Synthèse 2009 — 39th Bourges International Electronic Music and Compositions Festival will take place from May 29 to June 6, 2009 in Bourges (France). Amongst guest artists this year: Åke Parmerud, Pete Stollery, Jonty Harrison, Yves Daoust, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Georges Forget, João Pedro Oliveira, Ingrid Drese, and many others.

Gilles Gobeil’s work Castalie has been awarded the First prize (audio) at the 6th Black & White Audiovisual Festival in Porto (Portugal) (April 22 to 25, 2009).

Duet Fiolûtröniq (flutist Cléo Palacio-Quintin, and gambist Elin Söderström) will present, amongst others works, Palacio-Quintin’s Protée ou les quatre virus en plastique mou and premiere Chantale Laplante’s Gaza at Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur on May 8, 2009.

The Orford Arts Centre (Québec) announces its 4th Sound Art Workshop as part of the International Music Academy. Held on August 2 to 15, 2009 the workshop, directed by Yves Daoust, is open to sound creators of all styles. This year Yves Daoust — assisted by Alexandre Burton, and Jean Landry — has invited guest masters Gilles Gobeil, Jean-François Laporte, John Oswald, and Hans Tutschku with special guests Robert Normandeau, and Annette Vande Gorne.

Francisco López, Louis Dufort and Félix-Antoine Morin will present the audio immersive concert Immer_son on May 5, 2009 at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal as part of the Elektra Festival. López will also give a conference on May 4 at the Conservatoire.

Anniversary release to commemorate the 60th birthday of concrete music. Adkins collated the contributions of 60 artists into 8 segments, not following the categorization of the originator Pierre Schaeffer.

The disc contains music that was contributed by over 60 sound artists. It celebrates the 60th birthday of musique concrète in [2008]. Mathew Adkins, a veteran at Empreintes Digitales was invited to mix the sound contributions together. The result is a beautiful 74 minutes of electroacoustic music. Adkins diligently categorized all the contributions before setting to work with a mix. That way three major sections are created, each divided into two or three different sequences, each with its own sound character. To give you an impression: the first section is based on abstract electronic sounds, the second section uses concrète and ‘anecdotal’ material. The final balances between these two extremes.

The first section is nice but at the same time a little dull; too nice and cozy. The abstract electronics offer many chances for slowly developing scapes. And actually Adkins keeps his foot on the brakes for quite a long time. Only occasionally are we served with harsh sounds, with sudden dynamical rifts. Schaeffer, the founding father of musique concrète, had quite a different approach. His musical structure often refered heavily on classical structures, like the suite, the symphony. Of course, these are different times. Schaeffer created his music from within his own personal context.

Adkins works from a different perspective in a different age. These are more democratic times. Perhaps that’s why so many different artists (Hecker, Chartier, López, Jonty Harrison, Fennesz, Roden, just to name a few) were invited to contribute. The mixes are most times blends of different layers, no juxtapositions, bumps or crashes. Well, not until track 7, that is. But that one lasts only 2’43”…

7.5 / 10