(New York) “Zero. »
Sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park, under a radiant late October sun that seems to set the maple trees of Greenwich Village ablaze, Rémy Bélanger of Beauport uses this number to describe how he feels as Halloween approaches.
As slender as a ballet dancer, the improvising cellist cannot be surprised to be questioned on this subject. On October 31, 2020, while walking in Old Quebec, he was one of five people injured by Carl Girouard, the man who also killed two Quebec residents with a saber. He survived multiple serious injuries, including three skull fractures, two shoulder blade fractures, and the partial or complete severance of several fingers, as he poignantly described in a video posted to his Facebook page in November 20201.
I know there are other people who were there that evening for whom it is still an ordeal: the memory, the flashbacks. I didn’t have any of that. Really. I’m not into that at all.
Rémy Bélanger de Beauport, improvising cellist
And where is he? Since August 2, Rémy Bélanger de Beauport has been living in New York, where he immerses himself in his great passion – improvised music –, confirming a recovery that commands admiration, and rereads In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, in a park or one of his favorite cafes in Greenwich Village or SoHo.
“It’s a book that changed my life, through its structure, through its story, and all the work behind it. It was by reading it at the age of 21 that I added the Beauport particle to my last name. At the time, I felt that I didn’t understand everything and I told myself that I would reread it when I was 40. Well, it’s this year. »
The “multiplicity” of New York
He had never set foot in this city, far removed from the Proustian universe before leaving his luggage in the Quebec studio in New York, where he will stay until the end of the year. That day, he immediately left for Gowanus, a Brooklyn neighborhood “super far away,” he explains, to go to his very first New York concert of improvised music.
PHOTO RICHARD HÉTU, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Rémy Bélanger de Beauport and Samantha Kochisen in improvised music concert
Since then, not many evenings have gone by without him attending a concert.
“Sometimes I go to two concerts a night. I am thirsty. I have a thirst to hear and I have a thirst to know people, musicians,” says the artist whose residency at 111 Wooster Street is accompanied by a grant offered by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) to experienced creators recognized by their peers.
He is struck by what he calls “the multiplicity” of New York life, which translates into a plethora of offerings on the improvised music scene.
“In Quebec, we have very little improvised music, and I am often directly or indirectly involved in the organization of events,” says the self-taught cellist, who holds a master’s degree in music theory. “Here, there can be up to 10 or 12 improvised music concerts per day. In fact, there are more interesting concerts in a single day that I would like to attend in New York than there are in a year in Quebec. »
His favorite concert took place in the place that first terrified him the most in New York: Times Square. It was there that he discovered guitarist Chris Cochrane, a New York legend of experimental music, who performed outdoors with a singer and a percussionist.
“He has his own approach. It’s as if all the sounds were undone, contrasted. With the Times Square mix, everything fit together: the flashes, the horns, the sirens and the out-of-tune guitar. »
A moment of rejuvenation
Coming from a modest and homely family, Rémy Bélanger de Beauport is not transplanting himself for the first time. In particular, he made three long stays in Berlin, which prompted him to apply three times for a residency in Dresden offered by the CALQ to composers. Even though he was repeatedly told that his file was “excellent”, even “perfect”, he did not get it.
In 2021, against bad luck, he presented his application to obtain the New York residency, considered the most prestigious in the CALQ.
I made a promise to myself to apply every year for the next ten years. I was going to get it eventually.
Rémy Bélanger of Beauport
He got it on the first try.
He sees this residency as a moment of renewal. However, even if he devotes himself to the present, he also likes to retrace the steps of the legends of experimental music in New York, notably posing in front of the apartment where Yoko Ono met a still little-known John Cage.
He is convinced that being in New York, where he sometimes has “the feeling of being at the center of the world”, will influence him as much as the music he hears in venues like The Stone, where the Renowned saxophonist John Zorn serves as musical director.
“There, I absorb, I absorb,” he said. And I know it’s going to come out later. »
In the meantime, he still provides New York with proof of his musical originality. He has participated in two concerts, the most recent of which took place in the Quebec studio in SoHo.
He will also return to this concert by talking about the “extras” which marked his rehabilitation.
“It could very well have happened that we were talking and I was missing a hand,” he said. What would I have done? Well, I would have found a way to make music that mixes performance, that mixes deconstruction. »
“I hate dates”
The cellist continues by reliving certain stages of his rehabilitation.
There my left hand fingers work, let’s go. After that, my left arm can move a little more than before, more, more, more. Finally, as we saw during yesterday’s concert, I have quite a bit more.
Rémy Bélanger of Beauport
Even if he admits to having “minuses”, he does not want to dwell on the after-effects of his injuries. “People who talk about their ailments always bother me,” he says. It’s certain that I have after-effects. I don’t play like I used to. At the same time, I think I’m playing better than before. »
Behind this sentence, there are countless hours of physio, cello practice and listening to music. Routine that the musician continues in New York and to which is added swimming and yoga sessions at the community center of Stuyvesant high school, a stone’s throw from One World Trade Center, as well as writing a blog2.
He is surprised to feel no fear in New York.
“Sometimes I have to watch myself because I find it feels so safe,” he says. I’m on the metro at 1 a.m. with my cell phone in my hand and my headphones on my head. In Mexico, where I lived, I would never have done that. Here I feel safe. »
However, he should not join the New Yorkers who will be massing along the 6e Avenue Tuesday evening to follow the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, a great tradition to which Lou Reed, who dabbled in experimental music, dedicated a song.
“I have never celebrated Halloween,” said René Bélanger of Beauport. And it’s not this year that I’m going to start! I don’t even celebrate my birthday or New Year’s Day. I hate dates. I find it arbitrary, ridiculous. »
Even in New York.