Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques: Third edition
Montréal, Tuesday, January 23, 2007 — From February 24 to March 8, 2007, contemporary musical creation, in a multitude of guises, sounds, and colours, will be front and centre at the third edition of the Montreal/New Music International Festival (MNM). The focus this year will be on the brilliant eclecticism and creative freedom of today’s music on the Quebec and Canadian as well as international scenes. From the symphonic to the acousmatic, by way of the most explosive electronic music and multimedia, passing through chamber music, vocal music, and invented instruments, artistic directors Walter Boudreau and Denys Bouliane have assembled a program that will feast your eyes as well as your ears! Major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras from here and around the world will be on the bill.
Great Gathering
MNM 2007 is produced by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, in partnership with the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Espace musique (Radio-Canada), CBC Radio Two (93.5) and the following associated partners: the Montreal High Lights Festival, the Canadian Music Centre — Quebec region, Jeunesses Musicales Canada, the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique de Montréal, the Faculty of Music of the Université de Montréal, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), Elektra, Réseaux, Totem Contemporain, Quasar, Espaces sonores illimités (ESI), the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM), the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM), the Orpheus Singers, the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation. The festival will be presented in Montreal and reprised in Toronto and Paris, thanks to partnerships with the Soundstreams Canada Festival and Radio France.
Great Scale
MNM 2007 will present 26 concerts, 72 composers, 28 ensembles, 11 conductors, 23 soloists, over 700 musicians, an international symposium on the theme “Composing in the 21st Century,” a special performance at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, 7 talks / lectures, and 6 masterclassses. The majority of the concerts will be taped by Radio-Canada and CBC, and broadcast over both the English and French networks, and will be pitched to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which regroups 55 countries. The Montreal High Lights Festival will host MNM’s official opening concert at the Society for Arts and Technology and also collaborate in our public event, which will see over 100 young musicians stationed at the Palais des Congrès to greet participants along the route of the Montreal underground marathon in a resounding welcome. MNM will host a number of awareness-raising and familiarization activities: 5 concerts that will bring together students from Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, and Montreal (MNM-Midi); 5 creative workshops for youth (Musicolateur), produced with Jeunesses Musicales Canada; and the pre-premiere of a show for teens (La Fugue).
Quality in Diversity
Once again this year, the festival will present an opportunity to chart some of the more important composers of today: “classic” composers in the genre or “new kids on the block”… the door is open to everyone, the only credo being: quality in diversity! The festival’s increasingly growing and younger audiences inspired the orientation of this year’s festival, which revolves around the works of “delinquent” composers who have made their mark through the force of their personalities, underpinned by a remarkable independence of spirit, as evidenced in Stockhausen, Zappa, Hendrix, and Xenakis. It is a theme for young people, always eager for daring and liberating new experiences. Some of the special hybrid concerts will integrate visual elements (Elektra), invented instruments (Totem Contemporain), improvised music (Spatio-Lumino), mixed music (Haimovitz), and electronic (Quasar).
72 Composers from Here and Abroad
MNM 2007 will be the place to take the national and international creative pulse through performances of trendsetting works and several world, North American, and Canadian premieres. MNM has always welcomed prominent players from various cultural centres throughout the world, and this year is no exception, with numerous renowned composers and performers being featured in concert and in conference: Hugues Dufourt (France), Moritz Eggert (Germany), Mauro Lanza (Italy), Philippe Leroux (France), Martin Matalon (Argentina), Manfred Stahnke (Germany), as well as most of today’s Canadian composers.
28 Ensembles, 11 Conductors, 23 Soloists and 700 Musicians
Under the aegis of MNM, a long list of large ensembles and soloists continue to forge new music’s reputation for excellence and vitality. Among the stars at the 2007 edition will be the prestigious Norwegian ensemble Theatre of Voices, founded by Paul Hillier (of the Hilliard Ensemble), who will sing Stockhausen’s Stimmung, first in Montreal and then in Toronto as part of the Soundstreams Festival, while the Castagneri quartet (France) will present a world premiere of a Radio France commission, by Canadian composer Paul Frehner. Canada will be represented by the Continuum ensemble (Toronto) and the Aventa ensemble musicians (Victoria, BC), who will join the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (ECM). We are thrilled to have with us again the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM), with violin soloist Alain Giguère, the Ensemble de la SMCQ, and soprano Ingrid Schmithüsen, along with the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME). To close this year’s edition, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will join us for the grand finale, featuring a violin soloist, saxophone quartet, and synchronous film projected on a giant screen, under the direction of Walter Boudreau.
Special Events
For ardent fans of electroacoustic music and cutting-edge technologies, MNM is presenting, in association with the Montreal High Lights Festival, two dazzling evenings at the Society for Arts and Technology: Spatio-Lumino, which brings together Theresa Transistor, Milliseconde Topographie, Réseaux, and Espaces sonores illimités, in collaboration with the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and Les (nouvelles) boîtes de Pandore! with Matt Haimovitz’s ensemble Ucello and the Quasar saxophone quartet. Two special performances of composer Michelle Boudreau’s new creation will be presented at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, and Elektra will present Robot Coop at Usine C for the ‘Nuit Blanche’ event.
Symposium, Masterclasses, Conferences
The Observatoire International de Création Musicale (OICM) in residence at Université de Montréal, under the direction of musicologist Michel Duchesneau, in association with MNM, will host a symposium entitled “Composing in the 21st Century.” Numerous delegates from here and elsewhere will be in attendance over the three days of the symposium. The MNM concerts presented during this time have been specially created to serve as leitmotif to the main theme and to the invited guests. In addition, the renowned Schulich School of Music of McGill University will once again host over a dozen conferences and masterclasses, given by guest composers and performers, whose fascinating talks will set the tone for the thirteen days of musical festivities.
— 30 —
Source: Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ)
Attaché de presse: Alain Labonté communications: 514-523-9922
{mailto(alain.labonte@videotron.ca)}