Reservations

Online ticket reservations are now closed. If you would like to attend, please arrive 10 minutes before the concert and you will be admitted if seats are available.

For CIRMMT students wishing to have their attendance tracked for awards eligibility, please ensure to reserve your own seat.

We welcome you to share this event via Facebook.

Program

Steve Reich: Vermont Counterpoint (1982)

For solo flute and 10 pre-recorded flute parts.
Performer·s: Alex Huyghebaert (flute), David Piazza (spatialization), André Godinho (recording sound engineer)

Vermont Counterpoint is the first composition by Steve Reich written for solo instrument and tape, an instrumentation he would later explore in other works. The piece was created in response to a request from flutist Ransom Wilson in 1982. He had asked for a flute concerto, and in response, Reich composed a piece for soloist and pre-recorded accompaniment, where the flutist records all 10 accompanying tracks themselves. The work is scored for three alto flutes, three flutes, three piccolos, and solo flute. Reflecting Reich's minimalist style, Vermont Counterpoint uses simple motifs that are slightly staggered in time, creating new melodies as the offset motifs blend in the listener's ear. In our 360-degree spatialisation of the 10 tracks, our aim is to emphasise these emerging melodies, helping listeners to both distinguish and blend different musical lines.

Ensemble Modulaire – Synthetic Landscapes* (2025)

Three pieces for four modular synthesizers.
Performer·s: Daniel Áñez, Pierre-Luc Lecours, Maryse Legault, David Piazza

Nicolas Bernier: Synth Quartet No.1* (2025)

Duration: 8'15"

Myriam Boucher: Sur ta peau* (2025)

Duration: 8'

Pierre-Luc Lecours: WA.VE* (2025)

Duration: 8'15"

This program is a contemporary electronic music concert performed by the Ensemble Modulaire, composed of four modular synthesizer performers: Daniel Áñez, Pierre-Luc Lecours, Maryse Legault, and Davis Piazza. The ensemble is directed by the composer and synthesizer performer Pierre-Luc Lecours. The concert includes three pieces, specifically written for the ensemble by Myriam Boucher, Nicolas Bernier, and Pierre-Luc Lecours, around the theme "Synthetic Landscapes."

For the Ensemble Modulaire, this concert marks its first public performance. Modular synthesis interpretation is a rapidly developing field with significant artistic and expressive potential, particularly for ensemble performance, which has been little explored until now. The Ensemble Modulaire's mission is to promote composition and interpretation for modular synthesizer and to explore and highlight the specifics of ensemble playing with this instrument.

Gaël Moriceau: Étude pour T-Stick Sopranino solo et granulation (2023)

For T-Stick sopranino. Duration: 6'
Performer·s: Gaël Moriceau

This performance offers an exploration of sound synthesis and instrumental gestures using the T-Stick, a well-established gestural controller. Mapped to a granulation-based sound engine developed in the SuperCollider environment, the T-Stick transforms into a digital musical instrument (DMI), enabling the performer to shape sounds in real-time. The choice to employ granulation stems from its capability to effortlessly generate complex sounds by creating dense clusters of short "grains" extracted from sound files. This study marks the initial phase of a research project aimed at expanding the T-Stick repertoire and developing new playing techniques for DMIs.

Ensemble de Feedback Libre: 3.1416* (2025)

For real-time audio feedback devices.
Performer·s: Merlin Campbell, Sabrina Caron alias Sabe, Alexandre Marchand, Antoine Morin, Kasey Pocius, Jean-Philippe Jullin (spatialization)

Feedback and improvisation go well together. We explore the expressive potential of feedback interpretation; we create feedback devices with musical potential, and we develop different modus operandi for free improvisation. What are the guidelines for free feedback? This is where our research-creation work is located. 3.1416.

* denotes premiere

Biographies

Ensemble Modulaire

Daniel Áñez

Daniel Áñez is a Colombian pianist specializing in contemporary Latin American repertoire, residing in Montreal, Canada. As a soloist and chamber musician with Ensemble Wapiti and No Hay Banda, Daniel has participated in concerts in over 15 countries across the Americas and Europe, as well as in the creation of more than 50 works. His performances have been published on albums by labels such as Kairos Music, No Hay Discos, Ambiances Magnétiques, Parma Records, the Ministry of Culture of Colombia, Tacuabé/Ayuí, and independent albums. Daniel also plays the ondes Martenot and modular synthesizers as a performer and improviser. He is the co-founder and co-director of the No Hay Banda concert series and a member of the editorial board of the journal Circuit. He holds a doctorate in piano performance from the University of Montreal.

