Gradation conjures up my creative curiosity for different approaches to modern digital music-making. I wanted to explore the wonderful sound world of the siren organ and the Babel table, two instruments invented by Totem contemporain’s Jean-François Laporte. I was allowed to select pre-recorded sounds from a vast databank and add them to my sound palette.

Emotions scaling up until the probable extinction of a legacy, a ritual or euphoria, like the metamorphosis of a mermaid with magical powers or the birth of a mysterious insect. The life cycle of this escalation climbs the rungs in succession, and then I draw for it a rhythmic, impactful path to excessiveness. In the end, this amplifying of cerebral matter crumbles into the abysses of eternal seas. I am born, I live, I run, I dive, I slow down, I fall, I die, but those rungs are still there for the next life cycle.

— Roxanne Turcotte [English translation: François Couture, iv-26]

Gradation was realized in 2024 at the composer’s studio (Studio Séducson) in Montréal (Québec). Thanks to Jean-François Laporte (Productions Totem contemporain).

Composition

• 2024, Studio Séducson, Montréal (Québec)