An augmented concert

Ana Dall’Ara-Majek
composer, perofmer : PhotoTable

Kevin Gironnay
composer + Amy Grainger, soprano

Nicola Giannini
composer, performer : synthetizer

Duo Catalão–Thibault
Dominic Thibault + João Catalão
composers, percussion

"The augmented concert" is a pioneering research-creation project that, for the first time in a structured way, explores the use of new audio technologies — in particular, bone conduction headphones — within the context of electroacoustic music performance.

This new medium of diffusion will enable concert experiences in augmented auditory reality: immersive performances in which virtual sound sources merge with those produced by musicians on stage and those projected through loudspeakers. Both performers and listeners will benefit from this multilayered listening system, opening new artistic and scientific perspectives.

The concert will feature the premieres of four mixed music works specially commissioned for the occasion, by Ana Dall’Ara-Majek, the Catalão-Thibault duo, Kevin Gironnay, and Nicola Giannini.

The project is led by composer and researcher Andrea Gozzi (Assistant Professor at the Université de Sherbrooke, Associate Director for Artistic Research at CIRMMT). It is a collaboration between Akousma and Mezzo Forte (Meudon, France), with financial help from the Pôle lavallois d’enseignement supérieur (PLAN) and the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal

Ana Dall’Ara-Majek

Ana Dall’Ara-Majek is a composer and sound artist based in Montreal. She is interested in the interaction between instrumental, electroacoustic, and computational thinking in musical composition. Her favorite themes include microorganisms and imaginary landscapes that blend modular synthesis with field recording.

She is active in electroacoustic/mixed music and gestural instrument performance. She regularly performs as a thereminist with the ILÉA ensemble and the duo blablaTrains, and as a soloist with her invented instrument, the PhotoTable. Her albums have been released on Kohlenstoff Records and Empreintes DIGITALes, and her scores published by Babel Scores and Editions Henri Lemoine.

Programme

Polyhedral Rhythms (2025) 15’ - premiere

Polyhedral Rhythms is a performance for loudspeaker dome, bone conduction headphones, and the PhotoTable—an invented instrument that reacts to light. From liquidity to crystallization, I imagine sounds as elements whose state changes depending on their environment. Over time, increasingly complex and interwoven structures form, like giant crystals, unfolding in a fourdimensional space: that of the dome and our inner listening.

From sonic flux to geometric rhythms, the PhotoTable and bone conduction headphones interact to immerse the listener in the processes that transform matter.

Website

Kevin Gironnay

Kevin Gironnay creates acousmatic and mixed music; he also produces music for installations, video, and dance, and performs in improvised music projects, both solo and in collaboration. His work focuses on taming chaotic elements to transform them into music through concrete and/or conceptual processes—hence his love of improvisation. His music is equally shaped by his interest in molding musical ideas across micro- and macro-formal levels—hence his love of composition. In 2016, he founded the Ensemble ILÉA, a mixed improvisation group combining acoustic and electronic instruments. He is an associate member of CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology). In 2020, he co-founded Virage Sonore, a podcast production company. His works have been performed in Canada, the United States, China, and across Europe.

AMY GRAINGER
Newfoundland soprano Amy Grainger is a natural storyteller. A George Cédric Ferguson Scholar from 2016 to 2018, she earned a postgraduate degree from UdeM in 2019 under the direction of Rosemarie Landry. In addition to her performing activities, Amy works in development at the Opéra de Montréal and seizes every opportunity to sing and develop as an artist.

Program
Espèces d’espaces (2025) 15’ - premiere

Georges Perec writes: “space is a doubt.”
He also writes: “to live is to move from one space to another, trying as much as possible not to bump into things.”

This piece is an essay on space, on spaces, on poetry, on poetries.

It is not really about emptiness, but rather about what surrounds it, or what lies within. Fragments from various poets.

Website

Nicola Giannini

Nicola Giannini is an artist-researcher creating immersive sound experiences. His practice lies at the crossroads of experimental music, sound art, collaborative practices, and public-space creation. By exploring interactions between people, sound, and context, he conceives sound spaces as ephemeral architectures where intensity and lightness, the real and the surreal, the natural and the synthetic intertwine.

His works have been presented across North and South America, Australia, and Europe. He holds a doctorate in composition from the Université de Montréal and is currently a FRQSC funded postdoctoral researcher at UQAM and McGill University.

Program

La dialectique de la proximité (2025) 15’ - premiere

Proximity does not only define a measurable distance: it shapes our emotions and feelings, just as being close to or far from a loved one affects our mood. This performance explores the relationship between these two spatial sensations. Using the speaker dome and bone conduction headphones, the performance alternates between a vast sound space and an almost private intimacy. An ephemeral sonic architecture is thus constructed using synthesis, where the boundaries between vastness and intimacy, body and sound, blur, inviting the audience into a fully immersive experience.

Website

Duo Catalão–Thibault 

Since 2009, the Catalão–Thibault duo has been exploring intersections between percussion and electronic music. Versatile percussionist João Catalão moves fluidly between contemporary music, jazz, and pop, while Dominic Thibault develops a practice as a composer and electronic improviser centered on human–machine interactions. Together, they have evolved from traditional mixed music to freer forms in which improvisation relies on pre-established structures and composed sonic materials. Their artistic approach seeks to unite acoustic and electronic timbres while experimenting with new notational practices that integrate improvisation. This long-standing collaboration has continually nourished and transformed their respective artistic trajectories.

Program
INTIMITÉ INFINITÉ (2025) 15’ - premiere

INTIMITÉ INFINITÉ is a musical work for orchestral bass drum, percussion objects, and electronics. The piece is built around the metaphor of intimacy, aiming to construct a personal relationship with the sonic phenomenon. After all, our relationship with sound is intuitive, personal, and unique. The work interrogates notions of timbral similarity, rhythmic space, and pitch proximity. Its metamorphoses carry us from gentleness to unease, from hesitation to fervor. Percussion timbres are explored with simplicity, while electronics serve to enhance the performers’ gestures.

In the immersive concert setting proposed by Akousma, we present a version where electronics are spatialized through a dome of loudspeakers and bone conduction headphones, with the aim of heightening the sense of intimacy that can be developed with sound.

Catalão–Thibault live