This dizzying construction has a duration of exactly 60 minutes — which means that it takes less time to listen to than it does to describe. A partial precis might g as follows: in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of musique concrète and to underline the continuing relevance if Pierre Schaeffer’s pioneering techniques, Mathew Adkins invited 60 electronics composers and sound artists to submit a piece of sonic raw material. He then invited them to choose one o these submissions and subject it ti some form of studio treatment. Finally he retreated to the Ina-GRM studio in Paris with this audio cache to follow in the footsteps of Francis Dhomont’s Frankenstein Symphony by creating a whole new piece from layered excerpts of other people’s work. He was able to create fantasy duets and imaginary ensembles, intermingling, for example, the contributions of Tim Hecker and Christian Fennesz — but these conceptual frolics remain opaque to the listener. Who will be struck, instead, by an impression of seamless motion — Adkins blends these awkward, haunting and darkly resonant fragments with considerable guile.

Cinémathèque québécoise and France’s National Audiovisual Institute present 20th-century avant-garde music through film.

Montréal’s Cinémathèque québécoise has paired up once again with France’s National Audiovisual Institute (Ina) for a film series that focuses on sound and music. This fifth collaboration turns its focus to documentary and short films about the lives and art of contemporary, cutting-edge musicians and composers of the 20th century.

As part of its mission to collect, conserve, document and interpret film history, the Cinémathèque will screen the films every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7pm during February, sharing 70 years of a vast collection of archived sound and film portraying the composers and musicians as well as some of their live performances.

The program focuses primarily on composers of concrete and electroacoustic music, joining their music with visual documentation. Starting in the 1950s with the inventor of musique concrète, Pierre Schaeffer, the documentaries and short films in the series look at how a number of big names in this genre of music used technology and innovative methods of sound production as an integral part of their work during the 20th century.

The films portray artists such as Edgard Varèse, John Cage, Michel Chion, Hermann Scherchen, Pierre Henry, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Olivier Messiaen, Iannis Xenakis, Mauricio Kagel and Cecil Taylor, and their ingenious combination of art with science and technology.

Le festival international Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques (MNM), sous l’égide de la Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, aura lieu du 19 février au 1^er mars prochain. Cette quatrième mouture veut aborder, selon Walter Boudreau, «les mythes et légendes qui ont marqué nos civilisations, de certaines œuvres phares du XX^e siècle à des légendes amérindiennes mises en musique par nos compositeurs».

MNM sera aussi l’occasion de parachever l’hommage à Claude Vivier, largement célébré la saison dernière. Sur 11 journées, NMN proposera 24 concerts réunissant les œuvres de 57 compositeurs, avec pour événement un «méga-karaoké collectif» à l’église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, avec 300 musiciens amateurs réunis autour de sept solistes, Raôul Duguay et Walter Boudreau pour interpréter In C de Terry Riley.

Parmi les têtes d’affiche, on remarque la présence du Français Michel Chion, accueilli par Réseaux et qui créera une de ses œuvres électroacoustiques, Le Souffle court. La Fonderie Darling sera le cadre d’un spectacle multidisciplinaire de Michel Gonneville sur les changements climatiques. Quant à Vivier, on note que son œuvre Paramirabo sera exécutée par l’ensemble Musique Avenir, dirigé par Véronique Lacroix, puis par le Ives Ensemble de Toronto et par un groupe français.

Walter Boudreau et la SMCQ recevront également la visite de René Bosc, dans un concert qui comprendra des œuvres de Ligeti, de Xenakis et de Cage.