Music > News and events

Montreal International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition 2012

2012-04-27T17:42:30Z

When: Fri, April 27-29, 2012

Where: D.B. Clarke Auditorium & MB building

The 2012 edition of the Montreal International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition be hosted by Concordia University. Organized by Guitare Montreal, this year's guest performers will include Jeffrey McFadden, Tobie Éloi Hinsé-Paré, the Concordia Guitar Quartet and the MGS Orchestra under the direction of Dave Pilon. For more information and to register for the Competition and Master Classes, please visit the Guitare Montreal website.

When:

Friday, April 27-29, 2012

Where:

D.B. Clarke Auditorium, 1455 de Maisonneuve West

MB building, 1450 Guy Street

Spring 2012 Student Concerts

2012-03-30T15:14:43Z

March, April and May 2012
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall

Unless otherwise indicated (*), All concerts take place at:
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall, Concordia University
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6
514-848-4848

Cost:
Tickets available at the door: $5 regular, free for students with ID.

***
Mar. 28 at 8 p.m.
Voice Recital
Directed by Jeri Brown
* D. B. Clarke Theatre (H Building, SGW Campus, Concordia University), 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.

Mar. 30 at 8 p.m
Jazz Studies Scholarship Laureates Concert
Charles Ellison, producer

Apr. 4 at 8 p.m
Jazz Choir
Directed by Jeri Brown

Apr. 10 at 7:30 p.m
Concordia University Chorus
Conducted by Jean-Sébastien Allaire
Chamber Choir
Conducted by Christopher Jackson

Apr. 11 at 8 p.m
Chamber Music Ensembles
Directed by Liselyn Adams

Apr. 12 at 8 p.m
Jazz Improvisation I
Directed by Charles Ellison

Apr. 17 at 8 p.m
Jazz Improvisation II
Directed by Gary Schwartz

Apr. 18 at 8 p.m
Piano Recital
Students of Gregory Chaverdian

Apr. 19 at 8 p.m
Ensemble Eclectic
Jazz ensemble directed by Gary Schwartz

Apr. 20 at 8 p.m
Big Band
Directed by Dave Turner

Apr. 23 at 7 p.m.
Philippe Battikha, trumpet
Student of Amy Horvey

April 24 at 7 p.m.
Caroline Rivasplata, piano
Student of Lauretta Milkman

April 29 at 7 p.m.
Gohar Manvelyan, piano
Students of Gregory Chaverdian

April 30 at 4 p.m.
Ae Ree Lee, piano
Student of Lauretta Milkman

April 30 at 7 p.m.
Graeme Wilkinson, piano
Student of Lauretta Milkman

May 1 at 4 p.m.
Annie Jacques, voice
Student of Julie Daoust and Marie-Annick Béliveau

May 1 at 7 p.m.
Isabelle Rozycki, piano
Student of Anna Szpilberg

May 28 at 4 p.m.
Solmaz Shakerifard, piano
Student of Gregory Chaverdian

May 28 at 7 p.m.
Fella Lagha, piano
Student of Gregory Chaverdian

Related link:

Oscar Peterson Concert Hall

Concordia Jazz Studies Faculty Ensemble

2012-03-22T19:32:25Z

Mar. 22, 2011 at 8 p.m.
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall The Concordia Jazz Studies Faculty Ensemble will present a program of originals and jazz classics.

When:
Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 8 p.m.

Where:
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall, Concordia University
Loyola Campus, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Tel: 514-848-4848
Web: oscar.concordia.ca

Cost:
$10 regular, $8 seniors and Concordia staff members and $5 for non-Concordia students (services charges may apply). Free for Concordia students with ID. Tickets available at the door only.

Music Faculty Research Series: Lecture 6

2012-03-22T16:51:08Z

When: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m.

Where: Molson Building, Room 8.255

Comprovisation for humans and computers

Presenter: Dr. Sandeep Bhagwati, Associate Professor

When: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m.

Where: Department of Music, Concordia University

Molson Building, Room 8.255

1450 Guy St. (corner De Maisonneuve Blvd.)

Montreal, Quebec
Cost: Free of charge. Everyone welcome.
Information: 514-848-2424 ext. 4711

In Sandeep Bhagwati's creative work, composition and improvisation are often tightly interwoven - that is why he calls many of his works "comprovisations". In his talk, Bhagwati will touch on the reasons that led him to this approach, and discuss and play music from several of his comprovisation scores. He will also present "Native Alien," an ongoing research-creation project where computers learn to improvise with human performers: a project that has attracted famous musicians such as Lori Freedman, Vinny Golia, Wu Wei, Rohan de Saram, Mike Svoboda, Amelia Cuni and many more to matralab, a research facility he directs at Concordia.

