The Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM) invites fans of contemporary classical music on a trip to Eastern Europe on Friday (7:30 p.m.) at Salle Claude-Champagne. Its conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt spoke with us about the works on the program and the challenges faced by today’s music.
“I turned to countries that we don’t usually go to, whether it’s Slovenia, the Czech Republic or Turkey,” says the one who has been at the head of the NEM since its founding in 1989.
She was also able to take advantage of a residency of the Ukrainian composer Alla Zagaykevych last fall at Le Vivier to commission the work And only the reed glistens in the sun…which will premiere on Friday.
“It’s a very calm music, very suspended, a landscape of war. Music that is quite dark, but very beautiful,” says Mme Vaillancourt about this work inspired by the friendship between two Chinese poets more than 1000 years ago.
PHOTO BERNARD PRÉFONTAINE, PROVIDED BY THE NEW ENSEMBLE MODERNE
Lorraine Vaillancourt
It is the beauty that characterizes this concert. It grows everywhere, even in rubble, even in corpses.
Lorraine Vaillancourt, conductor of the New Modern Ensemble
The creation will have been preceded, during the concert, by two Slovenian works of around ten minutes each, i.e. Shadows of Stillness by Nina Senk and fired-up by Vito Žuraj, written in 2020 and 2013 respectively.
If the first work, revolving around a brass trio, is inspired by the calm following the confinement of the start of the pandemic, the second, created in Milan by Quebec chef Jean-Michaël Lavoie, is inspired by the friction of ‘a match.
“The musicians manipulate stones, struck or rubbed, which is not easy since they must also manage their own instrument”, explains Lorraine Vaillancourt, about fired-up.
After the break, it’s the turn of the countries that start with “t”, the Czech Republic, with Solitudo (2003) by Martin Smolka, and Turkey, with the Requiem for a Lost Land (2009) by Tolga Yayalar.
According to the head of the NEM, the first score, which uses micro-intervals (intervals smaller than the semitone) “is particularly inspired by blues, jazz, with almost tonal melodies, because the composer has detuned certain notes, which gives a particular color.
It is more the importance of rhythm that stands out in Yayalar, whose work, the only one ever performed in concert by the NEM (in the early 2000s during a residency at Harvard University), questions the relationship between Istanbul’s millennial heritage and modernity.
“How is he going to say that in music? You have to come and hear it to understand! “says M.me Vaillancourt.
Luggage
The artistic director pleads both for the creation and for the formation of a true contemporary canon. “To have the desire to hear things again, you need to have a certain background. But we do not build this memory in the public, especially with the disappearance of the radio, ”she said, referring in passing to the late Chaîne culturelle de Radio-Canada, passed to the wringer in 2004.
The artist remembers how lucky she was, in her native Saguenay, “to be able to hear things we didn’t even suspect existed.” She also talks about her mother, of modest means, who turned up the sound when she heard Ligeti playing on the old state radio.
“There are natures who always want to discover, who are attracted by things they don’t know. But it’s not the majority. Children are like that, they want to see the same movie 150 times because they liked it. It’s very human,” admits Lorraine Vaillancourt.
You don’t need to be a “specialist” to love the contemporary. “It’s like with painting, illustrates the musician. We don’t spend our time understanding how it was done. We like colors, shapes, movements, we like to recognize certain things or not… If we have curiosity, we can develop a sense of analysis and go further. We can also receive things in a very direct, very primary way. »
“If you agree to take the trip, you can be sure that you will go somewhere. We take you! “, invites the chef.
Piano and sleep with Alexandre Tharaud
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
Alexandre Tharaud
The piano is not always a relaxing instrument, but it will be under the fingers of Alexandre Tharaud on May 5 at Bourgie Hall. The pianist and his guests invite music lovers to come and hear, from 10:15 p.m., a meditative program while being comfortably seated or lying down. Early risers will be able to attend a musical reading of his book show me your hands at the same place from 7 p.m., to the sound of Rameau, Schubert… and Tharaud!
Friday, May 5, at 10:15 p.m., at Bourgie Hall
A worthy coronation of the season for the Chapelle de Québec
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Bernard Labadie and Magali Simard-Galdès
La Chapelle de Québec and its conductor Bernard Labadie will make their last Montreal appearance of the season on May 12 (7:30 p.m.) at the Maison symphonique with a Handel program that fits it like a glove, a program “tested” last month at Carnegie Hall , sorry! Accompanied by Les Violons du Roy and soloists Magali Simard-Galdès, Tim Mead and Neal Davies, they will make us vibrate to the sound of — we can no longer circumstance — Coronation Anthemsof the Music for the Royal Fireworks and of theOde for Queen Anne’s birthday.
Friday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m., at the Maison symphonique
Two Mozart milestones in Arion
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Julien Chauvin
The French conductor and violinist Julien Chauvin stands out in Europe with the ensemble Le Concert de la Loge, which he founded in 2015 with a view to dusting off the French lyrical and instrumental repertoire. We will have the chance to hear him at the head of Arion from May 19 to 21 at Bourgie Hall. A fairly expanded Arion, since the program will be the great Symphony noh 41, “Jupiter”by Mozart, as well as his oboe concertowhich will shine the spotlight on Quebec soloist Daniel Lanthier, who is pursuing an intense career in Europe.
May 19, 20 and 21, at Bourgie Hall
Francis Choinière storms Place des Arts
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
GFN Productions will present a cine-concert around the Return of the Jedi at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.
Francis Choinière has not finished surprising us! It will soon show its gift of ubiquity… or almost. Indeed, on the evening of May 20, at the very moment when GFN Productions, the company he founded with his brother and a friend, will present a cine-concert around the Return of the Jedi at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier under the direction of American conductor Erik Ochsner (concert also given in the afternoon and the evening before), Choinière will conduct his Orchestra and Philharmonic Choir of music lovers right next door at the Maison symphonique in the magnificent and seldom heard Sea Symphony by Vaughan Williams.