Although there is a lot of focus these days on the pandemic, we are all at some level aware that lurking in the background is a much bigger issue for which there is no vaccine – the climate crisis with the threat of rising seas, worsening storms, runaway fires and more. These issues are increasingly becoming the focus for many artists of all disciplines, myself included. How do we continue working as creative people with all the impending disasters just around the corner? What relevance does the next orchestral composition or sound improvisation have in light of the issues we’re collectively facing?

I recently approached one of my composer colleagues, Claude Schryer, whom I originally met when we were both graduate students in composition at McGill University in the 1980s, for his thoughts on all this. Schryer has been involved for years in issues related to the relationship between sound, listening, musical composition and the environment, an area that has become known as “acoustic ecology”. This particular field of ecological awareness, encompassing both artistic practice and academic scholarship, was originally born on Canadian soil out of the work of composer R Murray Schafer and his colleagues in the World Soundscape Project (WSP) during the 1970s.

Later, in 1993, a conference was held at The Banff Centre for the Arts called The Tuning of the World, the title of Schafer’s influential book published originally in 1977. Schryer was instrumental in behind-the-scenes organization of the conference, but, as he points out to me, it was a group effort that brought about a watershed moment: the birth of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) and its Canadian spin-off called the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology or CASE.

Soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp was one of the key members of the World Soundscape Project (WSP) in the 1970s, and during the 1980s had often mentioned the idea of a conference to Schafer, as a way of following up with all the contacts they had made over the years. It took until the 1990s, though, at the initiative of Michael Century, director of The Banff Centre’s Media Arts Division, to finally get the ball rolling. At initial planning meetings a few years prior to the festival, Westerkamp took on the creation of a Soundscape Newsletter to help bring together the far-ranging community and create an audience for a potential conference. Sent to the large mailing list that had grown over the years, the response to it was very enthusiastic, and a conference date was set for August 1993, with Calgary-based composer Tim Buell getting involved in the organization of it, along with Schryer.

Birth of the World Forum

Throughout the conference, daily early morning meetings, facilitated by both Westerkamp and Schryer, were held to discuss the idea of creating a structure that would provide continuity and connection for those present after the conference was over, as well as for others on the mailing list. With people having travelled from the USA, Europe, Australia and of course from Canada, enthusiasm was riding high, and by the end of the week the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology had been created.

Being in the midst of a national park in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, the Banff Centre is surrounded by an abundance of wildlife. As Westerkamp recalls, just as the vote was completed to create the Forum, a knock was heard on the window. It was an elk. Everyone laughed and agreed: “We have confirmation.”

Schryer took on the initial role of coordinator of the World Forum. Part of the vision was that different countries would create their own individual chapters, but with Canada already having a lot of momentum via the WSP, it wasn’t until 1996 that CASE, the Canadian sound ecology chapter came into being. Fittingly, the vision took shape during a world soundscape workshop held at the Haliburton Forest & Wildlife Reserve, the wilderness location where Schafer created his annual collaborative Wolf Project.

Schryer became the founding president of CASE, with composers Gayle Young, Tim Knight and Schafer as collaborators.

Canada has been uniquely positioned as a leader in the field of acoustic ecology and soundscape composition, Schryer says, with many Canadian sound artists and academics taking a leading role in the further evolution of the field. In 2018, during a conference in Germany celebrating the 25th anniversary of the World Forum, many participants remarked on the great impact that the WSP, The Tuning of the World and the subsequent WFAE has had internationally.

The Carry-Over

Our conversation shifted to the topic of how Schryer has taken his involvement in these organizations and awareness of environmental sound into his creative work. During his studies at McGill he learned and developed his craft of electroacoustic and instrumental composition. However his passionate interest in the combination between art and environment has been there from day one. “With my music training, I just kept expanding further into sound-related fields that were more and more broad, expanding into acoustic ecology, radio, interdisciplinary work and cross-sectoral work like arts and health. Sound has always been my base and a way for me to enter other fields and to collaborate, either with other artists or with practitioners in other fields such as scientists.”

His career as a composer and sound ecology activist temporarily came to a standstill in 1999, he says, when he took a job at the Canada Council [for the Arts], leading the Inter-Arts Office where he became involved in developing policy for this new artistic practice. However, in 2016 he felt the need to go back to creative work and integrate it with his practice in Zen Buddhism.

Based on his passion for meditation and stillness, he created a series of 175 three-minute audio and video portraits called simplesoundscapes (www.simplesoundscapes.ca). “I just loved doing that. I was recording interesting moments from places all around the world, three minutes of a moment that were often interesting in very minute ways.”

When that project came to completion in July 2019, Schryer decided to become more involved in the climate change movement “because of the obvious need for us all to be involved,” he said. He began spending more of his time, both the Canada Council and in his personal life, working at a social level on the production of environmental projects. “We need to change the way we live so let’s think about how we produce artistic events,” he says.

Then, in May of 2020, he started the conscient podcast, and during its first season he was “hungry to explore the relationship between awareness, art and environmental action.” With the second season beginning in March 2021, the conversations are now focused on accepting reality and ecological grief. “I call it a shared learning journey, educating or re-educating myself and sharing as I go.”

The first episode of season two is called reality and mixes quotations from various authors, recordings from his simplesoundscape collection, and excerpts from a 1998 soundscape composition titled Au dernier vivant les biens. Calling on his skills as a composer, this new direction has become “a journalistic project that’s about raising awareness and looking at how artists can play a larger role in what we’re calling climate emergency. It’s not just climate change, it’s a climate emergency which is part of the larger ecological crisis that includes biodiversity.”

In September 2020 he chose to leave the Canada Council so he would have time and resources to invest in projects of this nature. With conscient, he says, he can give a voice to artists and climate workers to speak about the ideas they’re developing, the concepts, theories and actions being taken. “That seems very concrete to me, and is what I’m planning to do for the rest of my life.”

Currently he’s also involved with an emerging national project called SCALE – Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency, a coalition of arts and climate workers doing projects internationally, exploring how the arts can play a role. “People are doing similar things in different parts of the country and now we can align our efforts and put some pressure on the decision makers, inform artists on tools that are available to reduce their footprint, and create a series of activities that will help advance the arts and cultural sector’s contribution to the climate emergency.”