Sandeep Bhagwati is an internationally active composer and multidisciplinary artist. He came to Concordia in 2006 as a Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Art. He currently teaches a course on Oral Traditions in the Music department and a course on Contemporary

German Theatre in the Theatre department.

Symphonies Portuaires 2012

2012-02-26T05:26:48Z

When: Sun, Feb. 26 & Sun, Mar. 4

Where: Musée Pointe-A-Callières

Commissioned each year by the Musée Pointe-A-Caillières, the Symphonies Portuaires bring the frozen port area of Montréal to life: the composer can use the sirens of all ships "stranded" in the port by winter ice, the bells of the churches and many other sound sources to create half-an-hour of musical elation to a walk along the frozen river, on a Sunday afternoon.

In 2012, Sandeep Bhagwati has been commissioned to conceive and compose a new harbour symphony "Rives & Dérives" and he will collaborate with the Choeur Maha (led by Concordia teacher Kathy Kennedy) and with the mobile media lab (directed by Concordia professor Owen Chapman) to create an event that fuses the drones of Indian music and the ships of the Saint Lawrence.

When:

Sunday, February 26, at 1:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 4, 2012, at 1:30 p.m.

Where:

Musée Pointe-A-Callières,

The Old Port, Montreal

Jazz Studies faculty concert - Steve Amirault

2012-02-16T19:01:50Z

Feb. 16, 2011 at 8 p.m.
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall
Prowess, power and purity: they've made Montreal pianist/singer/composer and part-time faculty member Steve Amirault one of the most accomplished musicians in Canada, and the
music scene has taken notice.

The Nova Scotia-born musician (piano/vocals) has released five celebrated CDs and performed around the world. With his new release, One Existence, "pushing ahead with a striking mid-career transformation" (Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen), he explores his Acadian roots with a original bilingual repertoire that ranges from heart felt ballads to explosive modern jazz.

When:
February 16, 2012 at 8 p.m.

Where:
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall, Concordia University
Loyola Campus, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Tel: 514-848-4848
Web: oscar.concordia.ca

Cost:
$10 regular, $8 seniors and Concordia staff members and $5 for non-Concordia students (services charges may apply). Free for Concordia students with ID. Tickets available at the door only.

Music Faculty Research Series: Lecture 5

2012-02-16T17:40:24Z

When: Thursday, February 16, 2012, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m.

Where: Molson Building, Room 8.255

Culture vs Nature: Harmony revisited

Presenter: Dr. Ricardo Dal Farra, Associate Professor

When: Thursday, February 16, 2012, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m.

Where: Department of Music, Concordia University

Molson Building, Room 8.255

1450 Guy St. (corner De Maisonneuve Blvd.)

Montreal, Quebec
Cost: Free of charge. Everyone welcome.
Information: 514-848-2424 ext. 4711

We are living in a world reaching a critical point. The equilibrium between climate, the energy our society needs, and interconnected economies, could pass quickly from a current complex balance to a complete new reality where unbalance would be the rule. Human beings would need to be creative as never before, to survive. Have the arts a role, a responsibility, in this context?

The arts could play a major role in helping global society to understand the magnitude of the crisis we face, and in promoting awareness around environmental matters. Art could be a good vehicle to disseminate proposals for change in our behaviours and decisions. Artists could promote inter- and trans-disciplinary actions focused on the environmental crisis and our responsibility to this turning point we live, defining the future of life on Earth.

Music could be a key point in a network of trans-disciplinary intersections between nature, science, technology, and society.

Over-fishing, pollution, acidification, and more: what has this to do with music? And with us, as artists and as researchers?

World Premiere of Sandeep Bhagwati's "Limits & Renewals"

2012-02-11T05:09:23Z

Sandeep Bhagwati's monumental orchestral work "Limits & Renewals" to be performed in Germany

Sandeep Bhagwati's monumental orchestral work "Limits & Renewals" will be performed at the Eclat Festival Stuttgart this weekend. "Limits & Renewals" is a cycle of three intertwined compositions: "Entrances", Inscapes", and "Apparitions" totaling all together a 45 minute work. It is score for large conventional orchestra with 6 madrigal singers. The texts are by William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Wallace Stevens.