Maryse Legault

Maryse Legault, whose playing has been described as "transcendent" by the Wall Street Journal, obtained her master's degree in historical clarinet performance from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag in 2017, under the guidance of Eric Hoeprich. Legault regularly joins numerous period instrument ensembles in Canada and internationally, including Teatro Nuovo, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, The Handel & Haydn Society, Arion Orchestre Baroque, MusicAeterna, and Les Siècles. Her debut solo album, Around Baermann, recorded with Gili Loftus, has been critically acclaimed since its release on the Leaf Music label in 2023.

Maryse created her first piece for clarinet, live signal processing, and fixed media, A Hundred Waves, based on the sound world of synthesizer pioneer Suzanne Ciani, at live@CIRMMT in December 2022. She also collaborated with composer, sound, and video artist Pierre-Luc Lecours to create a series of progressive studies for modular synthesizer as part of a research project supported by CIRMMT. In 2024, she completed a residency at Elektronmusik Studion in Stockholm, where she recorded the basic material for her next album on the famous Buchla 200.

Pierre-Luc Lecours

Pierre-Luc Lecours is a composer, sound and video artist based in Montréal. His artistic practice covers many different mediums and aesthetics, ranging from music to video and performance. His influences come as much from the currents of instrumental and electroacoustic contemporary music as from electronic and experimental music. His performances feature everyday objects combined with traditional instrumentation and written-down scoring.
After a bachelor’s degree in digital music, Lecours completed a Master’s in composition at the Music Faculty of the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Pierre Michaud. As a researcher, he is interested in the interpretation of electronic music, the decompartmentalization of contemporary musical practices, the dialogue between various (electroacoustic and instrumental) music cultures and heritages, and the exploration of new forms of audiovisual expression. His work has been presented on numerous occasions in Europe, Asia, South America and North America.

David Piazza

David Piazza is a composer and performer of electroacoustic music based in Montreal. As an undergraduate student at the Faculty of music of Université de Montréal, he studied composition with Dominic Thibault and undertook research in the field of concatenative synthesis. His research interests lie in composition, spatialization and synthesis.

Ensemble de Feedback Libre

Merlin Campbell

Merlin Campbell is a Quebec audiovisual and sound artist (CA). He holds a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Concordia University and a D.E.S.S. in digital music from the University of Montreal. Campbell is pursuing his master's studies in composition and sound creation at the Faculty of Music of the University of Montreal. His creations, which manifest themselves in the form of performances, installations and works on fixed media, explore the relationships between sound and image through different extra-musical subjects. Campbell addresses topics such as the environment, humanity, death, violence, war, decline, decay and horror. Influenced by noise, drone and industrial music, his pieces wander in a universe immersed in darkness where brutality and delicacy coexist. To date, his work has been presented in Mexico, the United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Canada.

Sabrina Caron alias Sabe

Sabe is an audiovisual performance artist from Montreal. She uses audio feedback from pedals, microphones and a no input mixer as well as her voice as compositional tools. After earning a degree in photography at Concordia University, she studied several aspects of tonal music. She fell in love with digital music and obtained a D.E.S.S. on the subject at the University of Montreal. She is now pursuing a master's degree in composition and sound creation with audiovisual artist Myriam Boucher as supervisor. Sabe draws on her personal experiences to speak out on various societal ills. In her performances, she combines sound and image to create intimate and abstract pieces in which she wants the viewer to find their own meaning. Many have said that his creations are contrasting, raw and unsettling.

Jean-Philippe Jullin

Jean-Philippe Jullin, sound and audiovisual artist, sits at the intersection of art and technology, where he explores the possibilities of co-creation with machines through interactive and immersive systems. Funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQSC), his compositional work has been praised by Musicworks magazine and the JTTP competition. He also participated in the latest conference on musical creativity through artificial intelligence. Jean-Philippe is actively involved in collaborative artistic projects, using emerging technologies to create experiences of active contemplation that question our perception of space and time.

Alexandre Marchand

Alexandre Marchand is a self-taught musician from Montreal, mainly practicing bass and double bass in his professional practice in several groups from diverse backgrounds. Added to his personal study, he has the opportunity to participate in workshops, notably in the Okto-Relève ensemble, co-directed by Katia Makdissi-Warren, where he could feed his curiosity with masters from a wide variety of cultures. His desire to free himself from certain musical and artistic philosophies, and consequently to approach others, led him to create O:DOOZ, a multidisciplinary arts group, branching out into dance, mixed music, and live entertainment. Seeking to perfect and diversify his practice, Alex experiments with sound material in various ways, including with feedback devices.

