic funeral march, in which everything, from dynamics to nuances, was just right and balanced. The exposition of the movement architecture was finely constructed by the conductor, in particular by highlighting the interaction between the violin and viola lines. The third and fourth movements, marked Presto and Allegro con brio, were a fantastic, breathless ride in which the rider Nézet-Séguin had great fun, almost dancing on the podium, infusing the various sections of the orchestra with a festive, captivating vitality. This performance was the highlight of the evening. At the end of the run, the orchestra received long applause from a relatively large, jubilant audience.
Addressing the crowd, Yannick Nézet-Séguin issued this invitation: “Sunday, 11am. Tell your friends!” The invitation is made. And we’ll be there for the rest of the tour.
Céu, which means “Sky” in Portuguese, arrived on stage dressed all in black, with a necklace to match her dress, long black lace-up boots and a flower tattooed on her shoulder. Her stage presence was remarkable, as she alternated between dance steps and simplistic choreography.
Accompanied by her bassist Lucas Martins, who has been with her since the very beginning, Thomas Harres on drums, Leonardo Caribe Mendes on guitar and cavaquinho and Sthe Araujo, a talented percussionist, the singer transported us into her particular universe, in which she mixes soul, funk, jazz and Brazilian rhythms such as samba, always with a retro background, her signature. In fact, all her musicians are also backing singers, enriching the show.
She mainly shared songs from her most recent album Novela released this year but added hits from her other albums, such as Malemolencia, from the album Céu.
“I’d have loved to speak French with you, but I’m going to go with English,” she tells us from the outset, as several Brazilians in the room shout ”In Portuguese!”
My favorite song is Gerando Na Alta, which she sings as a duet with the Senegalese-born French artist anaiis, but which percussionist Sthe interpreted perfectly in her place. In this song, Céu speaks of the importance of celebrating friendship between women, while the word Novela, taken from the word telenovela, addresses the dramatic aspect of our lives. Some songs had no transition, while she interacted with the audience at other times. She takes the time to showcase her musicians in turn, as she does with Sthe, for example, before the song Lenda, from the album Céu, which opens with percussion.
Much to my delight, we were treated to a reggae sequence, with High na Cachu followed by Cangote from the Vagarosa album. Of course, we couldn’t end the concert without a few covers of Brazilian classics. And for this, she chose two legends: João Gilberto with Bim Bom, and Caetano Veloso with Pardo, both from Bahia.
The highlight of the evening was the encore with Bob Marley’s Concrete Jungle, which she performed beautifully with Haitian singer Paul Beaubrun, who opened the concert. The latter was introduced by his father, the great singer of the group Boukman Eksperyans. “When I saw Paul sing, I said to myself that he had to sing this song with me”, Céu confided. Indeed, Paul seems to be a great fan of Bob Marley, as during the first part he played three songs by the Jamaican icon, always taking care to add his own special touch. However, I would have liked to discover other original compositions such as Noyé, which opened the show.
Les Violons du Roy | Emotions and Pleasure with a Sharp Voice for Bach
by Alexandre Villemaire
Audiences packed Salle Bourgie on Friday, October 11 to attend Les Violons du Roy’s concert, the first of the ensemble’s 2024-2025 season in the metropolis, which marks the start of its 40th anniversary celebrations.
In their introductory remarks, both Caroline Louis and Olivier Godin, the directors of Salle Bourgie, underlined the important contribution made by the ensemble, and recalled the long partnership between the venue and Les Violons du Roy, notably through the performance of the complete Bach cantatas, which has occupied their respective programs for the past eight years, and provided some very intense musical moments. In fact, the evening’s program included a small nod to this. Bernard Labadie, founder and musical director of the chamber orchestra from 1984 to 2014, also addressed the audience, highlighting the wild adventure and “little miracle” that is Les Violons du Roy. The conductor also thanked one of the founding members, violinist Nicole Trotier, who was retiring after this concert, which will conclude with another performance at the Palais Montcalm on October 12. The stage was thus set for an evening rich in emotion and pleasure. And that’s exactly the spirit in which the musicians of Les Violons du Roy gave this concert.
