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Program
Yulin Yan: Studies for the Second Womb
For tenor saxophone, violoncello and live electronics
Performer·s: Audréanne Filion (cello), Antonin Bourgault (saxophone)
This mixed piece stems from a profound reflection on a universal auditory experience shared by humanity: the sounds perceived by a fetus within its maternal womb. The title "The Second Womb" carries dual symbolism: it not only alludes to the physiological womb, representing the auditory space that this composition endeavors to reconstruct musically, but also hints at the potential of an artificial womb in future societies—a concept that fuels my vision of humanity's prospective trajectory.
Estelle Schorpp: A conversation between a partially educated parrot and a machine
For augmented gramophone and a computer
Duration: 25'
Through the use of both original and digitalized birds’ recordings archives from the 1930’s, this performance explores the historical and sonic relationships between birds, humans and sound reproduction technologies. In the late 19th century, Eldridge Johnson, head of Victor Records, said about the phonograph that it “sounded much like a partially educated parrot with a sore throat and a cold in the head” (Kenney, 2003; 47). This is the same phonograph that Ludwig Koch used in 1889 to make the first recording of a white-rumped shama in a zoo in Frankfurt. This comparison gave rise to the idea of establishing a creative dialogue between sound technologies (old and new) and birdsongs. The performance recontextualizes the history of birdsong’s recordings by blending documentary archives, shellac records, gramophone and contemporary interactive algorithmic technologies. The project emphasizes a dynamic back- and-forth between several types of discourse (documentary and fictional), technology (computer and gramophone), gesture and sound (bird song and technological artifacts). In so doing, A Conversation Between a Partially Educated Parrot and a Machine offers an immersive sound experience in which birds, machines and humans make music together.
Hannah Barnes: The Garden
For voice and electronics
Duration: 6'
Performer·s: Joanna (Asia) Mieleszko (voice)
Imagist poet H.D.’s text is a quiet and oblique defiance of oppressive forces. The syllables of the poem and the extracted vocal sounds stutter and slide towards the assertion of their own identity. One of the compositional aims of this piece is to create a new expressiveness in the use of an overlooked text.
The Garden was composed for mezzo soprano Joanna Mieleszko in July 2022.
Luis Naón: Tango del Desamparo
For cello, piano and electronics, including narration, singing, and gongs
Performer·s: Juan Sebastián Delgado (cello), Redi Llupa (piano)
Written in 1987 for cello, piano and electronics, the players also narrate, sing and play gongs creating a sound-world that echoes feelings of anguish, despair and impotence caused by the dictatorship of Argentina during the 70s. The composer writes, “ death has always been one of the main themes in tango. “The Neglect Tango” is an autobiographical piece but it does not tell a story, it is rather about the emotion and pain caused by the death of my brother. In the scene, the instrumentalists sing, recite and algo play percussion instruments. In the magnetic tape there are voices, bandoneon that turn into sirens and percussive tango phrases that sound like bangs.
Biographies
Yulin Yan
Yulin Yan, born in 1998, is a composer of instrumental and electroacoustic music. Her works are characterized by nuanced timbre and tension, emphasizing the ambiguity of the perception of reality and fantasy. Besides the sonic layer, the intensity of her works is often created by reference to extra-musical content, including literature, theatrical elements, olfactory art as well as social issues.
Yan's music have been programmed on various occasions across the world, including ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week, live@CIRMMT, Code d'accès, Novalis Festival, Roadrunner Academy, Thailand International Composition Festival etc. She collaborated with Ensemble Suono Giallo, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Éclat, McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, New Zealand String Quartet, as well as conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt, Gregor A. Mayrhofer, Charles-Eric Fontaine etc. She is the recipient of Schulich Grad Scholarship, National Scholarship (China), and Sichuan Outstanding Graduate. She holds a bachelor degree from Sichuan Conservatory of Music where she studied composition with Xiaozhong Yang. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree at McGill University Schulich School of Music with Philippe Leroux, where she also obtained her master’s degree.
