★empreintes DIGITALes
Firmament
Three 16-channel works by Hans Tutschku from 2010 to 2014, mixed to stereo in 2015: a sleepless night under the stars, the old pianos in a hallway of the University of Cologne, and Issho ni, a half-hour ritual of folksongs, lullabies and prayers.
Poupées Mathématiques
Six 7.1-channel works by Dominique Bassal from 2012 to 2014, dark acousmatic fables about spy dolls, the Roman frontier, Babylon and Baghdad, and greenhouse gases, in 7.1, 5.1 and stereo mixes at 96 kHz. Blu-ray audio.
Morphogenèse
Five works by Swedish composer Erik Nyström from 2008 to 2012, four of them first conceived for eight channels: dense, evolving textures of particles, clouds and drones drawn from his research with Denis Smalley on spatial texture and form that grows on its own.
Dômes
Five works by Robert Normandeau from 2005 to 2014, several conceived for loudspeaker domes, from Karlsruhe trams and church bells in Kuppel to Baobabs, a Little Prince piece for four voices and the percussion group Sixtrum that won at Musica Nova 2013.
L’Envol
Six acousmatic works by Elizabeth Anderson from 1994 to 2014, mostly octophonic, from the voices of eighteen languages recorded for the Nazi fortress of Mimoyecques to sonified solar winds and a tesseract taken from A Wrinkle in Time.
Fenêtres Intérieures
Eight works by Roxanne Turcotte from 2009 to 2014, fixed media alone or with melodicas, narrator, guitars, shakuhachi and piano, from a bird and animal bestiary to field recordings of the 2012 Maple Spring protests in Montréal.
Au-Delà
Six acousmatic works by Andrew Lewis from 1987 to 2013, from Lexicon, built on a 12-year-old’s poem about dyslexia, and Dark Glass, made from breaking panes, to the Bourges prizewinners Ascent and Time and Fire and the Welsh portrait Cân.
La Marée
Five mixed works by Pierre Alexandre Tremblay from 2008 to 2013 for soloist, live processing and tape, with Sarah Nicolls on piano and Baschet-Malbos piano, Heather Roche, Peyee Chen and Jean-François Laporte on his Babel table.
Allusions Sonores
Five multichannel works by David Berezan from 2008 to 2011, each rooted in a place or a single sound: sea buoys, a Balinese thumb piano, the Alberta Badlands, the Galungan festival in Ubud and the nightingale floors of Nijō Castle.
Topographies
Five acousmatic works by Martin Bédard from 2004 to 2012 rooted in places, from the cells of Québec City’s old jail and the city’s archaeological digs to trains, a night watchman’s rounds and the 1907 collapse of the Québec Bridge.
Lieux Imaginaires
Six acousmatic works by Steven Naylor from 2000 to 2006 built around imagined places: Walkman recordings from Chiang Mai and urban Japan, mechanical toys, Kunekune pigs and a 27-minute radiophonic piece on homelessness in Halifax. DVD-Audio.
Volt
Alain Thibault's 1985-1990 music for soloists against computer-controlled tape, drawing on studio pop, rock and jazz: a MIDI piano concerto for Jacques Drouin, a piece for soprano Pauline Vaillancourt, excerpts from his video opera OUT and ELVIS for saxophone quartet.
Greffes
A ten-year retrospective of Monique Jean, 2000 to 2011: two acousmatic works framing three mixed pieces where tenor saxophone (André Leroux), electric guitar (Tim Brady) and bass clarinet (Lori Freedman) are grafted onto processing and fixed sounds. DVD-Audio.
À l’Ombre des Ondes
Three pieces from 2011 by the French duo Kristoff K.Roll, made for headphones and an afternoon nap: “audio-talking naps” in which real dream narratives told by friends float through concrete sounds, field recordings and improvisation.
Formes Audibles
Six acousmatic works from 2007 to 2011 by the English composer Manuella Blackburn, built from kitchen utensils, switches and an old TV, a cajón, electric guitar, Japanese instruments recorded in Tokyo and sounds from Denis Smalley’s Wind Chimes.
Palimpsestes
Five acousmatic works by Robert Normandeau from 2005 to 2011, from the onomatopoeia piece Palimpseste to the 38-channel Anadliad for Welsh pibgorn and bagpipe and the reversible Palindrome, recorded with the organ and bells of Bourges cathedral.
Intérieurs Harmoniques
Six works by the New York composer Elizabeth Hoffman from 2001 to 2011, obsessed with harmonic design and unnatural resonance, built from percussion recorded by TimeTable Percussion, close-miked water, birdcalls, two violins and insects heard just after 9/11.
Voix
Yves Daoust’s Chorals ornés, a rereading of the 14 chorales of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein for organ and fixed medium with Régis Rousseau on a 1961 Beckerath organ and Québec poems, plus three works from 2002-05 on time, voice and found objects. DVD-Audio.
Contrechamps
Seven acousmatic works by Adrian Moore from 2006 to 2010, most composed in surround from the outset, including Fields of Darkness and Light for violinist Darragh Morgan, first prize at Musica Nova 2010, and 3Pieces from horn, violin and piano. DVD-Audio.
Scènes
Six works by Pete Stollery from 2004 to 2007: radio sports commentaries, a homage to Delia Derbyshire, three pieces mapping the sounds of rural Aberdeenshire, and a sound walk along the route of Claude Lelouch’s film C’était un rendez-vous.