Divided into two parts, each was introduced by a Handel concerto grosso. Performed with energy and vivacity, these interpretations of instrumental concertante works, in addition to demonstrating the musicians’ playing and the orchestra’s palette of sound colors, served as preludes to Bach’s two cantatas for viola, featuring British countertenor Hugh Cutting. An alumnus of St. John’s College, Cambridge, the young opera artist is the first countertenor to win both the Kathleen Ferrier Award (2021) and the title of BBC New Generation Artist (2022 to 2024). One of the challenges of a voice like Cutting’s lies in projection, and it’s fair to say that on this level, the young singer particularly stands out with great vocal power, controlled and complementing the amplitude of the orchestra’s sound.
He is particularly noted for the clarity of his performances. His German pronunciation is precise, and the musical and textual discourse he weaves is limpid. His vocal agility came to the fore in the second aria of the cantata GeistundSeelewirdverwirret [Spirit and soul are confused]. The aria “Gotte hat alles wohlgemacht” [God has made everything perfect] features a dialogue between organ and voice, supported by continuo. The vocal line competes with high-flying vocalizations that Cutting delivers with a heartfelt and admirable performance, but where one sometimes felt that he came to the end of his phrases slightly at the end of his aria, giving the impression that the phrase is incomplete and overshadowing the finales of certain words. The projection of surtitles at the back of the stage compensated for these slight imperfections, which on the whole never detracted from the meaning of the performance. Mélissande McNabney’s organ playing is also to be commended for the dexterity of her interpretation in lines just as exalted as those interpreted by Cutting.
With its serene, pastoral character, the second cantata of the evening, VergnüteRuh, beliebteSeelenlust [Blessed peace, beloved bliss], showcased Hugh Cutting’s hushed, crystalline timbre. A particularly expressive moment, the aria “Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen” [How I pity these rogue hearts] is a sparse dialogue devoid of any basso continuo, in which the string instruments (violins 1-2 and viola) play in unison with the voice and a two-manual organ. As Bourgie does not own such an instrument, two positive organs were required on stage for this piece. Played by Mélissande McNabney and Tom Annand, this distinct keyboard interplay highlighted the intertwining of vocal and instrumental lines, petrified of tense chords, accentuating the air’s plaintive, afflictive character.
Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie found in this young British man the ideal Bach voice for their program. Hugh Cutting made an impressive debut, full of emotion, clarity and refinement, which the audience in Salle Bourgie returned with a long ovation.
FLUX | Architek Percussion: Great music, cursed technology!
by Frédéric Cardin
Last night marked the final concert of the new FLUX festival, in Montreal. On the program were two works by the unjustly forgotten genius of Minimalism/Post-Minimalism, Julius Eastman, and Angel’s Share by young composer Andrea Young.
Julius Eastman was a black and queer composer born in 1940, unable to find a permanent place in the art world of the 1970s-1980s. The contemporary classical world was still not easily accessible to non-white artists, and his sexual identity was fraught with stubborn prejudice, especially during the AIDS pandemic. Imagine he died abandoned, penniless, homeless. It took nine months for the music world to notice his disappearance! And yet, what a vision! At a time when it wasn’t really being done, he dared to fuse the principles of repetitive minimalism with modern harmonies and techniques linked to avant-garde and experimental music, as well as jazz and pop. He was a pianist, singer and dancer. If you listen to Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King on the Nonesuch label, the voice of the Mad King, it’s him. His personal activism in affirming his black and gay intersectional identity is an avant-garde struggle.
Several of his compositions bear unmistakable titles, such as Gay Guerilla (heard yesterday, I’ll come back to that) or Nigger Faggot. In this sense, if his creative talent was appreciated, his identity struggle earned him a lot of misunderstanding and closure. In the end, he sank into substance abuse and homelessness, unable to find enough professional contracts to live on. His run ended in 1990.
Eastman’s repetitive Minimalism contains elements readily associated with today’s Post-Minimalism. Over continuous pulses, Eastman develops chromatic melodic coverings, sometimes verging on atonalism. A fusion of Reich and Boulez (I’m caricaturing, but you get the idea) that was totally unique at the time, and still rarely encountered today.
