This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
On September 24, 2023, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) will present the fourth concert in their Hommage 2023-2024 series, dedicated to composer Sandeep Bhagwati. Organized in collaboration with the Vietnamese Cultural Centre of Canada, the multimedia event will involve music, text and images, centered around such themes as proximity, distance, estrangement and familiarity.
Titled Amitiés et étrangeté, the program focuses on a single work by Bhagwati, Exercices d’étrangeté 1, inspired by a verse by Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Duy, about Vietnamese diasporic communities. The idea of encountering the unknown is embodied by the musical collaboration that will bring this music to life: the meeting of seven musicians from a variety of musical traditions and geographical regions. Bhagwati’s imaginative musical world will invite each participating musician to rediscover their instrument, in dialogue with the artistic traditions of others.
Among the performers are two preeminent specialists of traditional Vietnamese music, Phạm Công Ty and Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, as well as guitarist and researcher Stefan Östersjö. Two Canadian talents will also be featured on stage: composer, singer and interdisciplinary creator Gabriel Dharmoo, and cellist and early music specialist Elinor Frey, who will be playing a baroque instrument.
The globalized make-up of the concert is reflective of the life of its featured composer. Born in Bombay, Indian Sandeep Bhagwati trained as a composer in Austria (Mozarteum Salzburg), Germany (Munich University of Music) and France (IRCAM, Paris). He taught composition at the Karlsruhe University of Music in Germany, before accepting the Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Arts in 2006. A professor at Concordia University’s Music Department, he is the founder of the matralab laboratory, a research-creation center for intercultural and interdisciplinary arts.
Founded in 1966 by Wilfrid Pelletier, Jean Papineau-Couture, Serge Garant and Maryvonne Kendergian, the SMCQ is a true hub of contemporary musical life in Quebec. With a legacy spanning nearly sixty years, the SMCQ offers a variety of programs and events, including the Hommage Series, the Festival International Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques (MNM), youth music programming, radio programs, North American and European tours, a composers’ competition and over twenty recordings.
Held every two years, the Hommage Series aims to highlight the music and work of a Quebec composer with a broad repertoire, drawing on a vast network of cultural and educational communities. Each edition features around 200 events, boasting up to 40,000 people. The first series was dedicated to the emblematic Claude Vivier (2007-2008), followed by Gilles Tremblay, Ana Sokolović, Denis Gougeon, John Rea, José Evangelista, Katia Makdissi-Warren, and, this year, Sandeep Bhagwati.
https://smcq.qc.ca/smcq/en/evenement/45608/amities-et-etrangetes
Translation by Eva Stone-Barney
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
