Érick d’Orion is an interdisciplinary audio artist, composer, and improviser based in Montréal. He has been active for nearly thirty years in the fields of experimental music, free jazz, noise, and sound art. His work includes performance, installation, research-creation, and artistic direction, with an approach that is at once conceptual, direct, and deeply sensory. He is interested in the tensions between sound, matter, and perception, and creates works that are striking for both their physical intensity and their critical subtext. He has presented at numerous festivals and art centres in Canada, Europe, and beyond, and collaborates regularly with musicians, filmmakers, writers, and multidisciplinary artists. He has performed in concert with renowned artists such as Evan Parker, Martin Tétreault, Otomo Yoshihide, Robin Fox, Ilpo Vaisanen, Alexandre St-Onge, Mats Gustafsson, and others. His trio, Napalm Jazz, has been active since 1995.

His career has been shaped by major influences — Sun Ra, free jazz, the avant-garde, cinema, and literature — that fuel a practice that is at once radical, thoughtful, and deeply personal. Alongside his artistic practice, d’Orion is an independent curator and has been programming the Sound Art Installations in Public Spaces of the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) for over fifteen years, where he features works that engage diverse sites, architecture, and communities.

In 2026, he completed a six-month creative residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, alongside several concerts across Europe. He is increasingly venturing into writing and visual art.

[English translation: Scott Thomson, vii-26]