Canadian Electroacoustics is prominently featured at Musicacoustica Beijing 2009 festival, October 25 - 31, 2009. Amongst the selected works — most of which are available on empreintes DIGITALes — are StrinGDberg and Palimpseste by Robert Normandeau; Castalie and Les lointains noirs et rouges by Gilles Gobeil; Champs de fouilles (Excavations) by Martin Bédard; Für Dich — For You by Hildegard Westerkamp; Artifacts (I) by Nick Storring; à la cire perdu by Laurie Radford; On a Strange Road by Darren Copeland; and Chalice Well by Barry Truax.

John Young is an electroacoustic composer from New Zealand, though currently based in the UK. In Lieu-temps he uses field recordings, narrative framing, radio samples and oral history, interweaved with drones, electronics, detuned piano and other tools of the electroacoustic trade, to relate the story of how his father, a soldier with the New Zealand army, first met his Italian mother, during the Second World War liberation of her hometown, Forlì, by Allied forces. Young mixes his ingredients effectively and movingly to draw out his major theme of how personal and world-historical events are inextricably entwined, and how chance can play such a huge role in dictating the outcomes of human lives. The repetitive use of chimes from the belltowers of Forlì, together with contemporary commentary from war reporters on the scene, works particularly well in evoking the feel of time and place which is vital to the project. Lieu-temps has something of the experimental radio documentary about it, but is none the worse for that, and repays repeated listening in bringing out the intricate detail of its montaged elements.

On October 20, 2009 at the Teatro Libre de Bogotá (Colombia) Arturo Parra will present the concert premiere of his piece for guitar and tape Miguel. The work evokes the spanish civil war, the Franco dictatorship, and more precisely the great spanish poet Miguel Hernández, partisan of the Front républicain, who died in Franco’s jails in 1942. The work was awarded the first prize at the Concurso Nacional de Composición Musical Ciudad de Bogotá in 2008.

After shows in Montréal in 1987 (Images du futur), in New York City in 1988 (Alternative Museum), in Munich in 1990 (Bilder Digital Galerie), and in Reims in 1992 (Centre national d’art technologique), the multimedia installation Big Bang II by Georges Dyens with music by Marcelle Deschênes will be exhibited in Rivière-du-Loup (Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent) from October 9, 2009 to January 17, 2010.

The Acousmonautes will present a special concert at Marseille Médiathèque, France, on Octobre 15, 2009 to celebrate 61 years of musique concrète. On the programme, works by Pierre Schaeffer, Francis Dhomont, Jacques Diennet, Fabrice Martin, Christophe Modica, Lucie Prod’homme, Marc Spiga…