Re-engagement

And so we come back to the question that prompted me to contact him in the first place: What relevance does the next orchestral composition or sound improvisation have in light of the issues we’re collectively facing?

“There are all kinds of ways that artists, including musicians and sound artists, can contribute and it’s up to those individuals to see where they want to put their energies and where they think they’re most useful to society. Sometimes it’s in their art practice, and sometimes it’s more about the way an arts organization operates and the environmental footprint that is created. We should not be wasting anything, such as one-time use theatre sets, but we should be focusing on what’s important – connecting with people and getting the artwork out there. It doesn’t have to be about touring around the world the way that we used to. Maybe there are other ways to get the word out there. That’s where we’re at now.”

“So how do you approach the issue of our deep alienation as a society from nature and the environment?” I ask. He replies by speaking about how deep the disconnect is, “going back hundreds of years through the different doctrines and European ways of seeing the world and the idea that we control nature.”

The way we have been educated in the Western world is to take nature for granted, that it’s there to be exploited, he says. “We have to change that. We have to see ourselves as part of nature. Trauma comes up a lot in my conscient interviews. The Western world is so traumatized in its relationship to nature. It’s lost touch, it’s flailing.”

So how do we re-engage with nature? “I don’t think there’s an easy solution, other than valorizing nature, rethinking who you are, re-educating yourself, changing the systems on the longer term; and listen to Indigenous voices who have always had a relationship with nature that has been symbiotic as opposed to oppositional or exploitive.”

Take the time to listen to the people he has featured in his conscient podcasts, he suggests – “to what they are saying and the struggles they are engaged in.”

Part of the task ahead, as musicians and sound artists, is to help cultivate new artistic forms and practices that deal with the issues and require action, as we collectively face the ever-growing climate emergency ahead.

Canadian composer Claude Schryer was first active in contemporary classical music before turning to electroacoustics and, more specifically, environmental/ecological soundscapes. He is also a film soundtrack creator, an improviser, and an administrator.

Schryer was born in Ottawa but grew up in the small nearby town of North Bay, where he was in constant contact with nature. As a child he studied the piano and the clarinet. In 1981 he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in composition at the Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Canada), studying with Owen Underhill. A number of chamber works date from that period but remain unrecorded. During the early 1980s he studied at The Banff Centre for the Arts where he got in touch with interdisciplinary and experimental artists. His now growing interest in electroacoustics led him to a two-year stay in Europe where he learned the trades of the art with Denis Smalley and Luc Ferrari. In 1989, he received his Masters degree in composition from McGill University in Montréal. In the meantime he had co-founded the Group of the Electronic Music Studio (GEMS) and DIFFUSION i MéDIA and its record label empreintes DIGITALes with Jean-François Denis.

He cumulated administrative titles in the 1990s, from artistic director of the 7^e Printemps électroacoustique festival (1990-1992) to director of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (1993-1994) to co-founder and president of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology. This decade also saw him focusing more and more on environmental compositions and acoustic ecology. Following the philosophy of R Murray Schafer and the composers revolving around the World Soundscape Project based at the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada (Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax), his works gradually turned away from the transformation of sound to approach composition with unaltered sound sources. His most ambitious project was the Musique Portuaire pour Sirènes et Cloches (“Harbour Music for Horns and Bells”), a in situ composition for six boats, two trains and the bells of the Notre-Dame Basilica. A reworking of this piece can be heard on Schryer’s CD Autour (empreintes DIGITALes, 1997).

Sharawadji

The Sharawadji effect is an æsthetic effect characterized by a sensation of plenitude sometimes created by the contemplation of a complex soundscape whose beauty is inexplicable.

This exotic term, introduced to Europe in the seventeenth century by travellers who learned it in China, designates the beauty that arises without the listener perceiving the order or economy of the object in question.

The Sharawadji effect takes one by surprise ans will carry the listener elsewhere, beyond strict representation — out of context. In this brutal confusion, the senses get lost. A beautiful Sharawadji plays with the rules of composition, manipulates them, and awakens a feeling of pleasure through perceptual confusion.

Whether in a dream-like of anxious state, we are sometimes completely deaf to the environment. While on a walk or on a journey, however, our spirit can combine availability, attention, and perspicacity, thus becoming receptive to new things, including sonic fantasy.

The beautiful Sharawadji affirms itself in contrast with the banality from which it originates. Sharawadji sounds, as such, belongs to everyday life or to known musical registers. They only become Sharawadji by de-contextualization, by a rupture of the senses

The sonic matter that stimulates the Sharawadji effect can differ according to the appreciation of each individual, in a given context; although the soundscape — and in particular urban soundscapes — can, as a result of their unpredictability and diversity, favour it. The sonic wealth of nature is also conductive to creation of the Sharawadji effect.

—Jean-François Augoyard and Henry Torgue, À l’écoute de l’environnement, répertoire des effets sonores (A Dictionary of Sound Effects), 1995 [Translation: Claude Schryer]

The listener, and only the listener,
is the composer of the music.

—Ola Stockfelt, Cars, Buildings and Soundscapes, 1994

On November 11, 1997 (a day of remembrance) I walked into the concert hall at Théâtre La Chapelle in Montréal for the Rien à voir festival of acousmatic music and was confronted by a shocking contrast between electroacoustics and ecology: a dark room, little air, countless loudspeakers and sixty-hertz-a-humming machines… There was virtually no living matter present (except we humans) and there I was rehearsing my “ecological” music for concert presentation…

It was bewildering to be in this former chapel — in a quasi-religious listening experience — where we consumed virtual music in the hope of being taken on a journey “inside” sound.

This article is about my journey into the soundscape through the medium of electroacoustics and my quest to discover the “unexplainable beauty” in the music of the acoustic environment.

Electroacoustic Soundscape Composition

Electroacoustic soundscape composition is most closely related to the visual field of photography. Images of the sonic environment can be captured, processed, and represented as a reflection of reality and/or as an artistic creation. It is a technique thet treats the acoustic environment as both the subject and the content of a composition, teetering abiguously on the border between representation and abstraction.

Electroacoustic soundscape composition has everything to do with context, as opposed to the “musique concrète” æsthetic of reduced listening (“écoute réduite”), where sounds are appreciated independently of their source for their abstract musical value as “objets sonores” (sound objects). For the electroacoustic composer, an “objet sonore” is one sound source, among others, for musical production. For the electroacoustic soundscape coposer, however, the “objet sonore” is also a complex web of information that includes the potential of revealing “unexplainable beauty” in the form of the Sharawadji effect.

