Portes: 19h00
Spectacle : 20h30
Malaimé Soleil (20h30)
P’tit Belliveau (21h30)
Doors: 7 pm
Show : 8:30pm
Malaimé Soleil (8:30 pm)
P’tit Belliveau (21:30 pm)
POUR ACHETER VOTRE BILLET, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient de M pour Montréal et est adapté par PAN M 360
Portes : 22h00
Spectacle: 23h00
Ogun (23h)
Jethro (23h40)
Badi (00h20)
Doors: 10 pm
Show : 11 pm
Ogun (11pm)
Jethro (11:40pm)
Badi (0:20pm)
POUR ACHETER VOTRE BILLET, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient de M pour Montréal et est adapté par PAN M 360
Portes : 19h00
Spectacle : 20h00
Goodbye Karelle (20h)
Lubalin (21h)
Charlie Houston (22h)
DJ Yuki
Doors: 7pm
Show: 8pm
Goodbye Karelle (20h)
Lubalin (21h)
Charlie Houston (22h)
DJ Yuki
POUR ACHETER VOTRE BILLET, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient de M pour Montréal et est adapté par PAN M 360
Spectacle: 00h00
Cléa Vincent
Show: 00:00am
Cléa Vincent
POUR ACHETER VOTRE PASSE, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient de M pour Montréal et est adapté par PAN M 360
Bain Mathieu, a former public bath converted into a multi-purpose venue, is hosting Coup de Coeur Francophone shows for the first time this year. On November 13, a double album launch for women took place.
First, Gabriella Olivo, for her six-song EP, A Todos Mis Amores, released on October 25. Gabriella grew up in Stoneham, near Quebec City, with a Mexican mother and a father “blond and blue-eyed from St-Bruno”, she says on stage. Her mother always spoke to her in Spanish. She therefore grew up with two cultures, despite the ambient homogeneity of this Quebec City suburb.
Her young musical career is steeped in this bi-culturalism: she sings in French and Spanish, often in the same room. The result is ambient folk tinged with rock and seasoned with a little Mexican and Latin sound.
In this sense, it’s reminiscent of Kevin Johansen, whose mother is Argentinean and father American, and whose career in Spanish and English has been very successful in Latin America.
Gabriella Olivo lives in Quebec. But A Todos Mis Amores is her most Mexican opus, having been made in Mexico City with producer Santiago Miralles. Although still with a meditative folk-rock sound, this mini album is more sprinkled with Latin influences than her previous album, Sola. After all, Mexico City knows how to blend rock and Latin influences.
All of which is to say that this EP is a great listen, and so is the live version, enhanced by some of the earlier tracks. All the more so as Gabriella shares personal anecdotes and stories on stage that give context to the songs. “Right now, the world is really fucked-up,” she quipped, alluding to recent political news. By way of consolation, she offered us the magnificent song No te Olvides De La Luz. How to find the light in the darkness.
The young Mexican from Stoneham is one to watch. And, as she said: “Vive le Coup de Coeur Hispanophone”, although she also sings in French. And it’s going to stay that way,” she told me after her performance.
With Daria Colonna, we enter a completely different universe. Le requiem des sirènes saoules is the title of her debut album, released in May. Quite a program.
“It’s my first show,” she confesses on stage at Bain Mathieu. Daria Colonna, 35, is well known as a poet. Her latest collection, La Voleuse, earned her nominations for several poetry prizes.
So we went along to this stage premiere, six months after the release of the album. Musically, we’re in a mix of trip-hop and synthetic rock, with more acoustic episodes.
Daria Colonna opens her book on her multiple states of mind, with a focus on the “intense” woman, to whom she dedicates an ode. It’s about desires, anxieties, a dangerous life, thirsts, in every sense of the word. Clearly, Daria Colonna is not lacking in intensity. She knows how to write lyrics. On stage, I found the results less convincing than on record.
