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Avant-propos

Réjean Beaucage

Introduction : produire et diffuser la musique aujourd’hui… pour demain !

Ariane Couture

Échos de création : récits et résonances d’E27 musiques nouvelles

Ariane Couture
E27 New Music is now celebrating its 25th anniversary. This text offers a historical retrospective of its mandate, activities, and influence through the memories and stories of people who have been particularly active within the organization. Contacted in the summer of 2025, Patrick Giguère, Marie-Hélène Breault, Pierre-Olivier Roy, Katia Makdissi-Warren, Yannick Plamondon, and Raphaël Guay revealed details of their experiences with E27. Their testimonials, shared with the author in writing or through interviews, describe different facets of the E27 universe, including the circumstances that led them to join the organization and their roles; the impact the experience had on their careers; the concerts that left the greatest impressions on them; and what E27 represents in today’s music scene.

43 ans d’expérimentation musicale au Saguenay

Stéphane Boivin and Marie-Pierre Brasset
Le Centre d’expérimentation musicale (cem), founded in 1982 in the Saguenay region, has become a major hub for creative music in Quebec. Rooted in the countercultural movement of the 1970s, it emphasizes experimentation and hybrid artistic practices. Initially lacking a permanent performance space, it developed around diy studios and experienced significant growth in the 2020s. The cem now offers residencies, production resources, and professional facilities, attracting both local and international artists. The return of the Festival des musiques de création under its direction marks a new era of artistic dissemination for the cem.

Une nouvelle société de concerts pour devenir « Maîtres chez nous » !

Françoise Davoine
The Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (smcq) was founded on December 15, 1966, in Montreal, under the patronage of the newly created Quebec Ministry of Cultural Affairs. After briefly describing the context of its birth in the midst of the Quiet Revolution, the author presents a purely fictional conversation between the founding members of the new society, based on interviews preserved in the archives of the Société Radio-Canada, as well as a few newspaper articles and biographical documents. The participants include Jean-Papineau Couture (1916-2000), president; Maryvonne Kendergi (1915-2011), vice-president and organizer; Serge Garant (1929-1986), music director; Hugh Davidson (1930-2014), treasurer, and Wilfrid Pelletier (1896-1982), advisor and then director of the Music Department at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, gathered together a few hours before the inaugural concert to celebrate the culmination of many months of reflection and several weeks of hard work.

Textos volants – Deux « Anciens » de la smcq placotent

Michel Gonneville and John Rea
To mark the 60th anniversary of the smcq, two composers, each of whom attended many of its concerts and served as members of both the board of directors and artistic committee, share their impressions and recollections of notable events in the society’s history, and think back on discussions surrounding these moments. Their dialog takes the fast-paced, concise, present-day form of texting.

La smcq et la commande d’oeuvres : entre dialogues et tensions, vers un nouveau paradigme de création ?

David Therrien Brongo
Since its founding, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (smcq) has made a priority of commissioning new works. Beyond providing financial support, commissioning acts as a symbolic tool to legitimize composers, highlight certain aesthetics, as it helps forge the artistic identity of the organization and, more broadly, the identity of contemporary music in Quebec. While this mechanism has proven to be a decisive step in the careers of many creators, it has also caused tension due to the selection dynamics and constraints associated with commissions. Since becoming artistic director of the smcq in 2023, Simon Bertrand has sought a commissioning model that emphasizes support, intergenerational dialogue, and greater diversity in its aesthetic approach.

Ondulation et altération : tracer la forme dans La cartographie des sons de Keiko Devaux

Francis Battah
This article offers an analysis of La cartographie des sons (2019) by Keiko Devaux, a work for string orchestra and qanun commissioned by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (smcq). The author, who served as copyist for the individual parts, adopts an inverted analytical approach: beginning with details and working back toward the structural logic. Examination of the string writing highlights two central principles–oscillation and alteration–which, when applied to a modal backdrop, shape both the texture and the perception of form. The study of modality shows how Devaux draws on colors from the maqamat and integrates them in a personal syntax. The title of the work comes from a chart of the qanun’s levers sketched by the composer. This chart also becomes a guiding thread, linking instrumental practices, formal organization, and the memorial experience of listening.

Échos de Mutek 2025

Frédéric Cardin
The Mutek festival is a series of events related to electronic music. This article presents a review of certain aspects of the festival and an interview with its founder and director, Alain Mongeau, who discusses Mutek’s links with the world of institutional avant-garde electroacoustic music. Three conferences are covered: two on new tools in quantum computing and their possibilities for musical creation, and another on the business model of music distribution on the web. The concerts deemed most interesting in terms of avant-garde musical aesthetics are reviewed.

Sō Percussion : 25 x 25. Cantaloupe Music, ca‑21210, 2025

Réjean Beaucage

Les illustrations

Odile Côté-Rousseau