Two works by Eastman were on the program. Let’s start with the disappointment (in part only): The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc. I was eagerly awaiting the performance of this powerful piece for 10 cellos, built on an irremediable, raging pulse, over which Eastman draws melodic lines that do, indeed, veer towards atonalism. There weren’t 10 cellists on stage. Instead, what we were offered was the performance of Toronto’s solo cellist, Amahl Arulanandam, recorded in multi-track and video multiplans, all projected on screen. Well, the impression of watching a YouTube video with a bunch of other people crossed my mind, but it has to be said that from the very first notes, Arulanandam is impressive, and the video editing dynamic enough to make the whole thing quite captivating (especially thanks to the music, of course!. A true masterpiece of emotional intensity). I was getting sucked into the visceral narrative of the piece, all was going well, when the floor collapsed. Not literally, but technologically. The video started to “drag”, like when you’re watching a movie or playing a game on a laptop/PC and the network doesn’t provide the necessary feed. Fortunately, the sound remained crystal-clear, but the image/music relationship that had initially grabbed me was becoming jerky. I spent the rest of the time (oh, two-thirds of the piece) waiting for “it to come back”, frustrated, boiling with the desire to throw the evil laptop on a wall (you’ve felt that before, haven’t you?). I could have just closed my eyes, you’re right. But I couldn’t anymore. The damage had been done. Was it the same for the other spectators? I’m not sure. But I’m certain that the effect initially intended by this program entry piece was not achieved. The faint applause seems to bear this out. It’s such a shame.
For an excellent performance of this work : Montreal’s Novarumori ensemble conducted by Isak Goldschneider at Suoni per il popolo festival 2017
I’m not the type to forget the forest and look only at the dead tree. That kind of jinx happens. And then, Eastman’s music remained heard throughout, and confirmed to me what a masterpiece he wrote with The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc (a lost score, and reconstructed by ear from a recording). I’ll make this request to the organizers though: please offer us this piece again in the not-too-distant future, with ten flesh-and-blood cellists, so we can give it another chance, which it fully deserves, and so we can have a proper ecstatic time. Thanks.
The program followed with a piece for percussion quartet by Andrea Young from Montreal. Angel’s Share is a synesthetic exploration. That is, it seeks to combine affects associated with one sense with those of another. Here, the music in three movements is inspired by the rich, complex aromas of as many quality Scotches, three rare single malt whiskies from Scotland’s Ardbeg distillery. Without said aromas at our disposal (what a great option that would have been!), it’s impossible to fully account for the success or not of the adventure. Even if this is not the intention, and the composer wished to make this a strictly aural experience, curiosity gets the better of us, and we do feel as if we’re missing something. All the more so as the three movements of this very fine music, constructed like a fragile abstract lace, seem rather interchangeable. That’s the danger of this kind of proposal: you can’t evoke synesthesia and leave the spectator with only one half of the sensory equation. Be that as it may, Angel’s Share is a beautifully crafted, ethereal composition filled with fine textural touches, such as the presence of two musical saws.
The final piece brought Julius Eastman back to the fore with Gay Guerilla for percussion quartet and two pianos. One immediately thinks of Steve Reich and Music for 18 Musicians! There are many similarities between the two pieces, but we soon notice the fundamental difference in the harmonies used by one and the other. Reich’s harmonies are open, tonally full. Eastman’s harmonies are tight, chromatic, but never slipping into atonalism, as in The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc . Gay Guerilla, despite its title, is ultimately an “easier” piece than the other, but its boundless energy and rising and falling dynamic tides create a narrative discourse that captivates and holds the attention of the most demanding listener. Highly enjoyable and, once again, an immense gem of Minimalism that deserves to be played more often.
The musicians’ performance was generally very good, even if here and there I detected a few discrepancies in rhythmic synchronization in the more linear and grouped episodes. But I quibble.
This last concert of a new festival was filled with great music and leaves us eager for another edition next year.
After a brief tribute to her mother Natalie Choquette at the start of the show, Florence K plunges us straight into the world of the great bossa nova master, Antônio Carlos Jobim, accompanied by her excellent guitarist and composer Carlos Jimenez, who recently earned a Doctorate in Music.
From the very first track, Água de Beber, the atmosphere in the room relaxes, she plays a few notes on the piano and even gets the audience, familiar with this classic, to sing along. “I’m always afraid of being unmasked in my complex by speaking Portuguese, a bit like the impostor syndrome,” she confesses between songs, quoting Freud. Indeed, she makes several allusions to psychology during the show (her doctoral studies in psychology surely have something to do with it), but she also takes the time to explain the context of each song, with a touch of humor much appreciated by the audience. She does this with Vivo sonhando and Desafinado, two Jobim classics. She also exchanges with her guitarist on several occasions, inviting him to reveal himself in turn, but to no avail.