But she is a musician and singer in apprenticeship and gestation. We can perceive an original, independent trajectory, where words will always be privileged. Which is not always in the zeitgeist. And that’s good.
These are the last concerts this week for the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) before its forthcoming tour, which will take it to the finest concert halls in Europe over the next few weeks. For the occasion, it was the turn of Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony to be broken in, conducted by Rafael Payare.
As a curtain-raiser, the OSM also presented Jeden Baum spricht “Chaque arbre parle” by Iranian-Canadian Iman Habibi. According to the program note, this work would have had everything to gain from being included in last month’s OSM Beethoven Marathon. It ticks all the boxes of how the composition competition was presented at the concerts, or, roughly speaking, how the composer can express today the influence that Beethoven has had on his life. To take things a step further, it is written that the very title comes from one of Beethoven’s diaries. And that’s what we hear! Habibi skilfully uses the dramatic, country aesthetics of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, without quoting them, in a tripartite structure, with agitated brass and percussion, but calmer strings and woodwinds. This leads to a grandiose, hopeful finale. In short, something more interesting than the two creations we personally attended at the Sunday, October 20 concerts. We can’t help smiling when we recall that the OM competition dates back to before the pandemic, and when we read that Jedem Baum spricht was premiered in 2020 as a commission from the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is conducted by… Yannick Nézet-Séguin!
24 hours before the concert, the OSM announced that Scriabin’s Piano Concerto would be replaced by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Third Concerto , still performed by Bruce Liu. The latter will thread the concerto with finesse and fluidity. He never forces, picks or over-stamps. His right hand is so agile that trills are almost imperceptible, and his nuances are breathtaking. Liu has the ability to suspend notes at the last moment to dampen a phrase or change character. The beginning of the second movement transports us into another world, with a comforting left hand and a melody barely touched by the fingers of the right hand. No one gave an explanation for the change of work, but this performance was well worth it.
The Alpine Symphony is impressive in terms of length (45-50 min.), dense instrumentation (abundant brass and percussion sections, unusual instruments) and thematic flourishes, but you have to delve into the details to really impress. With more or less 130 performers, playing loud is child’s play, but it’s not always easy to measure out the nuances. As Payare prioritizes the instrument family most likely to be buried, namely the woodwinds, everything balances out. As experienced guides, they were brilliant, individually and collectively. From the very first note, bassoonist Stéphane Lévesque and his colleagues set the calm mood of dawn, against a background of imperceptible violins. Then, new principal oboist Alex Liedtke distinguished himself in a distant solo. Later, the same Liedtke, with clarinetist Todd Cope and the legendary Timothy Hutchins on flute, literally had us on the edge of our seats on the eve of the storm, not quite sure when the sky was going to fall. The Post-GoldenElegy was even better. The abyssal gulf in orchestration (from full orchestra to intimate, chamber formation with woodwinds, horn and trumpet solos on organ pedal) doesn’t affect the playing in the slightest. The trap of excitement and agitation of the previous section is avoided, and we swim in a moment of zenitude. Throughout the symphony, the horns were present without being overpowering. In fact, they could have taken up more space in a few places, such as each time the chorale motif is repeated from the outset. The volume of the banda was good, and the horns made a real impact in their long Summit melody, but it wouldn’t have been as excellent without the contribution of the strings below, which dictate the phrase without releasing the tension in the long notes. In short, the Alpine Symphony may tell the story of an adventurer’s ascent alone, but this magnificent performance is the work of a collective perfectly aware of the role each must play to reach the summit.