Darren Copeland (Copeland, 1996) reminds us of the difference between environmental sound and music: “There is a communicative realm to environmental sounds that has nothing to do with music, but rather, has everything to do with the social context from wich these sounds originate.” Thus, the social and spiritual context of a soundscape can be used as a compositional element on par with pitch, melody, harmony and timbre. The composers dreaws upon the conscious and sub-conscious sonic memories of the listener and uses them as an anchor for navigating in and around dimensions of sound that have the potential to communicate otherwise untangible emotions.

Electroacoustic soundscape compositions can be presented on radio, in installations, in acousmatic diffusion, in interactive performance, etc. However, the key common element in this form of composition is a concern for the context and environment of a given sound. Barry Truax (Truax 1984, 207) further explains this difference, specifically in the context of electroacoustic music: The essential difference between an electroacoustic composition that uses pre-recorded environmental sound as its source material, and a work that can be called a soundscape composition, is that in the former, the sound loses all or most of its environmental context. In fact, even its original identity is frequently lost through the extensive manipulation it has undergone, and the listener may not recognise the source unless so informed by the composer. In the soundscape composition, on the other hand, it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer… Part of the composer’s intent may also be to enhance the listener’s awareness of environmental sound. Whereas the use of concrete sources leaves the environment the same and merely extracts its elements, the successful soundscape composition has the effect of changing the listener’s awareness and attitudes towards the soundscape, and thereby changing the listener’s relationship to it. The aim of the composition is therefore social and political, as well as artistic.

Listening to Dhomont, Ferrari, and Westerkamp

Industrialization and new technologies have transformed our sound environment. New sounds have appeared, have transformed our concept of hearing, and have modified our aesthetic criteria in a decisive fashion. Just as the effects of industry and technology on air and water have raised concerns about the physical environment, so too, the notion of ecology has emerged recently in the domain of electroacoustics. Artists from diverse disciplines explore and employ the soundscape in their work. Their interesting and timely reflections on problems of acoustic ecology expand the debate on, and nourish discussions of, the quality and organization of the soundscape in urban and natural environments. Artists can become a conduit of our collective memory and help us better understand our acoustic environment, which we rarely actually hear. Thus, the sound artist can propose new associations, acoustic games, and poetic metaphors, and can pose fundamental questions about the coexistence of electronic technology and ecology.

What are the aesthetic and ethical criteria of the environmental electroacoustician? Montréal-based acousmatic composer Francis Dhomont (Dhomont 1992, 31) criticizes the sometimes uncomfortable co-habitation of electroacoustics and ecology:

One important aspect of sound ecology is, of course, that it should not be too… sonic. But what should one make of the torrents of decibels spewed out by our loudspeakers, with ever more powerful lows, ultra-lows, mids, highs and ultra-sonics? Are we the most qualified to preoccupy ourselves with the eardrums of our contemporaries? Just like you, I am cornered by this dilemma, torn apart, trying to invent all sorts of good excuses. Like you, I consecrate kilometres of polyester to preserve the songs of cicadas, frogs, streams and nightingales, to avoid losing them forever. But I am not taken in by these subterfuges and I know very well that we have already entered the age of simulacra. Will they compensate for the disappearance of real life?

I am an electroacoustician and, like Francis, I consider myself also to be an environmentalist. The two activities should not be necessarily incompatible, and yet…

I love machines. I love to touch sound. I love to indulge in virtual sound and to immerse myself in the endless metaphoric and metamorphic potential of electroacoustics. And yet I am constantly faced with the paradox between my electronic art and ecology. Sometimes, I have the impression that I am more a part of the problem than of the solution.

The wise and poetic French composer Luc Ferrari reminded me, while he and I walked in the streets of Paris, that “one has to learn to recognize sounds on top of each other, in relation to each other—that is to say, in layers. And this can be learned by the sensitivity that we develop, and by awareness.”

I agree with him that we need to learn how to develop our sonic awareness and hope that the electronic technologies of today and tomorrow will help us “tune” our perceptions to and with our environment, so that a balance can be found between natural and virtual sound environments, and also between natural and virtual listening. Increasingly, artists are searching for an ecological balance, not only in the content of their work, but also in their compositional process. Composer and acoustic-ecology activist Hildegard Westerkamp (Westerkamp 1995) has found some common ground between electroacoustics and her ecological and musical convictions. She underlines the value of electroacoustics in soundscape composition, as a practical tool for expression and for listening, but also warns of some of the dangers:

Much as technology can annoy and frustrate me and much as the environments in which sound studios exist tend to be unhealthy, it works better for me than composing for instruments. I use technology in my work because it is the best tool for me to express what I want to say through composition. As well, the sound studio allows for immediate interaction with sound, an intimacy, a conversation, like a slow motion improv. In a sound studio one can be a musician and composer at the same time. But I also perceive sound technology as a dangerous tool for composition: it can distract endlessly from the content of what we want to say; it can demand an inordinate amount of attention to technical detail and it can also distract our audiences from really hearing our work. But no matter how much technology we put between our composing selves and our final composition, between ourselves and our audiences, it is still ears and bodies and psyches that perceive our pieces.

I share her enthusiasm and her hesitations. For years, I’ve been struggling with my identity as electroacoustic soundscape-composer and as acoustic-ecology activist. Hildegard’s sense of equilibrium and wisdom is an inspiration. Indeed, we must be aware of the shortcomings of the electroacoustic medium, while keeping in mind the importance of offering an ecological voice to the loudspeaker.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

—Margaret Mead

Activism

In the early 1990s, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki, speaking on CBC radio’s It’s a Matter of Survival, warned that the next ten years were “our last chance to change…” The questions of the survival, responsibility, and interpretation of our environment have haunted me ever since, have incited me to compose music with and about our acoustic environment, and have also led me to become politically and socially active. For the last few years, it’s become obvious to me that we are suffering from a disturbing wave of greed and excessive materialism that is choking the fruits of our environmental passions, both locally and globally.