Antoine Morin

Antoine Morin is a sound artist from Laval. Morin holds a bachelor's degree in digital music from the University of Montreal. His artistic approach is characterized by the frequent use of the reinjection of sound materials, the exploration of sound parasites and an aesthetic strongly influenced by the punk movement. He thus embarks on an artistic quest by pushing the boundaries of the machines that surround him to create performances or compose works that capture a raw aspect. He also draws his inspiration from the noise scene and jazz, thus enriching his artistic palette. In addition to his personal projects, he is a trained bassist and trombonist. Morin is the bassist and co-founder of the Montreal trio Chop Sue Me, a group fusing the genres of Punk, Post-Hardcore, Grunge and Slowcore. Their ambition is to revive the musical spirit of the 90s.

Kasey Pocius

Kasey Pocius, a gender-fluid intermedia artist from Montreal, experiments with multimedia software alongside classical training in viola and piano. Known for mixed-media performances with live electronics, They are particularly interested in multichannel spatialization, and how this can be used in group improvisatory experiences. Pocius's works have been programmed at numerous festivals and conferences worldwide. They are a part-time faculty member at Concordia and a researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) and Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL), as well as the Groupe de Recherche sur la Médiatisation du Son (GRMS).

Nicolas Bernier

Nicolas Bernier is an associate professor of sonic arts at Université de Montréal (UdeM). His research-creation is centred around the performativity of electronic sound. His sound installations and performances are nourished by constant collaborations with visual arts, dance, literature, theatre and cinema. Awardee of the prestigious Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica 2013 (Austria), his work widely recognized, presented all over the world: Sonar (Spain), Mutek (Canada), ZKM (Germany), Transmediale (Germany) and Laboral (Spain) to name a few. His sound compositions are widely published by electronic music labels, including LINE (US), Home Normal (UK/JP), Leerraum (CH) and Empreintes DIGITales (Québec).

Myriam Boucher

Composer and video artist Myriam Boucher is a professor/researcher at the University de Montréal. Her sensitive and polymorphic work focuses on the intimate relationship between music, sound, and image. She works on the real-time combination of music and images, extending her activities to VJing, ensemble music, and in situ projects. Her list of commissions includes sponsors such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (OSM), the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Ars Nova, the Nouvel ensemble moderne, Totem Électrique, Duo D’Entre-Deux, Magnitude6, collectif9, New Music Concerts, 5ilience, and Architek Percussion. Her research-creation activities integrate musical composition, improvisation, deep listening, sound ecology, and immersion. Her research aims to understand and analyze the mechanisms of perception of audiovisual works and multidisciplinary concerts integrating sound, music, image, and performers, with the perspective that art is a practice capable of transforming reality and generating new forms of sensitive representations.

André Godinho

Audiovisual producer and musician, André Godinho graduated with academic honors from the Bachelor of Music program at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. He is also a graduate in audio and video post-production in Montreal. André has produced numerous audiovisual works, including concert recordings, documentaries, music videos, web series, behind-the-scenes, photographs, and content for various artists, projects, institutions, and brands.
In 2021, he worked as the director of photography and editor for the documentary "J. S. Bach - An Endless Journey - Prelude," which received awards at seven international film festivals. Since 2022, he has been in Canada, where he has completed various projects as a director, videographer, editor, and technician for clients such as Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Université de Montréal, artists, and community organizations.

Alex Huyghebaert

Montreal based Australian flutist Alex Huyghebaert is an ardent contemporary musician. She is a member of Ensemble Éclat and with them has recorded a collaboration with NASA as part of The Universe of Sound data sonification project. Her recent endeavours have taken her to South Korea, performing with the Interplay Trio and representing the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity at the Music in PyeongChang festival. Alex appears on the album March of the Women 2024: Connecting Australia, a showcase of music by Australian female composers. She is also coordinator of the program El Sistema X OSM at the school Saint-Rémi. In the past three years she has performed more than 30 world premieres, and since her time in Montreal has helped share more than 60 new pieces with her public.

Gaël Moriceau

Gaël Moriceau is a Master student in Music composition and sound creation at Université de Montréal (UdeM). After working for several years in mechanical engineering, Gaël decided to change career in 2019. He then studied sound design and electroacoustic music composition at UdeM where he completed a bachelor’s degree in digital music in 2022. His compositions aim at immersing listeners in unknown abstract spaces. He uses both field recording and computer-generated material as well as spatialization techniques to create unique sound objects and textures. Gaël’s research consists in developing playing techniques for Digital Musical Instruments (DMI) such as the T-Stick and composing electroacoustic pieces for small DMI ensembles. The objective is to expand DMI’s repertoire, develop their use among composers and performers thus ensuring their perennity.

Acknowledgements

Additional support for Ensemble Modulaire's performance has been provided by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ).