The 6th BIMESP festival — directed by Flô Menezes — took place from June 10 to 17, 2006 at Villa Mariani in São Paulo (Brazil). Some of the concerts presented works from the 4th CIMESP 2001 (International Electroacoustic Music Contest of São Paulo) such as Vol d’Arondes by Francis Dhomont, Serendipities and Synchronicities by Pete Stollery, Rojo by Hans Tutschku, Silk to Steel by Mathew Adkins, and Éden by Robert Normandeau. One concert was dedicated to works from Sweden, including the recent Dreaming in Darkness by Åke Parmerud and works by Skog, Johansson, Hedman, Grahn, Sundin, and Liljekvist.

Electroacoustics will be heard at the 2006 World New Music Days in Stuttgart (Germany). Opening on July 14, 2006 the installation … raumKLANG raum… entgrenzend put together by Sabine Schäfer and Joachim Krebs explores the dimensions of sound, space, time, and movements with their music and works by Ferrari, Minard, Sistermanns, Schafer, and Westerkamp. The “Long Night” organized by DEGEM with music by more than 18 composers (including Tutschku) will start on July 21. Finally, the ZKM organized the Short Cuts: Beauty competititon for works of 3 to 8 minutes in duration. The selected pieces will be presented at the Chillout Lounge at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart starting on July 18.

Åke Parmerud was invited to the Festival Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo in León (Mexico) which took place from April 25 to May 7, 2006. His solo concert on April 28 at Teatro María Grever presented five of his works: Dreaming in Darkness, Bows, Arcs and The Arrow of Time, The Beauty of Change, and La vie mécanique. Other concerts in this festival of music, dance, theatre, visual arts and cinema featured electroacoustics by Manuel Rocha-Iturbide, Kanata Horio, Roscoe Mitchell, and Roberto Morales Manzanares. Several artists (including Parmerud, Manuel Rocha-Iturbide, and Roberto Morales Manzanares) took part in the festival’s confence on art and technology.

Invited by curator Esther Bourdages, seven Canadian artists joined forces with Spanish composer Francisco López for the Montréal Sound Matter / Montréal matière sonore project. Working from a common pool of field recordings from Montréal, Louis Dufort, Steve Heimbecker, A_dontigny, Chantal Dumas, Hélène Prévost, Mathieu Lévesque, and Tomas Phillips created an audio work which will be released as a compilation CD. All together, they have put together a sound installation that will be presented from July 7 to August 27, 2006 at the Darling Foundry (Montréal). To complete the project, a concert featuring all these artists will be held at the Darling Foundry on July 27.

Composer John Young will be in New Zealand in July and August 2006 for the premiere of Arrivederci, a work for ensemble and electroacoustic sounds. The premiere will be presented by the contemporary music ensemble Stroma on July 20, 2006. Young will also give talks at the Victoria University of Wellington and at the University of Canterbury.

During the gardening event Flora, held in Montréal from June 16 to October 9, 2006, the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and Vlan paysages present Sonarium. It is a garden with “growing” musical loops by composers André Hamel, Diane Labrosse, and Roxanne Turcotte. This avant-garde garden is #38 in Parc des Écluses du Vieux-Port (Old Port), in montréal.