That is why, in Banff in 1993, I became involved with a group of some 150 acoustic ecology activists in founding the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), an interdisciplinary association for researchers and practitioners from social, scientific, and cultural disciplines, who meet and exchange information about their work and interests related to acoustic ecology. Among other things, the WFAE is participating in the organization of an international conference on acoustic ecology organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, to be held in Stockholm (June 9-14, 1998). The principal theme of this conference is “from awareness to action” and is in tune with the international acoustic ecology’s desire to evolve from an initial period of awareness to direct action.

That is also why, in 1996, in Haliburton, Ontario, I coordinated a group or thirty or so Canadian acoustic ecology activists and helped found the Canadian Association for Acoustic Ecology (CASE). CASE’s focus is on local activities, including sound-walks, anti-noise campaigns, workshops, information presentations, radio documentaries, etc. Similar groups are coming to life in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Australia, Brazil, and Japan.

These organizations and their activities are directed to finding new methods of teaching and encouraging sensitive listening, of increasing awareness of the acoustic environment, and of promoting both internal and external listening as a tool for growth and sustainable development.

”Not a Very Good Composer…”

I had the shock of my life in 1985, when composer Luciano Berio told me, sincerely, that he did not think that I was a very good composer. He also mentioned, however, that he thought there was a place for me in the world of music. The piece on which Berio based his comments was my 1985 solo cello piece On the Edge, written for cellist Shauna Rolston. He thought that the piece sounded like “film music” and was not of the calibre of contemporary concert music. What I think he really meant to say was that I did not, curiously, seem to be interested in “music” so much as elements around music: space, noise, and silence.

Indeed, since 1989, I have progressively detached myself from the concert music tradition and have allowed myself to touch sonic matter through electroacoustics. At the same time, in response to the growing world ecological crisis, I have felt a need to become involved in the environmental movement, at both political and artistic levels. And because I had had musical training, I chose a path that combined the ecology of sound with music, in the form of electroacoustics. It seemed most natural for me to become concerned about the sonic quality of our environment. Therefore, I began following in the tracks of composers R Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Barry Truax (among others), of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and I adopted the notion that artists can help design a more imaginative and balanced soundscape.

I find myself continually fascinated by the evocative nature of recorded soundscapes. I sometimes think of it as a “voice” within the environment reaching out to me. As a result, I want to bring the listener “inside” a space, experience, or sensation, with or without words, with or without transformation, and also with or without “music.”

My artistic practice involves essentially a five-step process: listening, recording, analyzing, transforming, and orchestrating recorded soundscapes into electroacoustic portraits for concert and radio. Whenever possible, I record my own soundscapes as a kind of performance in which I literally “play” the microphone like a musical instrument.

I have found that an essential part of the composition process occurs during field recording. Apart from a DAT machine recording two-dimensional stereo sound on tape, a parallel recording process takes place during field recording. I call it “emotional recording,” wherein the body and spirit also record sensations and vibrations from the space. These emotions can subsequently be called upon to guide the inner structure and spiritual map of the composition. I try to record sounds that, upon repeated hearing, resonate in me and cleanse me and shake me up. I listen for sounds which evoke the fragility of our environment and the importance of awareness, listening, and silence. In general, when I record, I try to meditate on and analyze the space. How does it speak to me? What are its microscopic and macroscopic components? What is my rapport and my emotional relationship with the space? How can we capture and transmit the multiple dimensions of a space by means of a microphone and loudspeakers?

When I record I also try to be aware of the limitations of my recording equipment and to plan how to frame my recordings in terms of my specific needs. Therefore, each recording—the movement of the microphone, the choice of perspective, the background, the levels, the presence of breath (or not), the stereophonic angle—is unique to each project.

Around “Autour”

It is interesting to note the reaction of Le Devoir classical music critic François Tousignant (Tousignant 1997), as stated in a review of my CD, Autour, here translated.

Musically speaking, this is elementary electroacoustics, which, far from magnifying its subject, discourages the listener, even the best intentioned. There is no call, nor interpolation from our poet in becoming; only an applied report on tape of things here and there which offer no perspective… Maybe acoustic ecology is just that: a canvas on which you can do whatever you want without really listening to it… And yet, I agree with R Murray Schafer, one of the instigators of this discipline: the environment (le paysage), is beautiful, but one must do something with it.

Indeed, my work is a simple use of electroacoustics, but I think of it as transparent rather than elementary. It is more difficult than one might think to resist transforming a sound in studio, allowing it instead to “breathe” on tape. François doesn’t seem to hear the voice of the environment, nor understand the notion of the Sharawadji effect as I do. This is his choice as listener and I respect it. It is, however, shocking that he thinks this kind of work has no perspective. It is all about perspective! In my case, it is a relatively clear perspective based on the poetry of sonographic representatlon.

Acoustic ecology is all about listening to and being aware of the acoustic environment, and though I agree that one must indeed “do” something with the acoustic environment (as Schafer and others have done so very well), I think there is more than one way of being “active,” including being actively passive by allowing an environment to be musical by itself.

The review certainly shook me up and I am grateful for that. It has encouraged me to question our ability to appreciate this kind of music with “classical” ears and to consider new models of listening and appreciation, as R Murray Schafer suggests “to not only strip down the walls of our theatres and recording studios, but also the walls of our senses.”

Ironically, in another review that same day (November 22, 1997), in La Presse, journalist Philippe Tétreau seems to be much more in tune with the nature of this kind of work.

This electroacoustician manipulates the microphone like a camera, choosing his angles, enlarging this or that detail, defining a sound image to vary the effects and therefore demonstrating the art of acoustic ecology with audio images that recreate remarkable atmospheres. We are closer to a cinematographic process here than that of music written on manuscript… The sounds of nature and of the city are retained in our memory, rather than the spectacular artifices of cybernetics. Avoiding overwhelming the listener with overcharged effects which are easily forgotten, Schryer gives an important place to silence, therefore favouring the memory of the chosen soundscape and the sensation of plenitude that he is seeking.

From External to Internal Soundscapes

With Chasse, in 1989, I began a five-part cycle of electroacoustic soundscape compositions which have come full circle with my most recent composition, Au dernier vivant les biens.

My research began in 1989 with a period of listening to and awareness of my immediate external environment. I composed two “home” pieces, Chasse (1989), about a family duck-hunting trip, and Les oiseaux de Bullion (1990), which contrasted the soundscapes around my urban home in Montréal and my wilderness home in Banff.