Making an effort not to cross her legs during the show, it’s especially when she’s playing the piano that she seems completely in her element. She closes her eyes, sometimes sings over her notes, and lets herself go.
She also exchanges with her husband, who was in the audience, in impeccable English, including him in the show, always with the same touch of humor. “When you met me, did you know you were going to suffer all your life?” she asks him, before introducing the song Eu sei que vou te amar.
Drawing a portrait of bossa nova in the 60s, she seems to have done a lot of research in preparing the album “Brésil mon amour” released in 2023, teaching us that Bossa Nova means “New Wave”. She continues with Chega de saudade and Só Danço Samba, again with show-stopping piano passages. “During my 20-year career, I never used a lectern, but now my mental load is such that I no longer have the space to memorize all the songs,” she confides. That said, it in no way detracts from the accuracy of her silky voice, nor from the emotion she conveys to the audience. A highlight of the show was during the song La quiero a Morir, a special request made by an audience member for his wife. The song was far from perfect given the circumstances, but that’s precisely what appealed to the audience. That authenticity. In fact, she suggested to her husband that he should do the same at their next Paul McCartney concert, and the audience erupted in laughter.
Her songs in Spanish were a great crowd-pleaser, especially for my Colombian friend I was with, who wasn’t expecting to hear classics such as Lagrimas negras, among others. Sometimes you get the impression that she’s whispering into the microphone, giving the impression that a veil surrounds her voice.
Sad not to have any “Charles” in the room, before the track Take it easy my brother Charles, she takes the time to thank Nick Petrowski, who produced the album and whose idea it was to include this “intruder” track on the album.
Another highlight was undoubtedly the participation of her 18-year-old daughter Alice Khoriaty on two tracks: Vol de nuit, written at the time of her birth, and Águas de Março, which Jobim sang with Elis Regina. The complicity between mother and daughter was palpable and beautiful, while Carlos did a little percussion on his guitar as he played. So it was a family show on this autumn evening.
She couldn’t end the evening without singing Garota de Ipanema, which the whole room knew, especially the Brazilians sitting in front of the stage. In fact, I spotted the great Brazilian singer Bïa in the room, as well as the team behind the organization of the Journées brésiliennes. “After a 20-year career, it’s nice to know that people still come out to see me perform,” she concludes gratefully.
Jorge Aragão may be a few years younger than Marcos Valles, who was also in Montreal this week, but he’s just as popular with Montreal Brazilians, if not more so. Accompanied by his seven musicians, including a woman who appears to be the musical director, he charmed Montrealers despite the long delay before the start of the show. But as soon as he hummed his first notes, still backstage, that frustration turned into excitement, accompanied by shouts, to welcome this giant of samba and pagode.
A pandeiro, a guitar, a surdo, several drums, a drum kit and a cavaquinho – these were the instruments that accompanied him as he sang with his recognizably deep voice. Dressed all in black, he addresses the crowd: “I’m going to sing some very old songs tonight”. He begins with the classic Eu e você sempre, and cell phones were out and the whole crowd was singing in unison. His voice is still recognizable but you can feel it losing some of its vigor. And without transition, he continued with another classic, Lucidez, which he played live with his former group Fundo de Quintal, of which he is a founding member. This was followed by Novos tempos and De Sampa a São Luis, to name but a few.
He had a machine in front of him, on which he occasionally taped, while doing a few subtle dance steps. He also sometimes mimed his lyrics, taking the time to connect with his audience, who was in total admiration. A good Brazilian friend of mine was in tears during some of the songs, because of the saudade (nostalgia made in Brazil) that was omnipresent at the National.
“Now I’m going to sing you some samba,” he announces, before Malandro, which was a phenomenal success thanks to Elza Soares, who popularized it. As well as being a singer and multi-instrumentalist, Jorge Aragão is also a composer and lyricist.
He invites the audience to clap along to some of the songs, adding to the festive atmosphere. The magic recipe of this great artist is his talent for telling stories of everyday life, with a romantic touch, over fast or slow rhythms, depending on the song.