Photo Credit: Antoine Saito
Kaya Hoax
En écoutant Kaya Hoax, vous vous surprendrez à hocher de la tête avec un mélange de malice et d’indignation passive. À la fois urgente et festive, sa musique se situe quelque part entre le hip hop et la pop expérimentale, s’inspirant du UK grime, du dancehall et de la punk. Après une poignée de spectacles remarquables au Québec, dont une prestation memorable dans le cadre POP Montréal (mentionnée par la revue CULT comme l’une des meilleures performances du festival), elle s’apprête à révéler son premier EP “Baby Gear” en mai 2024. Armée de refrains hyperactifs, de basses envoûtantes et de mélodies vers d’oreilles, Kaya Hoax propose une musique survoltée empreinte d’une énergie féminine irrévérencieuse.
Listening to Kaya Hoax, you’ll find yourself nodding your head with a high energy blend of mischief and passive indignation. Both urgent and celebratory, her music lives somewhere between hip hop and experimental pop, drawing inspiration from UK grime, dancehall and punk. After a handful of remarkable shows around Quebec, including an incendiary set during POP Montreal (mentioned by CULT magazine as one of the festival’s top performances), she’s set to release her first EP “Baby Gear” in May 2024. With hyperactive hooks, infectious bass lines and earworm melodies, Kaya Hoax presents a distinctive vision of digital bangers for irreverent femme vibes.
Strange Froots
Strange Froots est un duo chill-soul alternatif & hip-hop issu du Studio NBS à Côtes-des-Neiges. Depuis 2014, Naïka Champaïgne et Mags se produisent sur la scène montréalaise tout en mettant au premier plan leurs influences de jeunesse, leurs origines caribéennes et africaines ainsi que leur propre twist sur la néo-soul et la culture hip-hop actuelle.
Strange Froots is an alternative chill-soul & hip-hop duo from NBS Studio in Côtes-des-Neiges. Since 2014, Naïka Champaïgne and Mags have been performing in the Montreal scene while putting their youth influences, their Caribbean and African roots as well as their own twist on neo-soul and current hip-hop culture at the forefront of their craft.
Boutique Feelings
Imprégnée d’éléments du psychédélisme, composée autour de trames sonores éthérées et catapultant des rimes mélodiques bien acérées, la musique de Boutique Feelings invite à la réflexion quant aux normes socio-politiques tout en proposant une variante alternative du hip-hop. Plus communément connu en tant que chanteur, claviériste et guitariste de l’ensemble de psych rock progressif Atsuko Chiba, Karim Lakhdar continue ici d’amalgamer les genres en alliant des composantes hip-hop, krautrock et électroacoustique dans le cadre de son nouveau projet, Boutique Feelings.
Dusted with elements of psychedelia, compounded by ethereal sonic landscapes and catapulted by melodic rhyme schemes, Boutique Feelings (Montréal, CA) invites reflection on socio-political norms while offering an alternative take on hip-hop. Most commonly known as the singer, guitar and synthesizer player for the progressive psych rock collective, Atsuko Chiba, Karim Lakhdar continues to challenge genre classification by weaving together components from hip-hop, krautrock and electroacoustic music in his new project, Boutique Feelings.
POUR ACHETER VOTRE BILLET, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient du Taverne Tour et est adapté par PAN M 360
Laissez-vous émouvoir par l’intensité expressive d’un ensemble de violoncelles. Un quatuor de l’OSM vous propose des transcriptions et des œuvres originales du répertoire romantique français, de Chopin à Offenbach, combinant les sonorités à la fois graves et veloutées de leurs instruments.
Surrender to the expressive intensity of a cello ensemble. A quartet of cellos from the OSM performs transcriptions and original works from the French Romantic repertoire, from Chopin to Offenbach, combining the deep, velvety sounds of their instruments.
POUR ACHETER VOTRE BILLET, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient de l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal et est adapté par PAN M 360
Saturday 9 November saw the premiere of Sainte Marine, an opera by Katia Makdissi-Warren (of the OktoEcho ensemble), with the support of Chants Libres, opera company directed by Marie-Annick Béliveau.
