History
>Réseaux: An Organization Unique in Canada
The electroacoustic music concert production company Réseaux is unique, not only in Quebec but in all of Canada. Réseaux is the only production company solely devoted to presenting concerts of electroacoustic music featuring the works of Canadian and foreign composers, in equal parts. Because of that, it differs from all the other concert societies devoted to new music or contemporary music. Some of these other organizations do program electroacoustic events from time to time, but that is not their main mission. Réseaux is the only organization commissioning works from electroacoustic music composers on a regular basis, premiering these works at its concerts, and bringing them back in its regular programming.
Réseaux found a unique niche in the country, a niche several of our colleagues from abroad envy us. Some countries, such as Italy and Germany, have no similar concert society. And if Montreal can rightfully claim to be the North American capital of electroacoustics, it is most certainly due to Réseaux, since it is thanks to us that this music is presented on the Quebec professional scene.
Origins
Electro Music (electroacoustic, concrète, acousmatic… music) is still very much cutting-edge, even more than 50 years after its invention. More active than ever, it bubbles with energy and finds increased recognition on the global cultural scene. Concrete music (or musique concrète) turned 50 years old in 1998. Indeed, it was in 1948 that Pierre Schaeffer, then in charge of the Studio d’essai of the French national radio (ex-ORTF), realized that the floppy discs on which on-air recordings were etched allowed one to work on sound itself, therefore bestowing on the latter a new title, that of sound material. This sound material can be manipulated, treated and modulated according to the artist’s experience and desires, all that in the studio, regardless of interpretation. At that point, the need to notate sounds disappears, as the music is directly realized, like a painting on canvas or a sculpture in stone.
Mission and Goals
Réseaux’s main mission is to publicly present the works realized by the artists and production groups active in the field of Electro music using an array of loudspeakers. The works in question can be acousmatic (tape music), mixed (tape and instruments), live (live electronics) or include an other art form, such as video, dance or installation art. Réseaux’s channels mostly consist of concerts and databases (Réseaux’s website echoing the latter) allowing for the works to come to life on the stage and for the writings to be published.
History
Composers Jean-François Denis, Gilles Gobeil and Robert Normandeau incepted Réseaux des arts médiatiques in 1991, in Montréal.
First Concerts
Réseaux produced its first concert, Top secret, hommage à Francis Dhomont, at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montréal, on November 2, 1991, the day of the composer’s 65th birthday, in a co-production with empreintes DIGITALes.
Shortly, two other projects came together: Montréal: 350e, which featured Robert Normandeau’s piece Tangram, presented at the Montréal Planetarium during the festivities for the 350th anniversary of the City of Montréal (9 concerts between May and October 1992), and; the opening concert of the 5th Concert Hall at the Place des arts (May 29, 1992, co-produced by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal).
Later, Réseaux co-produced with Codes d’Accès two concerts entitled L’orchestre de haut-parleurs (February 27-28, 1996) at the Agora de la danse, during the Musiques échange Québec-Belgique Festival (February 24-March 4, 1996).
Following that co-production, Réseaux worked on finding the resources to present a regular season of acousmatic concerts.
Acousmatic Concerts
Between the 1996-97 and 2003-04 seasons, Réseaux produced 15 editions of the Rien à voir series of acousmatic concerts. Each edition featured several concerts (between 9 and 11), with over one hundred concerts presented over the last six years. At first, the series was presented at the Théâtre La Chapelle in Montréal (an 85-seat venue devoted to contemporary dance, theatre and music). For the 1999-2000 and 2000-01, the series moved to the Ex-Centris cineplex. The last three seasons were presented at Espace GO and the Musée d’art contemporain.
Mixed Music (since 1998)
Réseaux also produced or co-produced a few concerts of mixed music: Par(A)cousmatique in 1998 (with the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville); Plein la vue in 1999, at Théâtre La Chapelle; Flûte! un concert in 2001, in collaboration with Radio-Canada; MusMix 1 & 2 in 2002 and 2004, co-produced with the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM). These single events answered specific requests from the performers, who premiered about ten new works for these occasions.
iConcerts (since 2003)
In 2003, we started to present virtual concerts on our website, where the works commissioned by Réseaux are made available, with the composers’ agreement.
Pulsar (since 2004)
A new series of acousmatic concerts presented at the Montréal Planetarium.
Akousma (since 2005)
Since 2005, Réseaux is producing a new series of concerts devoted to all kinds of Electro music, in an attempt to echo the current concerns of composers who thrive to diversify their interventions in a frantic music world where practices are increasingly fragmented.
Work Commissions
Since the beginnings of the Rien à voir series in 1996-97, Réseaux has commissioned over 30 works. Composers Nicolas Borycki, Christian Bouchard, Nicolas Boucher, Ned Bouhalassa, Christian Calon, Yves Daoust, Francis Dhomont, Paul Dolden, Louis Dufort, Alain Gauthier, Monique Jean, Elainie Lillios, Mathieu Marcoux, Milliseconde topographie, Robert Normandeau, John Oswald, Éric Rocheleau, Stéphane Roy, Wayne Siegel, Randall Smith, Jacques Tremblay, Marc Tremblay and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay all had some of their works premiered at one of the concerts produced by Réseaux. [See the commissions section.]
Premieres
In addition to the works commissioned by Réseaux, we have premiered close to a hundred other works by Canadian composers and composers from all over the word, some of them quite noteworthy, such as: Jon Appleton (USA), François Bayle (France), Martin Bédard (Quebec), Anders Blomqvist (Sweden), Michel Chion (France), Francis Dhomont (Canada-France), François Donato (France), Roger Doyle, Georges Forget (France), Gilles Gobeil (Quebec), Jens Hedman (Sweden), Alcides Lanza (Quebec), Andrew Lewis (Wales), Theodore Lotis (Greece), Rasmus Lunding (Denmark), René Lussier (Quebec), John Oliver (Canada), Åke Parmerud (Sweden), Arturo Parra (Quebec), Guy Pelletier (Quebec), Jean-Louis Poliart (Belgium), Laurie Radford (Canada), Peter Stollery (Scotland), Paulina Sundin (Sweden), Annette Vande Gorne (Belgium), John Young (England). [See the premieres section.]
Support to Young Composers
Every Rien à voir series included a concert devoted to young composers. As a result, composers like Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Nicolas Boucher, Éric Rocheleau, Alain Gauthier, Louis Dufort, Alexandre Menachi, François Girouard, Nicolas Borycki, Justine Lamoureux, Julien Roy, Sylvain Pohu, Mathieu Marcoux, Stephen De Oliveira, Yves Gigon, Christian Bouchard, Karèya Audet, Gaëlle Lemasson, Martine H Crispo, Catherine Chaumont, Nicolas Basque, Martin Marier, David Turgeon, Martin Leclerc, Andrea Holtslander, Guillaume Coutu Dumont, Mathieu Lafontaine and Georges Forget saw their works presented, often for the first time in a professional concert. Some of these names are now established as professional composers.
Since 2004, thanks to the support of the SOCAN Foundation who holds the SOCAN Foundation Competition for Young Composers (for composers age 30 and under), Réseaux produces a concert presenting the works that have won the Hugh-Le Caine Award at that competition. [See the socan awards section.]
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