The world premiere will be performed by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, conducted by Matthias Pintscher.

When:

Friday, February 10, 2012

Where:

Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Germany

Roots of Rock & Roll Concert

2012-02-10T18:49:13Z

Feb. 10 and 11, 2012 at 8 p.m.
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall
California Dreamin': Music From the Golden State

Music professor Craig Morrison presents the 15th Annual Roots of Rock and Roll Concert, featuring Craig Morrison and the Momentz, along with Vintage Wine, the Never-Be Brothers, and special guests.

Music by the Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ricky Nelson, The Mamas and the Papas, the girl groups, the folk rockers, Janis Joplin, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane and more.

When:
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 8 p.m.

Where:
Oscar Peterson Concert Hall, Concordia University
Loyola Campus, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Tel: 514-848-4848
Web: oscar.concordia.ca

Box office:

Tickets may be purchased on the Admission network: $20 regular, $16 for seniors, $13 for students (plus a $5.95 service charge per ticket)
Tickets are also available at the concert hall box office (Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.): $20 regular, $16 for seniors, $13 for students (plus a $1 service charge per ticket)

Information:
Call 514-848-4848 or email Craig Morrison.

Concordia Laptop Orchestra performs in a four-city telematic performance

2012-02-03T19:01:55Z

When:

Saturday, January 28, 7 p.m

Where:

1450 Guy St. Room 8.245

Concordia Laptop Orchestra today in a casual four-city telematic performance - all are welcome!

The telematic performance includes four nodes:

Montreal: Concordia Laptop Orchestra (CLOrk), directed by Eldad Tsabary
Hamilton: McMaster Cybernetic Orchestra, directed by David Ogborn
Calgary: Calgary University Laptop Ensemble, directed by Ken Fields
Edmonton: directed by Scott Smallwood

All are also welcome to come earlier (6 PM) to see the process of making the telematic connection.

When:

Saturday, January 28, 7 p.m

Where:

The John Molson School of Business building

1450 Guy St. (corner of de Maisonneuve)

Room 8.245

Cost:

Admission is free and the audience is invited to sit inside the orchestra, and view the performance from the performers' viewpoint.

Jeri Brown nominated for East Coast Music Award

2012-02-03T18:52:27Z

Jeri Brown has received a 2012 East Coast Music Award nomination for Jazz Recording of the Year

Jeri Brown has received a 2012 East Coast Music Award (ECMA) nomination for Jazz Recording of the Year for her album Storytelling, featuring Jeri Brown (vocals) and Woody Woods (piano).

Brown will also participate as a judge in the ECMA competition and televised show, judging gospel and world music, taking place in Moncton, New Brunswick from April 11 to 15, 2012.

About Storytelling:

This soul packed project on Jongleur Productions label features Jeri's originals plus Jeri's unique renditions of Canadian classics You Needed Me, Both Sides Now, Until It's Time for You to Go and Hallelujah.

Music faculty earn province's top prize

2012-02-02T15:27:33Z

Concordia music profs recognized by Quebec music council. By Tom Peacock (courtesy of NOW Concordia)

Christopher Jackson won the Prix Opus in the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical category, for his recording of Lagrime di San Pietro. Gary Schwartz earned the top prize in the Concert of the Year - Jazz, World Music category.

Every year since 1996, the Conseil québécois de la musique has recognized the excellence and diversity of Quebec's musical recordings and performances at its annual Prix Opus gala. This year, Associate Professor Christopher Jackson and part-time instructor Gary Schwartz from Concordia's Department of Music each received a Prix Opus for their contributions to the province's music scene.

Christopher Jackson
The creative director of the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal (SMAM) received the Prix Opus in the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical category, for his recording of Lagrime di San Pietro (Saint-Peter's Tears), by Orlando di Lasso, one of two major Italian composers from the 16th century, released on ATMA Records.

Completed in 1594, three weeks before his death, Lasso's last work consists of 20 spiritual madrigals in Italian and a Latin motet, sung a cappella. As the former Dean of Concordia's Faculty of Fine Arts explains, recording the complicated work represented quite a challenge for his SMAM group.

"I put it on the shelf about 15 years ago, saying when I had the right group to perform it with, I would do it," Jackson recalls. "It's very strict a cappella music, very austere, and extremely confined in its expressive possibilities. But it's very beautifully put together."

Over the years, the SMAM group of singers evolved to the point where Jackson realized it was time to revisit Lasso's compositions. After the group performed the Lagrime di San Pietro at the Lanaudière festival, Alex Benjamin, the festival's artistic director, encouraged them to make a recording.

The resulting album received rave reviews in the press. "The Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal, led by veteran period-music leader Christopher Jackson, brings this music to vibrant life," wrote John Terauds in the Toronto Star. "Jackson's singers keep the music moving, whilst remaining attentive to the significance of the merest details," wrote Fabrice Fitch in London-based magazine Gramophone.

Before taking on the music, Jackson realized it was important to understand the psychology behind the 20 poems by Tansillo, a 16th-century poet, for whom the music was composed.

In his verses, Tansillo describes the different states of Peter's mind after he denies Christ. "He compares them to the betrayal of a lover," Jackson says. "Then he describes [...] how Christ looks at Peter, and how that look could be compared to a look of betrayed love."

As Jackson explains, the music is surprisingly restrained, considering the dramatic possibilities of the story. "Very subtle things occur which are not evident when you first look at it," Jackson says. It takes a lot of digging to see what he's doing under the surface."

Jackson says he was surprised to receive the Opus Prize for the recording, considering the SMAM group was up against some pretty stiff competition. "This time, we were up against the Montreal Symphony and I never thought we'd win," he says.

Since releasing the album, Jackson and his group have performed further works by Lasso; laying the groundwork for another recording.

Gary Schwartz
American jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist Ornette Coleman was one of the major driving forces behind the free jazz movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Coleman won the coveted Miles Davis Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2009.

Shortly afterward, local musician Gary Schwartz, a part-time music instructor at Concordia, put together an 11-member group to perform a tribute performance of Coleman's original songs, and music inspired by him. The performance, entitled LETTINGO: The Music and Influence of Ornette Coleman, played two sold-out nights at Théâtre la Chapelle in January 2010.

A year later, Schwartz brought LETTINGO to Sala Rossa, and the reviews of the performance were resoundingly positive. "It was a dedicated performance by dedicated players who invited us into a gallery of intricate, moving musical artworks," wrote Ananda X. Suddath on local jazz site pork pie jazz.

At this year's Prix Opus gala, the performance earned the top prize in the Concert of the Year - Jazz, World Music category. It was also nominated in the overall Concert of the Year category.

Attending the high-profile awards ceremony was a unique experience for the unassuming music instructor. "It was kind of like watching the Oscars or the Emmys except I'm in the audience," he says. "They mentioned who was in the category, and then when they handed over the envelope my heart started to beat kind of fast. And then they called my name! It was really something."

Schwartz also said he was very surprised to be nominated in the Concert of the Year category. "I felt like the bad boy on the block," he says. "It was four classical concerts and the jazz guy."

A longtime fan of Coleman, Schwartz says the American jazz master's music represents the freedom to express one's individuality as a musician, while at the same time working together in symbiosis with a group of musicians.

"If letting go is not what Ornette does, then I don't know what it is that he does," he says, referring to the name he selected for his group. "I think [Ornette's approach] has a lot more to do with respect and democracy than anything else [...] As soon as you start to play with other people, there's no way that you're really going to control it."

Schwartz says he feels lucky to have corralled the group of musicians for the LETTINGO project, which includes two of his former students at Concordia, drummer Claude Lavergne and violin player Josh Zubot. "To tell you the truth, I'm pretty impressed with myself, that I've got these guys," he says. "These are top-rated players. They could play anywhere in the world."

Montreal jazz fans will have a chance to take in a performance of LETTINGO on March 25, 2012, at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts.

What: LETTINGO: The music and influence of Ornette Coleman
When: Sunday, March 25, 2012, at 8 p.m.
Where: The Segal Centre for Performing Arts (5170 Côte-Sainte-Catherine Rd.)

Related links:

Prix Opus
Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal
Segal Centre for Performing Arts
Gary Schwartz: LETTINGO (CBC: Concerts on Demand)

Music Faculty Research Series: Lecture 4

2012-01-26T17:33:45Z

When: Thursday, January 26, 2012, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m.

Where: Molson Building, Room 8.255

What is the Playroom - and WHY?

Presenter: Dr. Rosemary Mountain, Associate Professor

When:

Thursday, January 26, 2012, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m.
Where:

Department of Music, Concordia University

Molson Building, Room 8.255

1450 Guy St. (corner De Maisonneuve Blvd.)

Montreal, Quebec
Cost: Free of charge. Everyone welcome.
Information: 514-848-2424 ext. 4711

The Interactive Multimedia Playroom is a research tool and environment designed by Rosemary and Harry Mountain to help develop critical frameworks for sound and multimedia creation and analysis.

This talk will give a brief overview of the Playroom, report on recent developments of the international, interlingual, intercultural network known as NESTAR, and speculate on why this research set-up works so well for a diversity of uses ranging from team-building

to market analysis to translation studies.

Stein Brothers' Sound Map featured in Montreal Gazette

2012-01-23T18:10:28Z

The Montreal Gazette recently featured a piece focusing on the work of Max and Julian Stein. The Montreal Gazette recently featured a piece focusing on the work of Max and Julian Stein, two graduates of the electro-acoustic music program who created the Montréal Sound Map.

Professor Sandeep Bhagwati, Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Art, explains that Concordia highlighted the Steins' work during the university's 2011 edition of the President's Conference Series, an honor rarely bestowed to undergraduate research work.

Montreal-based playroom travels around the globe

2012-01-20T16:25:52Z

Rosemary Mountain's Interactive Multimedia Playroom to have permanent homes in Texas and Portugal. When she unveiled the Interactive Multimedia Playroom (IMP) at a 2005 conference in Montreal, Rosemary Mountain, an associate professor in music, was already planning its first trip around the world.

Mountain toured IMP in Europe and the States, and now she's bringing the Playroom back to Concordia as part of the 2011-12 Department of Music faculty research lecture series.

The Interactive Multimedia Playroom is a research project Mountain designed, in collaboration with her husband and artist Harry Mountain, that explores the diverse ways in which people identify and describe sounds and sound-image combinations. According to Mountain, despite the prevalence of multimedia content in today's world - from films to flashy websites - there is a lack of critical language for describing sound.

"The IMP teaches people about the impact of sound and images, and vice versa," she says. "I wanted to explore what people hear in a sound or see in an image, or what kind of response a sound triggered. In developing the project, I tried to get a dialogue started about things that people didn't know they could talk about."

The IMP is a three dimensional grid created by hanging plastic chains in which users can establish sets of criteria for the categorization and evaluation of sounds and images. Short sound and images files (both still and moving) are associated with descriptors chosen by the participants themselves.

Mountain designed the project in hopes of examining the way in which people think about music, as well as exploring the commonality of responses.

"Although we developed this software, at the beginning, for artists and composers to share and fine-tune their work, we discovered very quickly that the Playroom could help us to look at cultural differences. Everyone has latent associations and this project gave us a way to compare them."

The Interactive Multimedia Playroom was featured at 2010's Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Hexagram Black Box.

New developments bring a wider application

Since launching the Playroom in 2005, Mountain and her collaborators have focused on various different aspects with NESTAR (Network of Exploratory Spaces for Temporal Arts Research), a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded program they developed using open source software, as well as developing the IMP network for everyday use in schools, galleries and museums.

In a Dallas, Texas private school, for example, French teachers are using the Playroom to help students become aware of the nuances of language and translation. In a similar vein, a Montreal North school is using the project to assist children with learning disabilities communicate more easily. Researchers in Aveiro, Portugal interested in children, gaming and technology can participate in a cultural exchange by connecting with the Montreal and Dallas nodes by providing them with media to use in their classrooms.

"The more we grow this project, the more I can see it being used," says Mountain. "Not only is the IMP useful for people who have problems in communicating state of emotion, I can also see possible commercialization opportunities in medical research as well as in corporate team-building activities."

Mountain cites the open-ended nature of the Playroom and the fact that people can choose their own context-specific labels and content as two of the factors that make the IMP so universally successful.

"We are developing a virtual version of the IMP but it's not as easy to collaborate, " she explains. "However, the virtual version - along with various international "nodes" such as Dallas and Aveiro - allows researchers a larger sample size than in a traditional psychology experiment, plus it opens everything up to multicultural exploration."

Rosemary Mountain will discuss these and other issues related to the Interactive Multimedia Playroom in a lecture on Thursday, January 26, 2012 from 5:45 to 6:15 p.m. The lecture, complete with a demo IMP installation, will take place in MB 8.255 (John Molson School of Business, 1450 Guy St.). Future events include Ricardo Dal Farra's Culture vs. Nature: Harmony revisited (February 16) Sandeep Bhagwati's Comprovisation for humans and computers (March 22).