Martin Bédard

Martin Bédard received a prize with great distinction from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and a doctorate in electroacoustic composition from the Université de Montréal.

His works have been presented at over seventy national and international events. He has been a prizewinner or finalist in fourteen international competitions. He was awarded a Prix de Distinction (award of dictinctions) at the 2010 Ars electronica competition (Linz, Austria).

In addition to his activities as a composer, he teaches auditory perception, composition and analysis of electroacoustic music at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, as well as electroacoustic composition at the Université de Montréal.

Cinema remains a major source of inspiration for his acousmatic pieces.

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Program
Champs de fouilles (2008) 10’40”

My piece Champs de fouilles pays tribute to the singular history and personality of the city of Québec. With this work, I wanted to further explore the cohabitation of electroacoustic media and what I call phonoculture, or the audio heritage of a specific community or area.
This piece focuses on referential sounds, sounds that can be recognized, sounds rooted in reality. I have worked on them in the studio to transcend their anecdotal nature and turn them into materials conducive to the appearance of something musical. These sounds served as symbols, metaphors, clues, which means that a narrative-based conception of the sonic phenomena underpinned my approach. Also cohabiting in this piece are non-referential sonic materials obtained by slicings or treatments meant to either shape the soundwriting into phrasing, act as signals, or play a totally abstract part.

The title Champs de fouilles alludes to the archeological digs that were under way in the city while I was making the piece.


Honey (Architectures from silence no.1) 17’26”

To MH and Lili...
The very nature of honey is for me an inspiring natural model, in life and especially in the realization of this work. Honey is the result of a long transformation. Honey, instead of being secreted spontaneously, results from a long process of metamorphoses which begins with quasi-volatile materials (pollen, nectar) that evolve in a continuous densification process to produce a rich, dense texture, up to crystallization. Bees collect, unify, transfigure and transfuse: they make possible the passage from pollen to honey, that is to say they take a powder—dispersion without order — and turn it into a structured and unified liquid. The symbolism of honey is associated with transformation and synthesis. Honey also represents a time of harvest and abundance.

Marie-Hélène Breault

Marie-Hélène Breault specializes in 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. She has distinguished herself through her participation in the premiere performances of several works by Canadian composers, and her collaborations with theatre and dance artists. She frequently performed with the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM+) and the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ). The winner of numerous awards, she frequently receives grants for her projects from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ). Marie-Hélène Breault teaches flute at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).

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Program
Replica (2012-2013) 14’42”
Marie-Hélène Breault and Martin Bédard

To Suzanne

The Replica project is inspired by the existential opposition between continuity and transformation as comprised in the sentence “Eadem mutata resurgo,” or “I am reborned changed as identical.” The work is built mostly from flute sounds, mainly old recordings of the performer and new materials generated during a first instrumental writing. The replica of these materials in a second writing on support creates various sceneries in which are interpreted on one hand the instrument and its expressive potential and on the other hand the performer and her history.
In Replica, the dichotomic relation between continuity and transformation is made of 4 compositional modalities: contrast between pure instrumental sound and re-built sound; creation of new material on the basis of old recordings; progressive transformation of motives and sound objects based on repetition; and duplication of the instrumental by the electro. On the road towards instrumental utopia, the project took the form of an acousmatic work.

Antoine Lussier

Antoine Lussier has been passionate about music and recording since a young age. A guitarist and composer, he has spent several years touring internationally with his band Ion Dissonance, as well as with pop, rock, hip-hop, classical, blues, and gypsy ensembles. Thanks to his significant contributions to the international scene with Ion Dissonance, Antoine has been endorsed by numerous award-winning companies such as Ibanez, Mesa Boogie, Peavey, Vader, and Dickies Clothing. Currently, as a sound engineer and producer, he excels in both production and teaching. He explores acoustic composition with passion and works in various sectors of music and image, including sound design for short films and music and sound creation oriented towards video games. Holding a bachelor's degree in digital music from the University of Montreal, Antoine is pursuing graduate studies in research-creation at the same institution. His dedication to research is evident in his desire to deepen the functions of an instrument essential to his career: the recording studio.

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Program
Choose Wwisely [Performance] (2025) 11’21”

This study was carried out as part of my master's research. The aim of this piece is to explore the creative possibilities of the Wwise audio integration engine in order to build an experimental musical performance. The sound materials used consist of synthesized sounds and sound recordings that I first processed in my digital audio station, then implemented in Wwise to create a structure for the piece. It soon became apparent that not only was it easy to inscribe these sounds in a certain temporality using Wwise, but that it was also possible to create new materials that could be used within the machine itself.

Louis Dufort

The music of Montréal composer Louis Dufort ranges from a cathartic form of expressionism mostly found in his early works to organicism focusing on the inner structure of sound matter in his latest works.

Although he first developed his style through electroacoustic music, he quickly delved into mixed music and multimedia music, which drew attention from a number of extremely diverse Montréal-based organizations, such as the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ), the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM+), the Quasar saxophone quartet and Quatuor Bozzini, the Ensemble de flûtes Alizé, Réseaux, the Association pour la création et la recherche électroacoustiques du Québec (ACREQ), and Chants libres, for whom he wrote the music of the opera L’Archange in 2005 (repeat performances in 2008).

In 2007, Dufort received commissions from Société Radio-Canada (SRC) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for a video remix and an acousmatic remix on Glenn Gould, for the famous pianist’s 75th birthday.

Dance collaborations are also an important part of Louis Dufort’s work, mainly collaborations with the dance company Compagnie Marie Chouinard, with whom he has been working regularly since 1996.

Dufort’s international profile has been increasing since the early 2000’s. In 2001, he received a mention from Prix Ars Electronica (Austria). In 2005, he collaborated with the German Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) and, two years later, the Recombinant Media Labs (RML) in San Fransisco. Some of Marie Chouinard’s projects have also been acclaimed abroad, including Body_Remix, premiered at the Venice Biennial in 2005.

Louis Dufort is also a member of the artistic committee of the Élektra festival and SMCQ, and he teaches at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal.

•• In February 2018 he was awarded the Prix Opus 2016-17: Artistic Director of the Year for his role in the Akousma 13 festival.

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Program
Monts Valin (20) 11’37”

Based on field recordings, this piece is inspired by a collection of meaningful moments experienced during my many hikes on Monts Valin, located in Saguenay. These moments present a wide range of states of consciousness, from pure enjoyment to heady excitement, all underpinned by the holistic beauty and complexity of nature. What also fascinates me is that regardless of my state of consciousness, the forest remains sovereign. It is there, neutral and abstract, exposing its beauty through its light, colors, textures, movements, and sounds. Consequently, the forest becomes music.

Monts Valin was composed on the octophonic system of the Chicoutimi Musical Experimentation Center during a residency and mentoring activity (Achicoutimatique) and premiered at the same place on August 12, 2021. Since then, the work has been reworked and spatialized for 16 speakers specially made for Akousma.

Pauline Patie

Program
Surtitré (20) 10’17”

“Silence contains all truths; speech carries all lies.”
- Jacques Ferron

Ally or traitor, language musicalizes the richness of thought. How many ways are there for language to say the same thing? How many words are needed to say nothing? Is the word only capable in its song of offering freedom to our thought? I've expressed this idea through the contraction and relaxation of sound: a formal representation of the articulation of words, struggling with the meanders of thought.