A piece for all the clean-cut punks: If their hair is less a mark of their distress, their cynicism is as violent a cry of disillusion.

A reading of Louis Hamelin’s novel La rage (1989).

La rage (rage):
   ravished land, expropriated for flying steel;
   ravished people, castrated of their identity;
   youth wasted in seduction and hiding;
   intelligence betrayed by a culture of beauty;
cynical for survival.

La rage (rabies):
   tiny germ, destructive incubation, death by the drop…
   … explosion, a cyst bursts, the pus of hate flows.
Death for survival.

[vii-09]

La rage [Rage] was realized in 2004-05 at the studios of the Electroacoustics sector of Université de Montréal and at the composer’s studio. It was premiered by Stefan Schneider on March 5, 2005 at Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montréal, at the end of a week’s worth of on-location rehearsals and fine-tuning. Thanks: Claudine Levasseur, Stefan Schneider, Sylvain Pohu, Robert Normandeau, Jean Piché, Luk Côté, Jonty Harrison, Jean-François Denis, Dominique Bassal, and the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC). La rage was selected as a finalist at the 34th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Art Competition (France, 2007), and the concert Alter ego (in which La rage was the main work featured) was awarded the 2005-06 Prix Opus for Best Concert — Musique actuelle, électroacoustique.

Composition

• 2004 – 2005, Faculté de musique – Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)
• 2004 – 2005, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• March 5, 2005, Stefan Schneider, drum set • Concert, Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce — Botrel, Montréal (Québec)