Night 1 - 
Bloc_2

Stéphane Roy (ca)

Stéphane Roy is an acousmatic composer. His art esthetics allow him, after thorough experimentations with sound materials, to extract expressive properties and give these works teleological motion.

Stéphane Roy is also a musicologist. He has written a number of papers and a book on the analysis of electroacoustic music (L’Harmattan, Paris, 2003), which earned him the 2003-04 Prix Opus — Book ofthe Year. His works have won several awards and mentions in national and international electroacoustic composition competitions. His album L’inaudible received the 2019-20 Prix Opus —Album of the year — Actuelle and Electroacoustic Music. His works have been programmed throughout Europe and the Americas.

He holds a doctorate in electroacoustic composition and a PhD in musicology, both from Université deMontréal. He has taught at the Université de Montréal, at Queen’s University (Ontario), and music conservatories both in Québec and abroad. From time to time, he gives lectures on his work.
Stéphane Roy is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre (CMC), member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC), and his works have been published by various labels, including empreintes DIGITALes (Kaleidos, 1996; Migrations, 2003; L’inaudible, 2019; Coups de foudre, 2025). He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Groupe Le Vivier.

[English translation : François Couture]

Program 
Après, les cendres (2023) 15’19”

Après, les cendres is an acousmatic work inspired by the poems ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) and Nous sommes installés sous le tonnerre… [Under thunder] taken from the collection of poems Pour les âmes (Typo, 1993) by Québécois author Paul-Marie Lapointe (1929-2011).

ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) evokes, among other things, humankind lulled by a false sense of security. The metaphor of sleep used in the text symbolizes an anesthetized conscience in the face of the unthinkable, as the lines “un bombardier repose à tes côtés / tes nuits sont assurées!” [a bomber rests by your side / your nights are safe!] ironically emphasize. In Nous sommes installés sous le tonnerre…, a terrible prophecy is announced: “le signe de la foudre marque les hommes au jour le jour” [the sign of lightning weighs on men day after day]. Fate governs our existence, and its inevitability haunts our minds.

The first three sections of Après, les cendres — noir présage, chants de mines, mur des silences — evoke the obsessive nature of fate and its manifestation in the realm of dreams. An introspective universe is created by the presence of ephemeral, furtive sounds, tormented, insistent melodies, and materials shaped by unstable spatial movements, all of which conspire to create a dreamlike universe. These sections conclude with a chimeric melody that seems to slide towards an abyss.

The final section of the work — incandescente fureur — begins with the fulfilled prophecy. A day of fury! The incandescent dawn rises in the thrust of a implacable martial motif inspired by the verses “dans la terreur arborescente des pics et des marteaux / dans le filet des sirènes / prisonniers des heures et des armes” [in the arborescent terror of spikes and hammers / in the net of sirens / prisoners of hours and arms] (Nous sommes installés sous le tonnerre…).

The work concludes with the pain left behind in the ashes of war, as perfectly expressed in this moving line: “les enfants se recroquevillent comme des feuilles brûlées” [children curl up like burnt leaves] (ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile)). We then witness the ascent of delicate, evanescent matter, freed from Earth’s gravity, like shattered souls pursuing their infinite journey.

Avec le temps... [excerpts]  (2022-2024) 15’09”

•Tressaillement
•Errance
•Chute
•Fracture
•Fugacité

Time passing like a quiet caravan, a perpetual flow that ignores human beings with their consciousness of past, present and future, a movement that nothing can derail or slow down and that flows inexorably through infinite small slices of “present”: this is the background on which our existences unfold. Music, like any art of time, unfolds in this dimension, but at the same time it gives it a human face, creating an experiential time where the temporal flow, either precipitous and elusive or frozen in suspension, “remembers” or “anticipates,” contracts, dilates, and wraps around itself in an endless loop.

Avec le temps… is a 5.1 multichannel acousmatic suite that includes nine miniatures with their own temporal identity. These miniatures can be presented in variable geometry and assembled in a different order for each concert to highlight new dynamic relationships between them. I leave it to the listener to determine the temporality of these different moments. But beyond the temporal thematic, there is the music which dominates experiential time through its phonographies, its spatial configurations, its meaningful silences, its lyricism, and its fury. “Sound-footprints” recur at various moments throughout the acousmatic suite, as well as a leitmotiv formed by an iteration in echo, which can be regular, in contraction or in dilation, and which symbolizes experiential time.

Natasha Barrett (no/gb)

Natasha Barrett (NO/UK) is a composer, new media artist and researcher. She creates acousmatic, electronic,and live-electroacoustic music, public-space sound installations and audiovisual works. She is widely recognised for her artistic exploration of 3D sound and ambisonics. She is fascinated by the sound that the world has to offer - nature, culture, people, places; nuances, human expressions, performers and their instruments, and the distinctive ambiance of different spaces. In her music she tries to harness the energy, beauty and unique edgy rawness of these sounds, which all find their place inthe grand scheme of music. In addition to her solo career, she regularly collaborates with performers, visual artists, architects and scientists, often drawing on data emulating or created by real-world processes as asource for artistic exploration. Some of the highlights include 3D audiovisual artworks with the USA-based OpenEndedGroup, science-art sonification in collaboration with geoscientists, and live electronicscollaborations with soloists and ensembles such as Ensemble l’Itinéraire (FR) and Cikada (NO). She is also the co-director of the performance ensemble Electric Audio Unit that curates and performs spatial music concerts in Norway. Her work is commissioned and performed worldwide and has received awards in 35 international competitions, including the most prestigious prize available for Nordic composers, the Nordic Council Music Prize. Her music is released on Persistence of Sound (UK), Sargasso (UK), Lawo (NO), Aurora (NO), empreintes DIGITALes (CA), and numerous compilations. She has held professorships in Norway and Denmark, and now works freelance.

Program
Dusks Gait  (2018) 12’00”

As dusk falls, an ecosystem of fictional creatures appear, projecting their characters through their gait, or in other words, the manner in which they move. Dusk's Gait celebrates moments of real nature that may easily expire. The composition captures many late evenings and nighttime experiences of nature, and fantasies behind the veil of darkness. Dusk’s Gait was composed during an Edgard Varèse guest professorship at the Electronic Studios of the Technical University Berlin, and in the composer’s own studio.

The Swifts of Pesaro (2024) 6’07”

In November 2023, while preparing for the premiere of a large orchestra and live electronics composition I had some days off from the intensity of performance, people and concert halls. To unwind, I visited a few ofthe recordings I made during the warm nights of Pesaro (Italy) earlier in the summer.

Experimenting with these recordings resulted in ambient and immersive soundscapes, which, unlike the high-energy composition materials I was currently working on, I didn't think much more of. It was also a time of meditation amidst the destruction wreaking havoc in the world in the end of 2023. Later on I found solace in these materials and experimented with how they could live on in a short composition. The result is The Swifts of Pesaro. Dedicated to eco-acoustics researcher and sound artist David Monacchi.

Toxic Colour (2024) 15’20”

Mining. Construction. Industry. Cleanup or coverup? The first outdoor exhibition showcasing aerial photography that captured the human impact on natural landscapes was "The Earth from the Air" by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, shown in Paris in 2000. The paradox of these mesmerising photos, incontrast to the often ravaged human-altered landscapes that they capture, has become the theme of many photo-art projects. Despite my being repeatedly drawn to such stunning imagery, their statements are becoming lost in our oversaturated world of digital visual media. I thought it was time to make a statement insound. Toxic Colour was commissioned by EAU with support from Arts and Culture Norway.

We thank the Norwegian Embassy in Ottawa for making the artist’s visit to Montreal possible.