Artists Christian Bouchard
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 17141, IMED 17141_NUM / 2017
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 11108, IMED 11108_NUM / 2011
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 0474, IMED 0474_NUM / 2004
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Various artistsMusiques & Recherches / MR 2002 / 2003
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Christian Bouchard studied with Yves Daoust at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and was awarded First Prize in electroacoustic composition in 2000.
He is active in music for theatre, for film, for installations and, more recently, in electronic music (under the pseudonym THiiS B). He is a founding member (with Christian Calon, Mario Gauthier, and Monique Jean) of the live electroacoustic quartet Theresa Transistor (winner of the 2005 Prix Opus — Best Concert — Actuelle and Electroacoustic Music).
His music was awarded composition prizes at national and international competitions.
Christian Bouchard is also working as a location sound engineer for cinema.
•• In 2018 he was awarded the Joseph S Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA).
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Christian Bouchard
Quebec City (Québec), 1968
Residence: Montréal (Québec)
- Composer
Associated groups
On the web
Selected works
- Angle mort (2001-02), 14:01stereo fixed medium
- Au bord de l’espace (2009), 11:454 electronic instruments
- Broken Ground (2011-12, 13), 57:50stereo fixed medium
- Espace composé (2009), 5:164 electronic instruments
- Espace critique (2009), 5:414 electronic instruments
- Espace du dedans (2009), 6:044 electronic instruments
- Espace libre (2009), 5:174 electronic instruments
- Espace littéraire (2009), 5:244 electronic instruments
- Espace nuisible (2009), 3:354 electronic instruments
- Espace vécu (2009), 4:494 electronic instruments
- Impasto (2006-08), 45:46fixed medium
- Manque d’espace (2009), 10:464 electronic instruments
- Objet menacé (2010), 13:25fixed medium
- Parcelles 1 (2002-03), 15:19stereo fixed medium
- Parcelles 2 (2003), 14:21stereo fixed medium
- Parcelles 21 (2008), 14:19fixed medium
Main releases
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 17141, IMED 17141_NUM / 2017
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 11108, IMED 11108_NUM / 2011
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 0474, IMED 0474_NUM / 2004
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Appearances
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Various artists
Musiques & Recherches / MR 2002 / 2003
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Complements
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OHM / Avatar / OHM 052 / 2010
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Various artists
CEC-PeP / PEP 003 / 2000
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Folio
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 11108, IMED 11108_NUM / 2011
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In the studio
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empreintes DIGITALes / IMED 18152, IMED 18152_NUM / 2018
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OHM / Avatar / OHM 052 / 2010
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In the press
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François Couture, electrocd.com, March 22, 2004Québécois electroacoustic music has earned a place in the hearts of avant-garde music lovers everywhere…
Electroacoustics, the Quebecois Way
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, right? Wrong — at least when it comes to electroacoustics, the beautiful province of Quebec compares very well to any other region of the world. Call me chauvinistic, I don’t care: Quebec is home to several composers of tremendous talent and influential professors.
My goal is not to turn this article in an analytical essay, but, as a music reviewer and unstoppable listener, I am convinced that there is such a thing as Québécois electroacoustics. Despite the stylistic variety among our composers, I detect a Québécois “sound,” something that sounds to me neither British nor French or German; something that calls to me and speaks to me in a language more immediate and easier to understand.
This “unity in diversity” is probably, at least in part, due to the lasting influence of a small number of key composers whose academic teachings have shaped our younger generations. I am thinking first and foremost of Francis Dhomont and Yves Daoust. So let’s begin this sound path with a Frenchman so Québécois at heart that he was awarded a prestigious Career Grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec. I can sincerely recommend all of Dhomont’s albums: his graceful writing, his narrative flair and his intelligence turn any of his works into fascinating gems. I have often publicly expressed my admiration for Forêt profonde (including in my first Sound Path, so I will skip it this time), but Sous le regard d’un soleil noir, his first large-scale work, remains an international classic of electroacoustic music, and his more recent Cycle du son shows how close to perfection his art has grown — the piece AvatArsSon in particular, my first pick for this Sound Path.
If Dhomont’s music is often constructed following large theoretical, literary and sociological themes, Yves Daoust’s works lean more toward poetry and the anecdote. Most of his pieces betray his respect for the abstractionist ideals of the French school, but his seemingly naive themes (water, crowds, a Chopin Fantasia or a childhood memory) empower his music with an unusual force of evocation. His latest album, Bruits, also displays a willingness to grow and learn. One is tempted to hear the influence of his more electronica-savvy students in the startling title triptych.
To those two pillars of Quebec electroacoustics, I must add the names of Robert Normandeau and Gilles Gobeil. Normandeau is a very good example of what I consider to be the “typical” Québécois sound: a certain conservatism in the plasticity of sounds (the result of the combined influence of the British and French schools); great originality in their use; and an uncanny intelligence in the discourse which, even though it soars into academic thought, doesn’t rob the listener of his or her pleasure. My favorite album remains Figures, in part because of the beautiful piece Le Renard et la Rose, inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel Le Petit Prince – and also because of Venture, a tribute to the Golden Age of progressive rock (a pet peeve I share with the composer, might I add). As for Gobeil’s music, it is the wildness of wilderness, the turmoil of human passions, the sudden gestures, the copious splashes of sonic matter thrown all around. If La mécanique des ruptures remains an essential listen, his most recent album Le contrat, a collaboration with guitarist René Lussier, stands as his most accomplished (and thrilling!) work to date.
These four composers may represent the crème de la crème of academic circles, but empreintes DIGITALes’ catalog counts numerous young composers and artists whose work deeply renew the vocabulary of their older colleagues.
I would like to mention Fractures, the just released debut album by Christian Bouchard. His fragmented approach seems to draw as much from academic electroacoustics as from experimental electronica. Thanks to some feverish editing and dizzying fragmentation, Parcelles 1 and Parcelles 2 evoke avant-garde digital video art. I also heartily recommend Louis Dufort’s album Connexions, which blends academic and noise approaches. His stunning piece Zénith features treatments of samples of Luc Lemay’s voice (singer with the death-metal group Gorguts). I am also quite fond of Marc Tremblay’s rather coarse sense of humor. On his CD Bruit-graffiti he often relies on pop culture (from The Beatles to children’s TV shows). His piece Cowboy Fiction, a “western for the ear” attempting to reshape the American dream, brings this Sound Path to a quirky end.
Serious or facetious, abstract or evocative, Québécois electroacoustic music has earned a place in the hearts of avant-garde music lovers everywhere. Now it is your turn to explore its many paths.
Blog
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Christian Bouchard was awarded the 2018 Joseph S Stauffer Prize (in the music category). The prizes are awarded annually to emerging and mid-career Canadian artists who exhibit strong artistic potential in music, visual arts and literature.…
Friday, June 15, 2018 / General -
Christian Bouchard compsed the music for the installation Broken Ground by Canadian visual artist Derek Michael Besant. This installation is shown at Phoenix Brighton (England, UK) on February 11 to March 25, 2012.…
Monday, February 20, 2012 / General -
The Électro-chocs concert series presented by the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal continues its celebration of the 20 years of empreintes DIGITALes with a concert of Christian Bouchard’s music on November 25, 2010.…
Wednesday, November 24, 2010 / In concert