Listen to my interview with Marie-Annick Béliveau about the character of Sainte Marine and the opera itself (in French) :
The opera is described as immersive, which is apt given that the audience and the artists are dispersed in the same spheric shared space: the dome of the SAT (Société des Arts Technologiques) in Montreal. What’s more, the artists move through the audience, who are free (sometimes forced) to change places, sit or stand, depending on their interest in one musician rather than another. The dome itself serves as a screen for various projections during the show. Some are pretty (drawings of flowers, plants, trees), others touching (candles accompanying an introspective musical passage towards the end of the work), but too often they are limited to spurts of coloured lines or sketched shapes that seem to severely under-use the modern potential of digital visual art.
The music evokes traditional Maronite songs from Lebanon (think Sister Marie Keyrouz), as Sainte Marine lived in what is now Lebanon around the 5th century. The vocal score evolves with simple and above all modal lines carried by the amplified voices of Marie-Annick Béliveau, a mezzo-soprano who is sometimes asked to deviate considerably in addition to singing and narrating, and a trio of male bass voices, Sainte Marine’s ‘brothers’ in the monastery (she was a women posing as a male monk all her life). What we hear is mostly ritual or incantatory chant, virtually devoid of any harmonisation, except for some polyphonic writing for the trio of male voices. The effect is certainly sometimes trance-like, but above all emotionally stunted. There were a few times when I thought I would have liked a fuller drama.
The instrumental score is the one that spans the widest range of styles and effects. I particularly liked the flutes proposed by the composer: the classical traverso and alto played by Marie-Hélène Breault, and above all the traditional iranian nay superbly played by Aymen Trabulsi. They are the anchor in this distant world of the Levant, both culturally and temporally. Then the percussions (very good Bertil Schulrabe) and piano (Pamela Reimer) disguise the cultural authenticity initially sketched out with interventions that are sometimes contemporary, elsewhere jazz or slightly pop. All the stylistic personalities described so far occasionally overlap, but more often than not come together in a grouping for which I hesitate between the qualifiers of curious or happy. It’s a bit like tasting a dish that I like, but wonder what’s missing to make it really tasty.
The quality of the performers is undeniable, even if I felt Marie-Annick’s voice was a little fragile, even hesitant, in a few passages. Perhaps this was intentional, to better embody the character? Once again, I hesitate.
Sainte Marine is a very interesting proposition, but it will need some aesthetic refinement and tighter dramatic writing (both musically and on stage), and then some je-ne-sais-quoi still to be determined, to enable it to reach its full potential.
Line up :
Marie-Annick Béliveau, mezzo-soprano; Marie-Hélène Breault, flutes; Aymen Trabulsi, nay; Pamela Reimer, piano; Bertil Schulrabe, percussion; Michel Duval, David Cronkite and Clayton Kennedy, basses
Katia Makdissi-Warren, conception and composition
Marie-Annick Beliveau, conception, libretto and artistic direction
Charlie Poirier-Bouthillette, video design
Normal Studio, immersive production
Flavie Lemée, lighting design
Marianne Lonergan, set and costume design
Angélique Wilkie, dramaturgy
For the first time in its history, the finale of the OSM Competition featured not one, but two saxophonists, in addition to a trumpeter and a bass trombonist. And for the first time in its history, the top prize went to a saxophonist, Chinese-Canadian Jason Xu.
It was with him that the final of the competition opened, with a performance of André Waignien’s Rhapsodie for alto saxophone. This piece gave him no respite. There aren’t many lyrical passages, but he’s able to make the lines sing in a virtuosic way. Xu has a beautiful, expressive and silky sound. However, we lose him a little on the soft nuances, but the orchestra, conducted by Jacques Lacombe, could have played less loudly. Otherwise, one of his qualities is to make a whole with the latter. You can quickly sense the chemistry between soloist and orchestra.