My next step was to figure out what I was talking about. I asked questions about acoustic ecology and the history of the acoustic-ecology movement in Canada and composed two experimental radio documentaries, Marche sonore I (Le Matin du monde) (1991-92) and Revisiting the World Soundscape Project (1992-93).

In 1993, I attempted to compose my first “musical,” ecologically inspired, concert-music pieces, Les voix de l’écologie (1993), based on Schafer’s book The Tuning of the World, and Mono Real (1994), for voice and mono tape. However, both pieces proved unsatisfactory, as I had not yet done enough listening and did not understand the delicate art of electroacoustic soundscape composition.

After an extended depression and period of healing meditation and listening in 1995, I came back to composition in 1996 with a set of four electroacoustic soundscape compositions based on locations in North America, El medio ambiente acústico de México (1995-96), Vancouver Soundscape Revisited (1996), Musique de l’Odyssée sonore (Quebec City), (1996-97), and Autour d’une Musique portuaire (Montréal), (1996), a composition with Hélène Prévost. These have all been issued on the CD Autour.

Nineteen ninety-seven brought about the conclusion of a seven-year cycle of electroacoustic soundscape compositions, with Au dernier vivant les biens (1997), a set of forty-nine electroacoustic soundscape meditations issued on the CD Lettre sonore II / Sound Letter II. I’m not sure where my listening will lead me next, towards more soundscape composition or further into the contemplation of silence. But I’m quite sure that I’ll still be searching for a voice calling from the environment.

Autour réunit quatre compositions formant un cycle d’œuvres, chacunes portant sur la prise de conscience et sur la musicalité de l’environnement sonore nord-américain. Symboliquement, elles représentent aussi les quatre points cardinaux de l’Amérique du nord et sont présentées sur ce disque dans l’ordre du cercle de vie amérindien (est, sud, ouest, nord).

Est

Musique de l’Odyssée sonore, musique de film créée en collaboration avec le concepteur sonore Claude Langlois, est un récit sonore qui s’inspire de l’histoire, du caractère et du mystère de la ville de Québec.

Sud

El medio ambiente acústico de México, promenade radiophonique, est une collection de «sonographies» (FB Mâche) méditatives évoquant le charme et les contradictions des espaces sonores mexicains.

Ouest

Vancouver Soundscape Revisited, pièce acousmatique, est un portrait impressionniste du paysage sonore passé, présent et futur de Vancouver.

Nord

Autour d’une Musique portuaire, une œuvre environnementale / instrumentale co-composée avec la réalisatrice radio Hélene Prévost, est la rencontre de l’enregistrement en direct d’un concert de sirènes de bateaux et de cloches avec un trio d’improvisateurs en studio, à Montréal.

Certaines musiques s’écouteraient les yeux fermés pour enchanter virtuellement les sens. D’autres proposent avec une grande acuité une réalité des instants fragiles en lisière des presque rien. Ici, la composition plonge ses racines dans l’humus du vivant. L’Autour est ce qui nous environne et ce qui nous Fonde. C’est aussi au-delà de l’entendement, l’en dedans de l’écoute. Car ce disque réactive la dimension poétique de la réalité, du paysage sonore tout en posant la question de l’écoute. Écouter, c’est d’abord sentir son corps écoutant. Entrer en écoute comme on entre… Oui, c’est une voie, un chemin pour parvenir à percevoir au sein du grand bruit les nuances sensibles qui musicalisent notre quotidien. R Murray Schafer parle de la nécessité d’éduquer ou plutôt de rééduquer cette oreille assourdie. Je crois qu’un disque comme celui-ci nous y invite sans l’imposer et s’imposer… Vers la densité poétique de l’écoute de la Réalité.

Compositeur, producteur, diffuseur et organisateur, Claude Schryer est actif en électroacoustique. Et depuis 1990, inspiré par les travaux de R Murray Schafer et du World Soundscape Project (Projet mondial d’environnement sonore), il se spécialise en écologie sonore. Dans ses créations, il monte, traite et combine des paysages sonores naturels, urbains et humains en forme de juxtapositions poétiques, de perceptions altérées, de re-contextualisations, ou encore de réflexions sur les contradictions, les anecdotes et la magie du quotidien. Ainsi, depuis 1994, il explore une notion spirituelle, artistique et social, de l’écologie sonore.

Préambule

«Il m’est parfois difficile d’exprimer, en mots, mes convictions artistiques et sociales. De l’ordre de l’invisible et souvent de l’indicible, ce qui m’anime intérieurement est fragile, et aux limites de l’expression linéaire. En général, en guise de réponse, je propose plutôt de partir tout de suite faire l’expérience d’une écoute active. Je crois que c’est la raison pour laquelle je préfère mon DAT à mon stylo.» —Claude Schryer

1- Prise de sons

R&C: Qu’est-ce qui t’importe à la prise de son? La musique qui découle des seules prises de sons est fortement imprégnée par le particularisme du lieu, du site primitif. En ce sens, les instants choisis font transparaître une réalité indépendante de la partition musicale. Je voulais te demander comment tu appréhendes cet état des choses. Est-ce que les conditions météorologiques, acoustiques, etc, font partie intégrante de l’œuvre et assumées comme telle voire même recherchées… Une musique météorologique?

Claude Schryer: La prise de son est un acte spirituel pour moi. je suis effectivement sensible aux éléments météorologiques et acoustiques d’un lieu. mais aussi à la spiritualité et aux dimensions ‘’invisibles’’d’un espace.

Avant de réaliser une prise de son. Je médite sur le lieu, et tente d’analyser et de comprendre l’espace. Je questionne comment le lieu me parle. Quelles sont ses composantes microscopiques et macroscopiques? Quels sont mon rapport et mon engagement émotifs avec le lieu? Comment vais-je pouvoir capter et transmettre les multiples dimensions du lieu par l’entremise du microphone et de l’enceinte? Ces informations “dirigent” la composition, de retour au studio.

Je tente de prendre conscience des limites de mes outils d’enregistrement. et de savoir comment “cadrer” mes prises de son en fonction de mes besoins particuliers. Chaque prise de son — le mouvement du microphone, le choix de perspective, de relief, les niveaux, la présence de ma respiration (ou non), l’angle stéréophonique — est unique pour chaque projet.

