Jean-François Denis: biography
Jean-François Denis (Montréal, Québec, 1960)
• residence: Montréal, Québec
• composer • artist
Jean-François Denis first discovered electroacoustics during a summer course given by Kevin Austin in 1981 at Concordia University in Montréal. Hooked, he pursued music studies at Mills College in Oakland (California, USA) under David Rosenboom (MFA, 1984). He has worked in live electroacoustics (solo and in ensembles) and works for dance and multimedia since 1982.
He is the director of DIFFUSION i MéDIA (1989) which produces and distributes the empreintes DIGITALes (1990), the SONARt (1992) and the No Type (2002) record labels. Jean-François Denis is one of the three co-founders of Réseaux des arts médiatiques (1991) which presented 15 “Rien à voir” concerts series (1997-2004) and now presents the “Akousma” and “Pulsar” series.
He was awarded a fellowship grant from the ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec (1988), from the Canada Council for the Arts (1988; 1989-90, 1993), and from the French Government (1990), was an artist in residence at the studio Grame (Lyon, France, 1988), at the Media Arts program of The Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, Alberta, 1989), and at the studio Collectif & Cie (Annecy, France, 1990). In 1994 he was awarded the Canadian League of Composers (CLC) Prize for his exceptional commitment to Canadian composers. In 1995 he was presented the Jean A Chalmers Award for Musical Composition — Presenters’ Award for his contribution to the diffusion of new Canadian (electroacoustic music) work.
He has taught electroacoustics at Concordia University (1985-89) in Montréal where he also directed the Concordia Electroacoustic Composers’ Group (CECG) annual concert series. He was the editor of the CECG Tape Collection catalogs Q/Résonance (1988) and Q/Résonance Addendum (1989). Jean-François Denis was a member of the organizing committee of the Festival/Conference 2001(-14) (Montréal, May 1987). He is a founding member (1986) and the first president of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) (1986-87; 1987-90) and the founder and first editor of the CEC publication Contact! (1988-90) and has edited the 1988 CEC Electroacoustic Days Diffusion! GUIDE and the 1989 >convergence< GUIDE. Jean-François Denis is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) (1989) and a member of the Canadian League of Composers (CLC) (1990).
He has also been on many boards of directors: Conseil québécois de la musique (CQM) (for several years, until September 1998), Canadian Music Centre — Québec Region (2001-08), Canadian Music Centre — National (2002-08), Et Marianne et Simon (2001-), Les Filles électriques (2001-07), and The SOCAN Foundation (2003-).
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Jean-François Denis
