We are surrounded by objects whose importance is directly related to their utility. To one degree or another these object all have their own sounds, but as they become commonplace we tend to lose our ability to hear them. They become a part of the blurring of the sounds of everyday life.

The automobile is unquestionably one of the most important inventions of our century. They have changed our perception of time and space, and have come to dominate most of the soundscapes of our towns and our countryside.

Deliberately anecdotal, Vroum suggests a new way to hear that apotheosis of our age, the automobile.

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Vroum was realized between February and May 1997 at the composer’s studio in Matane with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ). The work premiered on May 1, 1997 during the concert Hautes tensions presented by ACREQ at Usine C in Montréal. Thanks to Bernard Pedneault (Radio-Canada Matane), Jocelyn Robert, Émile Morin, Philippe Giroux, André Harvey, Roland Bérubé and Diane Lajoie.

Composition

• February – May 1997, Personal studio, Matane (Québec)

Premiere

• May 1, 1997, Hautes tensions, Usine C, Montréal (Québec)

To Gabriel and Diane

The Eden that we all yearn for is perhaps our childhood, which little by little we must mourn as we become adults. It is no doubt this nostalgia that explains our need to perform our works for the public, to go to concerts, to circuses, to read books, and to do all of the other things that we do to escape the fact of our mortality.

The work is divided into three parts: Petite monodie [Little Monody], Divertissement [Divertimento] and Évocation naïve [Naive Evocation]. It is intended as a homage to childhood and to what I have retained from my own childhood: naivety.

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Conte sous la lune [Story Told Under the Moon] was realized in March 1991 in the Electronic Music Studio of Magyar Rádió (HEAR) in Budapest (Hungary) and completed in April 1991 in the studio of the Conservatoire de Montréal. The work premiered at the Montréal Planetarium in the fall of 1991 as part of ACREQ’s 3rd Clair de terre concert series. Thanks to István Horváth.

Composition

• March 1991, Magyar Rádió elektroakusztikus Zenei Stúdiójának (HEAR Stúdió), Budapest (Hungary)
• April 1991, Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• November 27, 1991, Clair de terre III: Concert 2 — Présages, Planétarium de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

A small variation on the sounds that we hear — but do not really hear — in washrooms. It is also an ironic evocation of Marcel Duchamp’s Fontaine.

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Résidus (clip dadaïste) [Waste (A Dadaist Clip)] was realized in the fall of 1995 in the studio of Montréal composer Yves Daoust, and premiered in December 1995 at a Dadaist happening at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montréal.

Composition

• September – November 1995, Personal studio – Yves Daoust, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• December 1995, Concert, Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, Montréal (Québec)

To Jo and all of his nonsense…

Hollywood Westerns from the fifties have nurtured the American Dream for several generations of filmgoers: the dream of wide-open spaces, the pursuit of a freedom won by the iron-willed. But the dream has a dark side, where we can see the imperialistic mentality of “the White Man” who, with gun and railroad, took the land from “the Indian.”

The sound tracks to Westerns also carry images that help give shape to the myth. Guns, horses, barroom brawls, steam engines, and the desert wind all furnish the palette with a wide range of sound possibilities. I have used sounds that have been altered, transformed and remixed from two Westerns to continue the examination of the myth of the West that I had begun in a previous work for piano and tape entitled Don’t Shoot the Piano Player! (1994).

Cowboy Fiction is the second part of an extensive on-going multimedia project entitled Rêve de cowboy (The Cowboy Dream). The sound material was provided by the sound tracks of the French version of Howard Hawks’s El Dorado (1966) and John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), by singer Jo New York’s version of the Hank Williams classic, Rambling Man, as well by recordings of a few locomotives and a number of guns.

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Cowboy Fiction was realized in November 1998 at the Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB, France) with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and premiered on June 3, 1999 during the IMEB’s Synthèse Festival in Bourges (France). Thanks to Olivier Lukaszczyk and Yves Coffy for their attentive ears.

Composition

• November 1998, Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB), Bourges (Cher, France)

Premiere

• June 3, 1999, Synthèse 1999: Concert, Grand théâtre — Maison de la culture de Bourges, Bourges (Cher, France)

To Sylvain Carette and Alain Thibault

This is a piece that explores the sound-world of the telephone, with its ringing, its hidden defects, its dead-air moments, its anonymous voices, and its more or less direct relationship to communication. In a world in which we communicate more and yet which remains surprisingly insular, we all live against a background of loneliness.

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«… Ceci est un message enregistré…» [“… This is a recording…”] was realized in 1994 in the Montréal studio of composer Yves Daoust and premiered in Montréal’s Redpath Hall on June 19, 1994 during the concert celebrating the 15th anniversary of the founding of ACREQ. «… Ceci est un message enregistré…» was commissioned by ACREQ with support from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA). I would like to thank Ned Bouhalassa. It was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 16th Luigi Russolo International Competition (Varese, Italy, 1994) and was preselected for the Prix international Noroit-Léonce Petitot (Arras, France, 1995).

Composition

• 1994, Personal studio – Yves Daoust, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• June 19, 1994, 2^e concert 15^e anniversaire, Salle Redpath — Université McGill, Montréal (Québec)

Awards

• Mention, Radiophonic Work, Concorso internazionale Luigi Russolo di musica elettroacustica 1994, Varèse (Italy)

To Valérie

A study of money as sound material, and as an object of desire (the Montréal Stock Exchange, advertisements, television game shows…).

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L’argent… toujours l’argent! [Money… Always Money!] was realized between the autumn of 1989 and the spring of 1990 in the studios of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and premiered that spring in a concert at the conservatory. Thanks to Sylvain Carette, the Montréal Stock Exchange and Robert Laliberté. L’argent… toujours l’argent! received 1st prize in the electroacoustic category in the PROCAN Young Composers’ Competition (1990), 1st prize in the electroacoustic category in the CBC National Competition for Young Composers (1990) as well as a Résidence at the 18th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France, 1990).

Composition

• September 1989 – May 1990, Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• 1990, Concert, Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

Awards

• Prize, Residency Prize, 18th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition 1990, Bourges (Cher, France)
• 1st prize, Electronic Music, CBC National Radio Competition for Young Composers 1989-90, Canada
• 1st prize, Electroacoustic and Computer Music, PROCAN Young Composers Competition 1990, Canada