After standing on stage for an hour, he asked for a chair, feeling a little tired. And that was just in time for the song that followed, which was much quieter but perfect for dancing with a partner.
He continued his series of hits, including Loucuras de uma paixão, Feitio de paixão, Doce amizade and Conselho, one of my favorites.
There was no encore, but the talented samba dancer Daniela Castro returned to the stage towards the end of the concert. She had done a few dance steps during Roda de Samba Sem Fim’s opening performance. Which put us in the right frame of mind to welcome this giant of Brazilian music.
A repeat of the double bill on October 5 at La Chapelle in the Québec Musiques Parallèles program. Opening the evening, the artist duo of Chantale Boulianne and Sara Létourneau presented for a second time their performance piece Ce qui reste quand la peau se détache du corps, which we were able to appreciate in person the day before (see our review here).
The second half of the evening was taken up by the members of E27, a Quebec City-based ensemble and creative organization. Founded in 1999 by Patrick Saint-Denis, Alexis Lemay and Yannick Plamondon, the organization has been working for 25 years to discover, create and disseminate new music in Quebec, and particularly in the National Capital Region, carving out a lasting place for itself in the creative music ecosystem. However, the ensemble’s visits to the metropolis are infrequent. As Alain Brunet pointed out in a recent interview with Isabelle Bozzini, an initiative like QMP’s, which encourages the dissemination of genres and the exchange of protagonists, is both timely and welcome for the free circulation and sharing of musical universes.
The work on the program was a piece by Pierre-Yves Martel, Chance Variations, premiered in 2023 by E27. The piece features a relatively motley crew: a viola da gamba, with Martel himself as performer, a vibraphone played by Raphaël Guay – who is also E27’s artistic director – and a bass clarinet played by Mélanie Bourassa. The work “incorporates aleatoric procedures and explores the notion of repetition through superimposed melodic cells that gradually evolve over time”. A little like Davachi’s work the day before, the notion of time and its elasticity is present in Martel’s work and offers, after the sensory and visual intensity of Létourneau and Boulianne’s performance, a moment of weightlessness and serene floating for the listener. The play of textures was, however, more varied and the form much more active.
Evolving in a structure where note shape and selection have been determined at random (using dice) and where rhythms, note sequences and registers have been freely constructed, the performers exchange bass notes to sustain a random harmony where the various constituents create a play between the pitches and timbres of the instruments. As the piece progresses, moments of dissonance become perceptible, mainly from the strings, which create a slight element of tension, while the clarinet and vibraphone are unperturbed. Tonal anchor points where the timbres of the instruments meet, creating a kind of sonic saturation by harmonics of gentle intensity. The result is a meditative, deeply introspective piece that continues to capture our attention.
Putting together a double bill is always a balancing act between creating variety and discovery without creating too great a stylistic imbalance between the parts. QMP’s Montreal program is very fair in this respect, offering both complex and more intimate works. However, care must be taken not to fall into too marked a stylistic opposition, in order to keep the listener’s attention.
QMP | The Art of Making Music in What Remains When the Skin Separates from the Body
by Alexandre Villemaire
“Breaking down barriers between genres and provoking encounters”. That’s how Isabelle Bozzini introduced the first evening of three concerts in Montreal for the fourth edition of Québec Musiques Parallèles (QMP), a decentralized contemporary music festival with programming spread across several cities in Quebec and New Brunswick. The first evening featured a double bill, with the performance work Ce qui reste quand la peau se détache du corps by Sara Létourneau and Chantale Boulianne, and Sara Davachi’s Long Gradus performed by the Quatuor Bozzini (Isabelle Bozzini, cello; Stéphanie Bozzini, viola; Clemens Merkel and Alissa Cheung, violins). The meeting of genres was indeed on the agenda, with two works in very different formats.
The latest in a collaboration initiated between Davachi and the quartet in 2020 as part of Composer’s Kitchen, the quartet’s professional creation residency for up-and-coming composers. Davachi’s work plays on the notion of time and its elasticity. Made up of four parts, the piece develops through a slow, sustained succession of notes that create a suspended effect, haloed by the carential chords that are played. There is no great acrobatic virtuosity in this work, but stamina and strong technical mastery to control the equality of the sound flow and make the different pitches evolve. The intensely meditative atmosphere contrasted dramatically – perhaps a little too dramatically – with the performance of Létourneau and Boulianne in the first half.
