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Free concert for the general public on May 16th
Montreal, 9 May 2018 – For over 20 years, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) has steadily expanded its efforts to increase children’s awareness of home-grown composers and new music through its youth activities.By the end of this anniversary year, the SMCQ’s outreach projects for children had reached record-breaking proportions: nearly 40,000 children and teenagers took part in activities held across Canada.
What’s the key to this wonderful success? A consistent commitment to the Canadian school network, and a variety of “modular” projects for teachers, adapted to their needs, including this year’s “All Ears / All Play,” “Budding Composers,” and “Sing the Works of our Composers.”
Roll out the red carpet for José Evangelista
Part of the biennial Homage Series that celebrates a Canadian composer, “All Ears / All Play,” has enjoyed increasing success since its launch in 2009, to become an event that is both followed and highly anticipated by over one hundred music teachers across the country. This year, over 28,000 students took part in the programme, which allowed them to discover José Evangelista and his music.
How does the project work? The SMCQ designs a pedagogical kit (French/English) dedicated to the series’ dedicatee. It includes a biography in comic book form, video-recorded interviews with the composer, audio excerpts of his or her music, scores arranged for young performers, and a highly diversified selection of musical creativity games inspired by the composer’s approach. Notably, for the first time this year, this pedagogical kit was available free of charge on the SMCQ’s new educational web platform: https://smcqeducation.ca/.
Concert for the general public
Teachers registered for the “Budding Composers” project are invited to perform with their students the fruits of the children’s musical creations, undertaken thanks to the SMCQ’s pedagogical kit.
This coming May 16th at noon, the general public will have a chance to hear 150 Montreal students perform their own compositions on the Grande-Place at Complexe Desjardins. Now in its 6th edition, this project offers young people a unique opportunity to express all the originality of their talent publicly…. And for the public, it’s a wonderful chance to discover a particularly refreshing musical universe. For more information please go to:http://www.smcq.qc.ca/jeunesse
Sing the works of our composers… from East to West
This year, the SMCQ’s projects for the school network included Sing the Works of our Composers, a collection of music scores for school choirs commissioned by the SMCQ last year. Six Canadian composers were invited to take up the challenge of synthesizing their personal aesthetic in works cast in accessible musical means. A true “legacy” of the celebrations surrounding the SMCQ’s 50th anniversary, the works in this collection are already available to teachers and choir directors across the country, to be created and re-created by their students.
This year some 1,080 students from East to West in this country sang at least one of the six works in the collection. Nearly 500 of these will have a chance to welcome a composers in their own city between March 20th and June 5th (in Moncton, Montreal, London, and Edmonton), in order to learn more about the fascinating craft of writing music. Composers will also have the pleasure of hearing the results of the students’ meticulous work on their music.
About the SMCQ
At the heart of new music for over 50 years, the SMCQ is dedicated to promoting the work of composers. Over the years, the society has left its mark on the cultural scene through the quality and breadth of its concerts and activities—events that stand out for their rallying power. For more information about all of the SMCQ’s projects, subscribe to our newsletter:http://www.smcq.qc.ca/smcq/fr/
* “Budding Composers” is presented by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, in collaboration with the Commission scolaire de Montréal and Complexe Desjardins.
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
