The 35e The New Ensemble Moderne (NEM) season opens Monday evening with a concert at 7:30 p.m. at L’Édifice Wilder entitled Persistence, the ephemeral, named after the composition by Tomás Diaz Villegas, composer in residence with the ensemble. On May 3, Lorraine Vaillancourt will leave the artistic and musical direction of this elite group that she forged.
“I envy your work, the pleasure of being on the side of the public, sensing what is going to happen and enjoying the journeys that are offered to me. I like to travel. This is what I believed we could manage to convey. The unknown does not mean that we will be bored; we can cling to something which means that we will listen to things differently afterwards. This is the path I have been traveling on for some time. Now I’m going to watch the others ride; see how they will do and how they will get out of trouble. »
It’s always a great discussion that takes place with Lorraine Vaillancourt, this time with an opening towards an assessment, without even necessarily asking for it. Just note that of the eight works of the opening concert and the big anniversary concert (which will take place on May 3, 2024), seven will be creations. Was there no temptation during this 35e anniversary, to prove that a repertoire of music could have been created over the course of this whole adventure?
Unfulfilled obsession
“Indeed, it is a contradiction with my objective of 1989, which was to forge my repertoire, to remember something else, and first of all for the musicians. I have always said that my primary audience was the musicians, that I had to convince them that it was worth working on this repertoire. That we would convey it in a more convincing way. Life was a little different, since we were up to our necks in creation, but the concern for the repertoire remained present. »
Lorraine Vaillancourt admits that her objective this season is to “bring together the musicians”, from the two founding members to the newcomers. “It’s an ensemble that I always wanted to present as an orchestra of performers, a bit like Les Violons du Roy or I Musici. » This perception of the presence on stage of a very solid band driven by a frenzied desire to transmit this music is very important in the eyes of the musical director, renowned for her perfectionism, who wanted to solidify and engrave in stone this cohesion through “commissions composed for the 15 musicians without exception”, in order to transmit to his successor, Jean-Michaël Lavoie, “a coherent orchestra which will then be able to rediscover the repertoire”.
The only exception will be the presence of Harrison Birtwistle on Monday’s program, “because Secret Theater is a monument and that it is a way of saying to the young musicians who have joined: “This is what the NEM is; you have to want to make this complexity your own in order to transmit it.” » Lorraine Vaillancourt nevertheless notes that “the first concert opens with a work, Paintings of Las Meninas by John Rea, who pays homage to Satie, Debussy, Webern, Vivier, Evangelista through small miniatures. I therefore begin with a powerful nod to the repertoire. »
The unfamiliar
Asked about the two great jubilarians, Iannis Xenakis (centenary in 2022) and György Ligeti (centenary in 2023), Lorraine Vaillancourt said: “They are monuments, with such a difference between the two! Xenakis is an architect of music. His concern is not instrumental; he uses it to convey his thoughts. You have to make choices to return the gesture, while Ligeti has remained very close to musical production. His latest works are not the ones that interest me the most. It was rounder, and that means less to me. »
She remembers the big names who accompanied her journey. “I think of Boulez, Kagel, Berio, De Pablo. Today, everything is so individualized that we no longer have access to it in a normal way. When I was a teenager, it was through the radio that they were imposed on me, in a certain way. We were attached to certain institutions that gave us something and the pleasure of discovery. »
Lorraine Vaillancourt judges that “entering into worlds that are unfamiliar to us is essential. But this is something we have lost. Everyone has their own platform where they listen to what they want and find comfort in their choices. So what do we do with all these monuments that are part of our history? And, now, we even tend to want to forget history or to eradicate it by saying: “That’s no longer good.” »
I never thought we would go mainstream. Besides, that would be contradictory. But I never wanted us to be a chapel.
“Happy to be old, in a certain way”, the musician laments “that a faith, a love for certain things in theater, in visual arts or in music becomes so difficult to transmit because at the top, the transmission belts are rare.
Was she deluding herself about the number of flocks she could glean for her cause? “I never thought we would go mainstream. Besides, that would be contradictory. But I never wanted us to be a chapel. »
Fortunately, the passion is shared and the quality recognized. “I know what I hear and I see the results of the work we have done underground. What comforts me and what made me continue is that there were always a few people, not always the same ones, who gave me the image of what I hoped to convey, whether it was thought, intellectual or very first degree. So, we are not doing this completely for nothing. This is what nourished me. »
The road was paved with good intentions. But certainly it was not smooth and comfortably asphalted. It’s up to Jean-Michaël Lavoie, starting next year, to take up the torch with such a bright flame.