Audréanne Filion
Audréanne Filion is a Montreal-based cellist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Mainly working in the field of creation, contemporary and experimental music, she has premiered numerous works by fellow Canadian new music composers, including pieces by Sarah Davachi, Takuto Fukuda, Keiko Devaux, Geneviève Ackerman, Jean Décarie, Simon Martin, Mike Maevsky, Yulin Yan, and many others. She is a member of Ensemble Tesse, Ensemble Éclat, Quatuor Mémoire, and the Filion/Bourgault duo, and freelances with other chamber ensembles such as Projections Libérantes, No Hay Banda, SuperMusique and Novarumori. She also pursues a solo project combining electroacoustic composition and cello improvisation, exploring the fusion of styles—instrumental and electronic, ambient and noise, classical and experimental. Her music has been featured at Totem Électrique XV, Interzone Editions, Festival OKLA, at SAT for the EAF serie, the 6th edition of ViU concert, Midfield 02, Codes d’accès Masse 2022 concert, the Jardins de Métis in Rimouski in 2022, and the Women Between Arts series in New York in 2018. Active in the experimental pop scene, Audréanne performs with various groups, including Everly Lux and Xela Edna, and frequently collaborates with electronic musicians such as YlangYlang, Jessica Moss, Kid Koala, Erika Angell and Myriam Bleau. Her musical endeavors have taken her to Canada, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Germany.
Antonin Bourgault
Antonin Bourgault is a Montreal-based saxophonist, improviser and composer, active in contemporary and experimental music scenes. He has performed solo and ensemble works by current composers such as Corie-Rose Soumah, Yulin Yan, Geneviève Ackerman, Thomas Gauthier-Lang, Jonathan Goulet, Daphné Hejebri, Victor Burton- Dallaire, Jérémie Martineau and Hans Martin. As a chamber musician, he is a founding member of the saxophone quartet Treffpunkt, and he has played with Ensemble Saxologie and Ensemble 333 ToutArtBel.
As a composer/improviser, his work revolves around bringing together the sound worlds of contemporary music, experimental instrumental music and electroacoustics. On the Montreal experimental scene, he has played in various formations, notably in the Filion/Bourgault duo with Audréanne Filion, as well as with Preston Beebe, Karl-André Rozankovic, Pablo Jimenez, Salomé Perli, Dominic Jasmin, Victor Burton and Kulusé Souriant. He holds a master's degree in saxophone performance from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal in André Leroux's class. In the field of composition, he holds a certificate in digital music from the Université de Montréal.
Estelle Schorpp
Estelle Schorpp is a Montreal-based sound artist and composer. She uses the tools and methods of research-creation to set up projects that take a critical and creative look at our relationship with the sound and media environment. Integrating concepts from disciplines such as sound studies, media theory, acoustics and psychoacoustics, her polymorphous approach combines performance, sound installation and algorithmic composition, as well as academic communication and the writing of scientific articles.
Her work has been presented in festivals such as La Biennale di Venezia (IT), Ars Electronica (AT), MUTEK (MX, CA, AR, JP), Akousma (CA), FIMAV (CA), Le Mans Sonore (FR), Exhibitronic (FR, DE), MuTeFest (FI) and in group exhibitions at the Centre d'Exposition de l'Université de Montréal (CA), Palais des Beaux-Arts de Paris (FR) and Exhibition Laboratory (FI). Her researches have been presented in several symposiums at ISEA22 (SP), CIRMMT (CA), Université de Montréal (CA) and EHESS (FR) and she has published articles as main author or co-author in Organised Sound, eContact!, Cahiers Louis Lumière and Canadian Acoustics Journal.
Hannah Barnes
Hannah A. Barnes is a Montréal-based composer, conductor, and performer. Her compositional interests are centered around creating interlocking cycles of works that pursue common goals through different means, or the inverse. Musical materials that are mercurial, off-kilter, and seemingly incompatible are of greatest interest to her work.