Par exemple, dans ma composition radiophonique El medio ambiente acústico de México (Le paysage sonore du Mexique) ma méthode de travail était de travailler comme un photographe qui choisit et étudie attentivement son sujet et qui tente de capter des moments magiques ou un Sharawadji, “un effet esthetique qui caracrérise la sensation de plénitude qui se crée parfois lors de la contemplation d’un paysage sonore complexe dont la beauté est inexplicable. L’effet survient contre toute attente et transporte dans un ailleurs, au-delà de la stricte representation — hors contexte. Dans certe confusion brutalement présente, les sens, comme le sens, s’y perdent. Le beau Sharawadji joue avec les règles de la composition, il les détourne et éveille dans la confusion perceptive un sentiment de plaisir.” (1)

Lors de la prise de son de cette pièce j’ai enregistré des papillons Monarque dans les montagnes à Angangueo (Michoacan). Il y avait des centaines de touristes dans la montagne et des miilions de papillons. Cherchant, j’ai eu la chance de capter un moment d’unité entre les voix d’emerveillement des touristes, celles de la douce masse des papillons à distance et du frottemenr frénétique à proximité des ailes de papillons… je ne crois pas pouvoir recréer une telle beauté poétique en studio.

R&C: Compositions musicales “pures” ou alliant des sons environnementaux, ou encore compositions de sons environnementaux, et compositions radiophoniques, l’œuvre fait apparaître une pratique musicale élargie. Parle-nous de cette volonté d’élargir son champ d’expérimentation.

Claude Schryer: Ma méthode de composirion est simple. J’utilise une procédure d’écoute, d’analyse (triée par timbre, catégorie, fonction, hauteur, contexte), de transformation (traitement informatique) et d’orchestration (montage et mixage) de paysages sonores enregistrés pour créer des portraits électroacoustiques. Mais est-ce de la musique? Je n’en sais rien… En 1985, Luciano Berio m’a dit, en toute franchise, que je n’étais pas un très bon compositeur, mais qu’il y avait certainement une place pour moi dans le monde de la musique… Luciano avait peut-être raison? Dès 1989, je me suis détaché de la tradition musicale conventionnelle, et me suis laissé emporter par un désir de toucher la matière sonore. Ensuite, j’ai voulu comprendre qui j’étais et d’où je venais. Alors, j’ai travaillé directement avec l’environnement sonore. En ce moment, je m’intéresse surtout à la spiritualité des lieux par l’entremise de l’électroacoustique environnementale. Je crois que ma place dans le milieu musical est quelque part au seuil de la musique, et au cœur de l’interdisciplinarité et de l’activisme environnemental. Depuis plusieurs années ce sont surtout des questions de survie, de responsabilité et d’interprétation artistique de l’environnement qui m’incitent à créer, et à agir avec et à propos de l’environnement sonore.

3- Réalité

R&C: Paul Virilio nous dit: «Demain, si nous n’y prenons garde, nous aurons la nostalgie non seulement de l’histoire et de sa géographie, mais encore le mal de l’espace et des temps perdus.» (2). Cette problématique de l’accélération me semble très intéressante à aborder ici en ce sens que les progrès techniques de notre civilisation occidentale produisent une disparition de la réalité dans le décor. Ou comme je l’ai entendu une fois: «Le voyage, plus on le raccourcit plus cela devient du temps perdu.» Que t’inspire cette remarque sur la “déréelisation” de notre monde?

Claude Schryer J’ai une profonde nostalgie pour les espaces sonores en voie de disparition. Ceci dit, parallèlement, je suis conscient, comme nous le rappelle R Murray Schafer (3), que «le paysage sonore change continuellement» et qu’il faut tenter de vivre dans le moment présent. Et quel moment! Aujourd’hui, la «vitesse du temps» est hallucinante, fascinante et cruciale à explorer pour l’artiste sonore.

L’industrialisation et les nouvelles technologies ont métamorphosé l’environnement sonore; de nouvelles sonorités sont apparues, ont transformé la notion d’écoute, et ont modifié de manière décisive les critères esthétiques.

En tant que société, nous devons apprendre à décoder le réel de l’irréel, par l’entremise d’un rythme de lecture abordable de la matière sonore. Luc Ferrari (4) dit «qu’il faut arriver à reconnaître les sons les uns au-dessus des autres. Les uns par rapport aux autres, c’est-à-dire les couches et ça s’apprend par la sensibilité que l’on développe et la conscience.»

Pour l’artiste sonore médiatique — poète du temps irréel — le défi est de taille: créer un langage sonore qui présente une nouvelle perception du temps, et ceci «sans tomber dans un naturalisme naïf ou dans un modernisme réactionnaire.» (5)

Dans cette jungle temporelle, je me réfère aux principes proposés par Bruno Guiganti (6). «À l’inverse de l’écoute naturelle qui est une mise en relation du corps de l’auditeur avec le corps sonore dans sa matérialité, l’écoute médiatisée est une écoute relative qui relègue le corps des êtres et des choses dans un inter-espace discontinu où ils trans-apparaissent en perdant leur épaisseur, leur densité, leur pesanteur.»

L’art de l’électroacousticien environnemental est donc celui de conjuguer les dimensions d’écoute naturelles et médiatisées dans un cadre temporel virtuel qui se veut crédible, révélateur et séduisant.

4- Corps

R&C: Jacques Garros, psychomotricien, dans un article intitulé Notre corps est la terre de notre esprit, a écrit: «L’intelligence consiste peut-être à prendre du temps par rapport à l’efficacité technique et immédiate et à prendre le temps de retisser la relation de base “corps-esprit” qui permet de réintégrer la conscience, la pensée et l’imaginaire dans la totalité corporelle, c’est-à-dire dans l’ensemble universel?» (7) La question du corps me semble très importante par rapport à ta pratique, mais aussi par rapport à ce que tu es. Ici, je pense aussi à ton engagement pour une cause écologique dans le sens de ce que Jacques Garros dit par rapport à cette totalité corporelle. Que t’inspire cette réflexion?

Claude Schryer: La désincarnation esprit/corps m’affecte, et me trouble. Malgré moi, et comme plusieurs de ma génération, j’ai tendance à vivre dans ma tête, en ignorant mon corps. C’est pourquoi j’ai appris et pratique la méditation bouddhiste Vipassana (observation de la respiration), mais aussi le tai-chi chinois (harmonie esprit/ corps).