The second candidate was Ottawan trumpeter Charles Watson in Franz Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto. Stoic, he took up the challenge of playing with a rounded sound, without force or flamboyance, using finesse and clean articulations. However, there was a slight lack of nuance and phrasing. No one knows if concentration earns points, but he was occasionally disturbed, notably by applause in the wrong places, despite the warnings, and by the cries of a toddler. Also, a concerto cadenza is not a jazz solo: you don’t applaud at the end of it and when the orchestra resumes! Despite this, Watson remained unperturbed.
After the intermission, it was Malena Lorenson’s turn to perform John Williams’ Concerto for Tuba (yes, him), but adapted for bass trombone. Despite a few cracks at the start, her performance was breathtaking. The sound is even throughout the instrument’s vast register, and Lorenson easily rises above the orchestral ensemble. It should not be forgotten that the concerto is designed to be played by a valve instrument, whereas on the trombone, it is the arm alone that moves a slider to make the note changes. Lorenson renders these complex gymnastics with impressive ease, and also outdoes herself in the articulations of the lower register. A native of Alberta but currently studying in Montreal, she was roundly applauded by the audience.
The afternoon line-up concluded with Bingchen He. The second saxophonist of the evening chose to perform Henri Tomasi’s Concerto for alto saxophone. There are plenty of notes, but little added value in virtuosity. As in Williams’ Concerto, the orchestration is very dense and, unfortunately, the saxophone is eaten alive on several occasions. He takes up more space on stage than the others, and there’s a sense of less symbiosis with the orchestra. After lengthy deliberation, the results were as follows:
1st prize: Jason Xu
2nd prize: Malena Lorenson
3rd prize: Bingchen He
4th prize: Charles Watson
The international jury, chaired by Aline Sam-Giao, General Director of the Orchestre philarmonique royal de Liège, was comprised of : Leone Buyse, Ida and Joseph Kirkland Muller Professor Emeritus of Music at Rice University, Manon Lafrance, trumpeter and teacher, Louise Pellerin, oboist and professor at Zurich University of the Arts, Rafael Payare, Music Director of the OSM, Jacques Lacombe, conductor and Peter Sullivan, principal trombone with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
photo : Antoine Saito
Avec Julian Gutierrez Vinardell, c’est un spectacle de « Nueva Trova », un style de chanson cubaine qui se distingue entre autres de la musique de danse traditionnelle de ce pays en intégrant des éléments de la modernité. Sa musique conserve les instruments caractéristiques de la musique afro-cubaine (congas, batas et autres percussions latines) en plus d’incorporer des concepts propres au Jazz (harmonie sophistiquée, improvisation, formes plus complexes).
With Julian Gutierrez Vinardell, it’s a show of “Nueva Trova”, a Cuban style of song style of Cuban song that differs from, among other things, traditional dance music by incorporating elements of modernity. His music preserves the characteristic instruments of Afro-Cuban
(congas, batas and other Latin percussion instruments), while incorporating in addition to incorporating jazz concepts (sophisticated harmony, improvisation, more complex forms).
POUR ACHETER VOTRE BILLET, C’EST ICI!
Ce contenu provient de Club Balattou et est adapté par PAN M 360.
Pulsum
Avec un son qu’il qualifie lui-même d’« industriel-éthéré », la musique de PULSUM est électrique, chargée d’émotion et viscérale. L’artiste basé à Montréal utilise des synthétiseurs modulaires et matériels pour créer une narration sonore de bruit dissociatif, offrant une étreinte à la fois glaciale et infernale – explorant les sphères de l’ambient, de l’électro, du noise, de l’industriel et tout ce qui se trouve entre les deux.
With a sound self-described as “Industrial-Ethereal”, PULSUM’s music is electric, emotionally charged and visceral. The Montreal-Based artist engages with modular + hardware synthesizers to create a sonic narrative of dissociative noise for a cold yet infernal embrace – spanning the spheres of Ambient, Electro, Noise, Industrial, and everything else in between.
LE SPECTACLE EST GRATUIT!
Ce contenu provient du Taverne Tour et est adapté par PAN M 360