Recent projects include a piece for prepared harp composed for and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, a piano/percussion work for Flannau Duo, and a large ensemble work for McGill University's Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Currently a DMus student at McGill University studying with Prof. Jean Lesage and Prof. Philippe Leroux, Hannah completed a Master’s degree with distinction in composition at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois (MM ’21, BM ’19) with additional studies in conducting with Prof. Michael Lewanski.
Creative collaboration is central to her artistic practice. She has worked closely with soloists including oboist Kyle Bruckmann, guitarist Jesse Langen, hornist Tarre Nelson, vocalist Joanna Mieleszko, percussionist Alexander Garde, and pianist Ian Pace to develop new works. She has conducted her own work and premieres of works by other composers with Ensemble Dal Niente in the DePaul and Dal Niente Summer Residency for New Music. She has participated in summer festivals including the DePaul and Dal Niente Summer Residency for New Music, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), SPLICE Institute, the Darmstadt Summer Courses, and the Yarn/Wire Institute. Hannah’s music has been presented at venues including the Darmstadt Summer Courses, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan, the Eastman School of Music, City University London, and various venues in Chicago and Montréal. Her electric guitar piece Negative Capability was presented in a two-player re-reading (as "Negative Capability II") at the 2022 Omaha Under the Radar Festival in Omaha, Nebraska in collaboration with Jesse Langen.
She was a recipient of an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Morton Gould Young Composer's Award competition for her work five images. Hannah is also the director of the rhythm is image new music initiative, in which she performs and conducts, with an emphasis on experimental performance practices.Teaching is also important to Hannah; she has taught theory to wonderful high schoolers at the Chicago Music Academy, music majors at DePaul University, and a variety of students at McGill University.
Joanna (Asia) Mieleszko
Joanna (Asia) Mieleszko is a singer, conductor, protector of the (very) old, and pioneer of the daringly new. Recent highlights include being a 2024 Fellow of the Cortona Sessions for New Music, an Artist-in-Residence as part of the 2023/24 New Jersey Folk Festival season, premiering Hannah Barnes’ The Garden at SHE: Festival of Women in Music, and presenting programs of Ukrainian village polyphony at the 2024 Crandall Public Library Folklife Series, Zlatne Uste Festival, and the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
With musical roots in both Eastern European folk music and the classical tradition, Asia’s noise-making oscillates between these musical conventions and, when possible, bridges the two disparate sonic worlds. She is the current musical director of the NYC-based Ukrainian Village Voices as well as the acting artistic director and principal vocalist of AEON Ensemble, ushering in twelve world premieres and fifteen synesthetic collaborations since the latter’s resurrection at the 2019 Queens New Music Festival.
Outside of her musical endeavors, she works as a photographer and writes for Strong Towns, a non-profit dedicated to upending the destructive development patterns that have robbed American communities from the ability to build financially resilient, walkable places.
Juan Sebastián Delgado
Argentinean cellist Juan Sebastián Delgado completed Doctoral studies in performance at McGill University studying with Matt Haimovitz and focusing on contemporary music and Nue- vo Tango. The CBC Radio Ideas chose his artistic research to be featured throughout Canada and he was the featured cellist in the episode Virtuoso Brain by the TV program Decouverte.