Ma philosophie corporelle est d’être à l’écoute de moi-même et de mon environnement, et de me fier à mon intuition pour savoir comment agir et ne pas agir…

Ma plus récente composition, Au dernier vivant les biens, traite justement de l’écoute intérieure: «En m’écoutant, j’ai réalisé que mon plus profond désir était de créer une musique de compassion, de clarté et de guerison et d’explorer les dimensions spirituelles du son qui ont le potentie! de communiquer des émotions autrement inaccessibles.»

Le dicton «Penser globalement: agir localement» me vient à l’esprit. Je crois qu’il faut s’occuper avant tout de l’écologie du local, le plus local possible, en étant soi-même, et de grandir à partir de cette belle racine.

5- Paysage sonore

R&C: En 1993, pour le congrès internationale de l’écologie sonore, tu as réalisé une œuvre (La marche sonore) où tu essayais d’interroger une certain nombre d’individus de différents pays sur le thème: comment percevez-vous votre paysage sonore? Aujourd’hui, en cette fin 1997, comment répondrais-tu à cette question? Comment perçois-tu les évolutions du paysage sonore depuis ta longue «marche sonore»? Peux-tu nous parler de ce qui intérieurement a fondamentalement évolué?

Claude Schryer: L’omniprésence de la géographie sonore canadienne ainsi que la fragilité de notre jeune culture hybride font de moi un être continuellement à la recherche d’identité…

En l991, dans une de mes premières créations «écologiques», j’ai posé la question: c’est quoi l’écologie sonore?

Marche sonore 1 (Le matin du monde) s’inspire de la philosophie d’écologie sonore de R Murray Schafer et du «Projet d’environnement sonore mondial» à Vancouver qui nous propose de respecter l’oreille naturelle et la voix naturelle, de prendre conscience du symbolisme des sons et de connaître les rythmes et les tempi du paysage sonore naturel. J’ai demandé à chaque intervenant dans la pièce de me parler de son environnement sonore immédiat, et de partager quelques pensées sur le thème de l’écologie sonore.

Ce qui a évolué en moi depuis Marche sonore 1 c’est mon niveau de conscience et ma combativité sociale. Entre 1993 et 1997, j’ai créé de nombreuses œuvres qui sont progressivement engagées et prononcées (cf CD Autour, chez empreintes DlGITALes…).

Mais, un des problèmes aujourd’hui est que la crapuleuse vague «néo-libérale» et «globalisante» étouffe les fruits de nos passions environnementales, locales et internationales, du début des années 1990. Je suis devenu nettement pessimiste récemment, et pourtant plus convaincu que jamais de l’importance d’une mise en action du mouvement de l’écologie sonore, tant au niveau de la création artistique que dans le travail d’organismes à but non-lucratif, tels l’Association canadienne pour l’écologie sonore, le FKL, le CES et le Forum mondial pour l’écologie sonore.

6- Écologie sonore

R&C: Les Canadiens, sous le patronage de R Murray Schafer, ont depuis longtemps investi le domaine de l’Écologie sonore. Sans débattre ici du sens de cette appellation, pourrais-tu brièvement nous dire ce qu’implique ce champ d’investigation, avec quelques exemples concrets? Ensuite, tu pourrais nous parler de ce qui se passe et se prépare au sein du Forum Mondial de l’Écologie Sonore (organisation regroupant des personnalités de différents pays. Cf interview Pierre Mariétan dans R&C n°28).

Claude Schryer: C’est en 1989 que je suis devenu réellement “écolo”. J’ai senti un besoin urgent de m’engager politiquement et artistiquement dans le milieu environnemental. Et puisque je m’etais formé à la musique, qui est en principe un art “sonore”, j’ai choisi l’écologie du son.

Depuis, je me suis impliqué, tout comme mes collègues Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax et R Murray Schafer entre autres, à promouvoir une idéologie de l’ecologie sonore au Canada et à l’étranger.

Un événement important dans l’histoire du mouvement d’écologie sonore a été le congrès «Tuning of the World» qui a eu lieu du 8 au 14 août 1993 au Banff Centre for the Arts en Alberta. Ce congres réunissait plus de 150 intervenants dans le milieu de l’écologie sonore de toute discipline.

Un des résultats de ce congrés a été la mise sur pied d’un organisme international pour la promotion de l’écologie sonore: le Forum mondial pour l’écologie sonore (FMÉS), qui, à l’époque, définissait l’écologie sonore comme: «l’étude des relations entre organismes vivants et leur environnement sonore ou paysage sonore.»

Les écologistes sonores s’interessent à la création de multiples contextes et de situations qui encouragent l’écoute du paysage sonore, le développement de la perception auditive et l’approfondissement de la compréhension sonore de l’auditeur ainsi que l’appréciation et l’observation des actions qui affectent ou modifient la qualité de l’environnement sonore, l’étude des effets d’intervention technologique sur l’environnement sonore, l’étude de la signification des médias électroniques (radio, télévision, musique d’avant et d’arrière plan, etc.) et leur présence grandissante dans le paysage sonore, la protection des paysages sonores naturels, la préservation et la création de temps et d’espaces de silence, le développement d’idéologies concernant le silence dans différentes cultures, la conception d’environnements sonores sains et la création artistique.

Le FMÉS existe aujourd’hui grâce à l’appui de ses membres avec un bureau administratif à Vancouver. Le FMÉS coordonne la publication d’un bulletin d’information trimestriel, le New Soundscape Newsletter, publié par Justin Winkler et le Forum fur Klanglandschaft (FKL) (Suisse/Allemagne). Le FMÉS maintient egalement un excellent site sur le WWW, et un groupe de discussion «Listserv» avec plus de 250 participants sur Internet coordonné par Gary Ferrington, à l’Université d’Oregon aux États-Unis.

Aujourd’hui, le FMÉS est dans une phase de transition. Il y a eu un congrès international d’écologie sonore à Paris cette été, organisé par Pierre Mariétan et Ray Gallon du Collectif environnement sonore (CES). Ce congrès a permis aux membres du FMÉS de se retrouver et d’élire un conseil d’administration provisoire qui a reçu comme mandat de présenter une stratégie pour le futur du FMÉS, lors du prochain congrès international d’écologie sonore (Hör upp! Stockholm, du 9 au 14 juin, organisé par l’Académie royale de musique de Suède en collaboration avec le FMÉS et Stockholm, capitale culturelle de l’Europe en 1998).

