“Ah, the tales a verb can tell. The resonance of its voice, its call to awaken and engage, to activate. It pushes and pulls reluctant time, harries and prods fickle memory. The root of action, the key to energy’s heart and borders, it is attack and decay, beginning and end.” — LR

This short work began as a study in the exclusive use of the reverberant final portions (tails) of a variety of vocal recordings. The metaphoric nature of the title and the discovery and elaboration of the opening trumpet material lead the work in other directions.

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Verb Tales was realized in 2002 at the composer’s studio and premiered on December 11, 2002 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton (Canada). The trumpet material — also used in les ponts de l’espace II, and à la cire perdue — is drawn from a recording of musician Franzl Fabijan made by Miriam Fabijan in 1992 in Slovenia.

Preparation

• 1992, Miriam Fabijan • Slovenia

Composition

• 2002, Personal studio, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Premiere

• December 11, 2002, Concert, University of Alberta, Edmonton (Alberta, Canada)

Mastering

• Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)

les ponts de l’espace I consists of six short movements which originally served as a series of brief electroacoustic interventions between acoustic chamber works on a festival concert program. Each movement of les ponts de l’espace I is a miniature study of two compositional processes or strategies: each movement explores the spatial movement of sounds in predefined geometrical shapes and trajectories and is, in addition, a study in the combination and integration of natural environmental recordings with contrasting sound materials transformed and generated by various processes in the electroacoustic studio. A collection of sounds were captured from an invented instrument (Primordium) built by Tom Nunn and installed at Concordia University (Montréal) and consisting of a large, hollow wall panel adorned with various metal jangles, strings, protrusions and membranes. These sound materials, in addition to some synthesized granular synthesis textures, are arranged in such as fashion as to set up a variety of sonic relationships with an unprocessed recording of the sounds of a wintry urban street, sometimes as a parallel stream of activity, sometimes fused with the sounds of the environment that they have entered.

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les ponts de l’espace I was realized in 2001 at the composer’s studio and premiered on February 7, 2001 during the rESOund Festival of Contemporary Music at the Winspear Centre in Edmonton (Canada). The piece was commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Composition

• 2001, Personal studio, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Premiere

• February 7, 2001, rESOund Festival of Contemporary Music, Edmonton (Alberta, Canada)

Mastering

• Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)

les ponts de l’espace II continues an exploration of the confrontation between raw environmental sounds and those produced and sculpted by a variety of techniques in the electroacoustic studio. Points of coincidence as well as opposition between these two sound groups were sought and a variety of paradigms for spatial assignment and movement were applied. It extends the concept of sonic ‘ponts’ (bridges) into the domain of cultural exchange with the use of sounds of a festive gallery opening in Lublijana (Slovenia) as well as of traditional bell ringing in Bresovica (Slovenia). The recordings were made by Miriam Fabijan in 1992. In addition, the use of a selection of sounds drawn from the electroacoustic parts of several of my earlier mixed works offer a bridge between different contexts.

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les ponts de l’espace II was realized in 2003 at the composer’s studio and premiered on January 27, 2004 during the Happening New Music Festival at the Rozsa Centre, University of Calgary (Canada). The trumpet material — also used in Verb Tales, and à la cire perdue — is drawn from a recording of musician Franzl Fabijan made by Miriam Fabijan in 1992 in Slovenia. The piece was commissioned by the Happening New Music Festival.

Preparation

• 1992, Miriam Fabijan • Slovenia

Composition

• 2003, Personal studio, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Premiere

• January 27, 2004, Happening New Music Festival, Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall — Rozsa Centre, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Mastering

• Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)

‘Cire perdue’ is a time-honored sculptural technique still in use today. It involves the covering of an initial sculptural model with wax prior to casting the object in bronze. During the casting, the wax melts and disappears, is lost, leaving the finished bronze statue as the final reflection of the artist’s work. This concept serves in à la cire perdue as a metaphor for the source materials employed which are submerged and often lost amid the ‘casting’ of transformations and reshaping of audio materials in the composition studio. More specifically, it involves the use of my own instrumental music as the source materials for these sonic experiments. The previous electroacoustic work, les ponts de l’espace II, reclaimed electroacoustic elements from some of my works for instruments, voices and electroacoustic music, and integrated them into new sonic environments. As in les ponts de l’espace II, à la cire perdue also offers fragments from my mixed works, albeit in disguise, to the electroacoustic world. The shapes and gestures of my instrumental music are lost in the processes of convolution, spectral mutation and cross-synthesis. They sometimes appear to emerge and give clear impetus to the music; more often, they pulse beneath the surface, and leave only a ghostly yet tantalizing echo of their origins.

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à la cire perdue was realized in 2004 at the composer’s studio and premiered on February 14, 2004 during the Rien à voir (15) concert series presented by Réseaux at Espace GO in Montréal. The trumpet material — also used in Verb Tales, and les ponts de l’espace II — is drawn from a recording of musician Franzl Fabijan made by Miriam Fabijan in 1992 in Slovenia. The piece was commissioned by Réseaux des arts médiatiques.

Preparation

• 1992, Miriam Fabijan • Slovenia

Composition

• 2004, Personal studio, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Premiere

• February 14, 2004, Rien à voir (15): Concert, Espace Go, Montréal (Québec)

Mastering

• Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)

To alcides lanza

Mining Inference is a short variation (or ‘remix’) based on portions from a recording of interferences III (1983-IV), a mixed work for ensemble and tape by alcides lanza.

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Mining Inference was realized in 2003 at the composer’s studio and premiered on October 23, 2003 during the Group of the Electronic Music Studio (GEMS)’s 20th anniversary celebrations at McGill University in Montréal. The piece was commissioned by GEMS. Thanks to the performers Meg Sheppard, Group of the Electronic Music Studio Ensemble, and alcides lanza, and to Shelan Publications and McGill Records for the use of excerpts from the work by lanza.

Composition

• 2003, Personal studio, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Premiere

• October 23, 2003, GEMS’s 20th Anniversary, Université McGill, Montréal (Québec)

Mastering

• Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)

Terms of Occupancy began as an eight-channel variation and extension on the earlier work à la cire perdue. The title refers to the strategies and methods that bind me to the sounds I deploy as well as a preoccupation with multi-spatial determination for these sonic objects. It continues a line of work that seeks to bring together sounds and characteristics from seemingly disparate areas of my sound and music making activities. The challenge posed by the expanded possibilities for spatial placement and trajectory, first in eight channels, and then for the 5.1 format led to a substantial reshaping of the original sounds as well as a recasting of their compositional possibilities.

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Terms of Occupancy was first realized in 2004 at the composer’s studio and premiered on September 11, 2004 during the Harvest Moon Festival at the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall at Concordia University in Montréal. The revised 5.1 version was realized in 2005 at the studios of Université de Montréal and in 2006 at the City University London (England, UK), and premiered on February 13, 2007 at the latter.

Composition

• 2004, Personal studio, Calgary (Alberta, Canada)

Revision

• 2005, version 5.1: Faculté de musique – Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)
• 2006, version 5.1: Sound Studios — City, University of London, London (England, UK)

Premiere

• September 11, 2004, Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival: Concert, Salle de concert Oscar-Peterson — Campus Loyola — Université Concordia, Montréal (Québec)

Mastering

• Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)