First-prize winner at the Latin-American Cello Festival (2008), Juan Sebastián is active in the creation and dissemination of new works that explore the cello in innovative ways, having con- ducted a variety of projects in 28 different countries, including three cello concertos written for him; Pájaro contra el borde de la noche for solo cello, ensemble and electronics by Luis Naon (Paris Conservatory), commissioned by Radio France, Cinco Tangos Apócrifos for cello and string ensemble by Jorge Bosso (2016) and The Night of a Capricious Dawn (2022) for cello and orchestra by Jason Noble. Invited to participate at the Creative Dialogues 2017, he worked with world-renowned composer Kaija Saariaho and premiered works for strings and electronics in He- linski, Finland. At the Lyon Biennale 2018, he premiered Daniel!s Tango for cello and marimba by Marcelo Nisinman. In September of 2019, Juan Sebastian was invited by the Albanian Gov- ernment to perform with pianist Redi Llupa at the Academy of Science and Arts in Tirana pre- miering new works for cello and piano by Albanian composers (Simaku, Tole). Delgado has re- leased less-known solo cello works including Puneña N2, a tour de force by Alberto Ginastera which was reviewed by former Ginastera!"student and acclaimed composer Alcides Lanza as a "brilliant interpretation,” and Synchronism No.3 for solo cello and electronics by Pulitzer-prize winner Mario Davidovsky recorded by CIRMMT for its 20th anniversary. He recently performed as soloist with the Obiora Ensemble (Montreal), the UMBC Chamber Orchestra (Baltimore), and the Baroque Orchestra of Mendoza (Argentina).
Redi Llupa
Pianist Redi Llupa has distinguished himself by performing in prestigious venues in Europe, North and South Americas, and Asia. An avid advocate of contemporary repertoire, Llupa continuously collaborates with and performs music by living composers and has been the dedicatee of works by Aleksandër Peçi, Ermir Bejo, and Joseph Klein.
Since 2015, he worked closely with legendary African American composer George Walker, who in 1996 won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Llupa is the first pianist to have given the premiere performance of Walker’s complete piano sonatas in one concert in 2017. Lawrence Budmen of South Florida Classical Review noted: “These are daunting works for the performer, filled with pianistic minefields. Llupa has clearly mastered their challenges. His formidable technique was matched by a real affinity and sensitivity for each sonata’s distinctive musical voice.” Llupa also made the first European performance of the complete Walker piano sonatas in REMUSICA International Festival in Kosovo. Currently, Llupa is collaborating with composer Joseph Klein on a piano concerto dedicated to him, with the premiere scheduled for 2025 in Miami with Ensemble Ibis of the Frost School of Music.
Llupa has appeared in various festivals as a guest artist and lecturer including Festival Baltimore at UMBC, PIANODROM International Festival in Tirana, ReMusica International Festival in Pristina, James Madison Contemporary Music Festival in Virginia, and New Century New Voices in Vermont. He has also appeared in the prestigious international festival of new music in Mexico, Foro Internacional de Música Nueva Manuel Enríquez, where he gave the Mexican premieres of music by Walker and Bejo.
Luis Naón
Born in La Plata, Argentina, in 1961. Studied music at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires, then at the CNSM in Paris with Guy Reibel, Laurent Cuniot and Daniel Teruggi. Doctorate in Aesthetics, Science and Technology of the Arts, Université Paris 8 with Horacio Vaggione. Since 1991, professor at the CNSM de Paris. Professor of Composition at the ESMuC (Catalonia) between 2004 and 2009, Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève since 2006. Co-artistic director of the Diagonal ensemble.
Wrote the Urbana cycle (25 pieces for various formations) between 1991 and 2013, Les Princesses for the inauguration of the TAP (Poitiers) in 2008, documented on the double CD Princesses (empreinte Digitale 2015) with Ensemble Ars Nova.
His most recent works include: “Quebrada/Horizonte” for orchestra, “Pájaro al borde de la noche” for cello, electronics and ensemble, premiered at Radio France's recent Présences festivals, “Ébano y Metal” for the Lemanic Modern Ensemble, premiered in Lausanne, and “Blíster” (action béllico-psychiatrique) for the TACEC, premiered at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata-Argentina.
He is currently working on a String Quartet with electronics for the Diotima Quartet, to be premiered at the reopening of IRCAM's Espace de Projection and at the “Tage für Neue Musik” in Zurich, in collaboration with the ICST (Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technologie).