Ce congrès permettra de consolider et d’organiser les activités de la communauté internationale d’écologie sonore. Les trois thèmes principaux de la rencontre, axés autour des dimensions scientifiques et sociales de l’écologie sonore, seront: Les utilisations et les abus du son, la conception de son artificiel et de la prise de conscience à l’action.

Un des projets du Congrès de Stockholm est de faire connaître leur «Manifeste pour un meilleur environnement sonore», publié par l’Académie royale de musique de Suède. en collaboration avec le FMÉS.

De plus, en 1996, nous avons fondé une Association canadienne d’écologie sonore (ACÉS), qui a comme mandat d’organiser des activités locales, telles des promenades sonores urbaines, des campagnes de sensibilisation au bruit, des ateliers de formation et d’information sur l’écologie sonore, la production de documentaires radio, etc.

Parfois, je me demande quel héritage sonore laisserons-nous à nos enfants ou encore si la biodiversité sonore du 21^e siècle sera suffisante pour soutenir une véritable écologie sonore? Douteux… Entre temps, il faudra continuer à lutter pour qu’il reste quelques paysages sonores intéressants sur terre!

Propos recueillis par Éric La Casa. Octobre 1997.

1. Jean-François Augoyard et Henry Torgue, À l’écoute de l’environnement sonore: Répertoire des effets sonores.
2. Paul Virilio, L’art du moteur.
3. R Murray Schafer, entretien pour Odyssée sonore, documentaire de l’ONF par Louis Ricard.
4. Luc Ferrari, entretien pour Marche sonore 1 (1991), Paris.
5. Nicholas Gedhardt, A Thread of Musical Thinking — Glenn Gould, Bach, François Girard and an Art of Sounds, Musicworks 67.
6. Guiganti, Écoute naturelle et écoute médiatisée, Musicworks 65.
7. Jacques Garros, Notre corps est la terre de notre esprit. Bongo Bongo.

Pour en savoir plus:

• Association canadienne pour l’écologie sonore (ACÉS) / Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE)
• Augoyard, Jean-François et Torgue, Henry. À l’écoute de l’environnement sonore. Répertoire des effets sonores- Éditions Parenthèses, 1995. ISBN 2-86364-078-X. (Un excellent répertoire qui explique les phénomènes sonores de différentes perspectives — scientifique, technique, sociale, artistique, etc.).
• Fort, Bernard et Saint Martin, Dominique. Zoom sur les sons de la nature, Éditions JM Fuzeau. ISBN 2-84169048-2. (Un livre avec cédérom sur l’apprentissage de l’écoute et de la musique contemporaine.)
• Forum mondial pour l’écologie sonore (FMÉS) / World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE)

Pour ceux qui l’ignoraient, sachez que Montréal fut du 12 au 16 novembre l’un des rares centres mondiaux de l’électroacoustique grâce à la tenue d’un festival intitulé Rien à voir au Théâtre La Chapelle. Plusieurs électroacousticiens d’ici et d’ailleurs y présentaient leurs œuvres. Parmi eux, soulignons la présence événementielle du Français Luc Ferrari, que l’on peut ranger sans sourciller aux côtés des Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer ou, plus près nous, Francis Dhomont. Mais il revenait à l’un des nôtres — Claude Schryer — d’inaugurer ledit festival par une conférence prononcée conjointement par Schryer lui-même et Hélène Prévost. Cette conférence fut suivie de l’audition de leur nouveau disque faite dans des conditions optimales.

Un nouveau disque (disponible au début de décembre) vient donc de s’ajouter au catalogue de la maison empreintes DlGlTALes vouée à la vitalité de l’électroacoustique. Ce premier disque de Claude Schryer intitulé Autour reflète à sa façon l’écologie sonore, théorie élaborée et mise de l’avant par le musicien canadien bien connu R Murray Schafer. Schryer a d’ailleurs travaillé récemment aux côtés de Schafer et a fondé avec lui l’Association canadienne pour l’écologie sonore.

Les séquences sonores de Schryer sont composées de diverses prises effectuées dans plusieurs lieux d’Amérique du Nord, prises dont l’intérêt repose sur l’agencement sensible que Schryer en fait. Cet électroacousticien manipule le micro telle une caméra, choisissant ses angles, grossissant tel ou tel détail, définissant une image sonore pour en varier les effets, bref, déploie tout un art de l’écologie sonore afin que l’image audible puisse restituer tout un climat. Nous sommes ainsi beaucoup plus proches des procédés cinématographiques que de ceux qui ont cours dans la musique écrite sur des portées. Il n’y a qu’à examiner les partitions de ce type de répertoire pour voir en elles des espèces de diagrammes que l’on pourrait croire issus d’un institut de cardiologie.

Claude Schryer privilégie surtout le montage des éléments captés pour les transformer par la suite en studio. Cette post-production n’est pas négligeable quant au produit fini mais à l’écoule de celui-ci, c’est davantage les sonorités de la nature ou celles des centres urbains qui demeurent en mémoire plutot que les artifices scintillants de la cybernétique. Évitant de matraquer l’auditeur d’effets surchargés et promis à l’oubli, Schryer accorde à l’occasion une place assez importante au silence favorisant du même coup le souvenir des sonorités choisies et la sensation de plénitude recherchée. Celle-ci est, il faut le dire, plusieurs fois obtenue.

Des quatre montages que l’on retrouve sur ce nouveau compact, trois sont composés de miniatures, sorte de cartes postales sonores qui forment une suite possédant son caractère propre que l’on ne peut confondre aux autres œuvres du disque. Toutes ces séquences montées proposent des itinéraires variés et portent des titres à la fois subjectifs et explicites: Musique de l’Odyssée sonore; El medio ambiente acústico de México; Vancouver Soundscape Revisited et Autour d’une Musique portuaire œuvre camposée conjointement avec Hélène Prevost, réalisatrice à Radio-Canada. Cette dernière, très impliquée depuis plusieurs années dans la création d’œuvres contemporaines, signe avec Schryer une solide réalisation qui concilie adroitement les sons des monuments du Vieux-Port de Montréal aux improvisations inspirées des instruments à vent faites en studio.