As soon as we enter the Théâtre La Chapelle, we enter the creators’ universe, with a dense scenography on stage: two wooden arches, suspended light bulbs, various structures in different shapes and a sound console welcome us. A show at the crossroads between performance art, sound art and scenic devices, the work is a journey in which different tableaux unfold before our eyes and ears. The show plays on themes of physicality, anguish, life and death, featuring a sound environment and, above all, the unique, oversized instruments crafted by the artist duo. Over the course of the 75-minute performance, the artists unveil musical tableaux featuring instruments of their own making, competing in ingenuity and symbolism.
A giant bellows – made following a training workshop with an accordion maker – that creates wind and makes metal mobiles vibrate, a counterweight bass whose pitch is determined by the mass applied to it, the rond-koto, are just some of the elements that mark out the structure of the work, all amplified and magnified by the lighting effects and sound treatments that invade the space. We’re swept away by the performance, impatient to discover which new instrument will emerge from the space, what sound it will produce and how. One of the highlights of the performance comes when the two artists perform a violin-making act before our very eyes, creating a huge instrument backed by a mechanically rhythmic soundtrack.
As the performance unfolded, musicologist Christopher Small’s (1927-2011) term musicking came to mind. In short, for Small, music is not a noun, but a verb. The term implies that performance is central to the musical experience, and the act of performing includes both performers and audience. Every element, from the making of the instruments to the intermediality of the artistic process, the sound of footsteps, the theatricality of gestures and words, the marbles that fall and roll randomly, the switching on of a light, the movement, the audience’s reactions: all these constituent elements are part of the work and are music. That’s what makes it unique and accessible.
So, what’s left when the skin comes off the body? A complete, captivating work, but above all a performance-experience that can’t just be described in words, but must be heard, experienced and seen.
You may have heard her alongside David Byrne, Terry Riley, Malcolm Goldstein, Natasha Atlas, Threnody Ensemble or Nirvana at the famous Unplugged concert in 1993. Her name is Lori Goldston, and she composes/improvises, teaches, writes, and campaigns for a new way of making “artful” music. The Seattle-based musician was at La Sotterenea last night for a concert that also featured Montreal guitarist Stefan Christoff, Lebanese-Palestinian-Quebec author Elissa Kayal and singer/harpist Christelle Saint-Julien. The concert was part of the program of Montreal’s new Flux festival, which focuses on alternative music of all kinds: contemporary classical, improvised, indie, rock, experimental, electro and more. Listen to Alain Brunet’s interview with one of the event’s initiators, Peter Burton.
The performance of poor Christelle Saint-Julien, plagued by all kinds of technical sound problems, will have to be passed over. She accompanied herself on harp (Montreal is definitely a world center for “Indie” harpists!) with a fragile voice that was nonetheless capable of more solid lyrical outbursts. The highlights of the evening were provided by Elissa Kayal, who opened the show with a powerful text about uprooting, identity and the misery of an entire people (Palestinian). Powerful phrases such as “La tristesse, je la pisse hors de moi!” (Sadness, I piss it out of me!) ensured an emotionally powerful first contact with the evening’s program.
Lori Goldston herself took to the stage with her cello and embarked on a tour of just a few pieces, albeit of considerable length, all mostly improvised in a rather modal language that is more or less always developed in the same tessitura of around two octaves. Through this seemingly straightforward approach, the artist’s ultra-solid classical technique shines through. Interchanging textures between generous bowing and voluble pizzicato, Goldston musically invites us into a visceral and emotionally expansive personal universe. That said, there’s nothing abrasive or aggressive about her style of contemporary art music improvisation. Rather, it’s an open door to a vibrantly intense and, dare I say it, somewhat romantic interior.
Guitarist Stefan Christoff joined Goldston at the end of the concert. The meeting of Goldston’s lyrical cello and Christoff’s soaring, ethereal electric guitar brought the evening to a close as if on a cushion of meditative ambiance. Very beautiful.
In the same spirit, I invite you to discover Goldston and Christoff’s album A Radical Horizon, released earlier this year. Even if Christoff is on piano rather than guitar, you’ll feel much the same as we did last night.
For info on the rest of the Flux festival, visit the
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