Thursday, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, in front of a full audience at the Maison symphonique, presented “The new voices of musical creation”, a reading of three works by young composers selected by jury. The evening testified, luxuriously and eloquently, to an expressive diversity full of promise.
We cannot thank the OSM enough for this initiative, which allows one composition student per educational institution to be performed in dream conditions. Among those elected, Thursday, for the Montreal Conservatory of Music, Alexis Raynault, whose loyal readers of the Duty know the inspired pen.
Co-artistic director of Ballet Opéra Pantomime, Alexis Raynault was keen to complete this year, with Nicolas Gilbert, his master’s degree in composition which he had left unfinished at the Conservatory around ten years ago. He therefore found himself eligible for this selection, and his piece Together was elected.
Contacted in the afternoon, Alexis Raynault told us that he had pragmatically reworked this old piece to adapt it to the requirements and orchestral staff of the OSM. The composer was full of praise for the seriousness of the approach that led to the evening, particularly in the resources allocated to the realization of the project, for example the scrupulous preparation of the orchestral material with the librarian Michel Léonard.
Rapid upheaval
This quality of preparation was evident in the room. The formula for presenting the lucky ones by Ana Sokolovic is judicious and the composer takes on this task with a relaxed tone and a lot of naturalness. Likewise, the quality of the commitment of the OSM and its leader is notable.
Questioned in turn by Ana Sokolovic as to whether he saw trends in the new scores he was conducting around the world, Rafael Payare declared in substance that we could possibly define a sort of Scandinavian language, but that, globally, there was no trend and we felt that everyone could be free.
Freedom. Break down. Spend. To say. What happiness! Fifteen years ago, there were countries where the leaders of academia and the pseudo-avant-garde joined forces to go in delegation to demand the heads of musical critics from their employers. Critics whose major crime was to suggest that this sclerotic academic avant-garde was, in fact, a stillborn rearguard and very accurately predicting the inevitable advent of everything that is happening.
Applied to Quebec, this advent is that of the posthumous glory of Jacques Hétu, whom the CNA and the OSQ have acclaimed in Quebec, Toronto and Ottawa in recent weeks and which the OSM played as the highlight of the evening on Thursday. Applied to Quebec, this advent is that of the takeover of power of Samy Moussa, Julien Bilodeau, Éric Champagne and Maxime Goulet. Applied in Quebec, this advent is that of an open-mindedness appreciating the music of Ana Sokolovic as much as that of Airat Ichmouratov.
The composer
From this last example, from this variety, this openness and this freedom, we remove, on Thursday, the palette going from Alexis Raynault to Samuël Fecteau. The first in skillful collages (let’s not underestimate the difficulty of collages, even Hétu broke his nose!) opening up to dreams. The second, a bachelor’s student at McGill (translation: budding composer or composer of instinct), in great atmospheric flights of cinematographic inspiration.
Even if the three works were legitimate and relevant, our favorite goes to Frédérique Le Duc-Moreau, a student at the University of Montreal in a cycle specializing in cinematographic and video game music. His work Unquiet Manon climatic anxiety, is a classic composition using without exaggeration interesting narrative modules (time countdown, distressing tensions in the brass) and leading to a haunted final section, more than striking and ingenious in terms of sonic imagination.
It is obviously striking that the choice of the jury, composed of Dina Gilbert, Éric Champagne and Ronald Vermeulen, settled on three scores, all skillful, and all to be classified in the famous register of this “eloquence without condescension” which, there is a little more than ten years ago, raised cries of outrage from the “contemporary right-thinkers”. We are not kidding ourselves. There is some left. And ringworms. Lost causes have always had their fanatics. Sad and apt term, alas.