Appartenances (2003), 27m06s

commission: Réseaux des arts médiatiques, with support from the CCA

Montréal moves to the universal rhythm of the multitude, a traveler scattering her traditions and cultures around the world. A striking acknowledgement after spending many years in such a conservative America: Montréal, MY city, is rich by her diversity, her cultural swarming, and the conviviality of her ethnic blends. Fascinated by the rediscovery of this urban landscape, I felt the urge to evoke it in music.

Appartenances (Belongings) grew out of phonographies of this Montréal mosaic recorded while walking around in the city streets. I have used these phonographies as raw sound material. I worked on it in the studio to shape it and let it slip toward a more abstract form. Besides a few explicit quotes, these transformations free the sound matter from its referent without stripping away its immanent nature: its aura, be it Celtic, Latin or Oriental, as you wish. As in many other pieces of mine, the poetic discourse is rarely denoted, instead it provides the initial impulse to open the doors to creation and reception, the impulse that helps one escape to the unheard-of, thanks to the interplay of sound forms.

Appartenances was realized in 2003 in the composer’s studio in Montréal and premiered on 22 March 2003 as part of the Rien à voir (13) concert series presented by Réseaux at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Excerpts from the poems Heureux qui comme Ulysse… by Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560) and L’invitation au voyage by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) are read by Tzu Ying Hwong and Claudine Jomphe. Appartenances was commissioned by Réseaux with the help of the Canadian Council for the Arts. Thanks to Tzu Ying Hwong for sharing in exchange some of the musical heritage of his native China.

Performances

Rien à voir (13)
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Stéphane Roy: carte blanche + concert solo
• premiere