The Electrochoc concert series, presented jointly by the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and Akousma ,

is a series of concert-discussions that introduces audiences to different aspects of electroacoustic music. The concerts also showcase the talent and creativity of the students invited by Martin Bédard and Louis Dufort (the series’ two artistic directors) from their composition classes.

Bénédicte + gonima

7:30pm Conference / 8pm Concert
En codiffusion avec le Conservatoire de musique de Montréal

4750, Av. Henri-Juilien

Get your tickets

Bénédicte(Maxime Gordon)

Maxime Gordon is a Montreal-based music producer and sound artist. She has been releasing and writing experimental electronic music as Bénédicte since the mid 2010s.

Her music combines soaring synths, distorted field-recordings and glittering vocal samples to explore moments of introspection and feeling. She has performed and presented work at venues and festivals across North America and Europe such as MUTEK (Montreal), Akousma (Montreal), Pique (Ottawa), the Spatial Sound Institute (Budapest), MONOM (Berlin), Eastern Bloc (Montreal), and Glory Affairs x Punctum (Prague).

Her most recent album is the 5 track EP “When It Binds” that came out on NYC-based record label Blueberry Records in 2021. She is currently writing a new album and hosting soundwalks around Montreal.

︎ | ︎

Program

Untitled (2024) 9’26
Creation

Halves, Shoals (2023) 15’50

Bénédicte
Photo : Sean Vadaru

gonima (Evan Magoni)

gonima is an alias of Evan Magoni (he/him), a Montreal-based audiovisual artist exploring glitch aesthetics, complex rhythms, bright melodies, and ambient atmospheres. He employs pointillist audio editing, live playing, and generative musical processes to create detailed digital textures, ethereal tonality, and collage-like musical arrangements with an emotive core.

The gonima project started in 2011 in Philadelphia. Releases have found homes on Satellite Era in Chicago; Sunset Waves in Austin, Texas; Bullflat3.8 in Kyoto, Japan; Montreal labels ygrade and Ancient Robot; and in Munich, Germany on Slam City Jams.

Musical interests: deep listening, melodic tension and release, glitch sound design, drones, syncopation, gestural movement, sound collage.

Website | ︎ | ︎

Program

Immaterial, Unbounded (2024) 10’
Creation

Homeostasis (2023) 15’40

An extension of Homeostasis, a piece composed for Akousma in 2023, this suite explores themes of transcendence. Field recordings and atonal flourishes resonate into warm ambience and melody through the use of vocoders and reverberation, creating high-definition synthetic spaces. Sharp fragments of the material world fuse with dreamlike, ethereal tonalities in slow waves.

gonima

December 12th 2024
ELECTROCHOC NO. 2

Charles Quévillon + Sawtooth

7:30pm Conference / 8pm Concert
In collaboration with the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal

4750, Av. Henri-Juilien

Get your tickets

Charles Quevillon (ca)

Charles Quevillon is a Canadian composer, residing in Finland. A graduate of the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, he worked for 12 years with choreographer Tedd Robinson on 27 projects, presented at major festivals. His multidisciplinary approach has led him to collaborate with ensembles such as Defunensemble (FI) and Sound Initiative (FR), Kollektiv Totem (CH), as well as with visual artist Maija Tammi. Currently pursuing a doctorate at the Sibelius Academy, his research focuses on the symbolic use of electronic technologies in music.

Website | ︎

Sawtooth Duo (Sarah Albu + Matti Pulkki)

Sawtooth is an eclectic voice-accordion duo exploring connections between folk music, classical music and contemporary repertoire. With a passion for experimental textures, interdisciplinary collaboration and deep connection to narrative, Sawtooth seeks out obscure song repertoire, adapts chamber pieces written for other instruments and develops new works in collaboration with composers.

Sarah Albu is a singer, composer and performance-maker specializing in new/experimental music, 20th century repertoire and free improvisation. Montreal-based Sarah is a founding member of the experimental voice collective Phth and frequently collaborates with artists working in video, installation, contemporary dance, textiles and digital media.

Accordionist Matti Pulkki is an active and enthusiastic performer of contemporary and experimental repertoire. Often performing with different chamber groups and ensembles, Pulkki seeks to explore and extend the technical and acoustic possibilities of his instrument in the music written in our time.

Website

Program
Loudspeaker Baptism (2024) 62'00"
Chamber opera in 4 acts for soprano, accordion, Genelec 8020D, puppeteer and electronics.

Delivery — Memories — Suffering — Sublimation
Loudspeaker Baptism aims to crack open the mundane perception of a loudspeaker as a mere commodity and activate its latent archetypal and mystical meanings. Through a playful yet earnest approach, this opera connects the consumerist and technological framework of a loudspeaker with religious and spiritual symbolism. For instance, Act I: Delivery is inspired by the modern baptism of technological objects: the “unboxing” YouTube videos. Thus, this opera asks, how to meaningfully integrate a loudspeaker, with its whole “soul” and darker facets, into human spiritual life.

Electrochoc