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It gives me great plea­sure to get involved on the board of direc­tors of the Cana­di­an New Music Net­work as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Que­bec. I am very hap­py to be able to con­tribute to the func­tion­ing of an orga­ni­za­tion that works to bring togeth­er new music artists across the coun­try despite the immense dis­tance that sep­a­rates us. I admire the work CNMN does topro­vide a plat­form for artists, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the Forums, to encour­age the emer­gence of the next gen­er­a­tion (Con­neX­ions) and to address impor­tant issues that have been ignored for too long in our com­mu­ni­ty with the series Con­ver­sa­tions on Decolonization.

An-Lau­rence Hig­gins is a Mon­tre­al-based new music per­former as well as a mul­ti­me­dia artist address­ing top­ics such as transna­tion­al iden­ti­ty and rela­tion­ships.
As a musi­cian, An-Lau­rence has per­formed as a gui­tar soloist, cham­ber musi­cian and impro­vis­er across Que­bec and Ontario since 2016. In 2019, she inde­pen­dent­ly pro­duced and direct­ed the project “Émer­gences (f.pl.)”, com­mis­sion­ing 5 news works by emerg­ing women com­posers and cul­mi­nat­ing in per­for­mances in Mon­tre­al and Toron­to. As a mul­ti­me­dia artist, An-Lau­rence has explored her transna­tion­al iden­ti­ty as an adoptee of Chi­nese ori­gin through the mul­ti­me­dia instal­la­tion “Con­fi­dences en trois temps” and the inter­ac­tive per­for­mance “Come Clos­er, I’ll tell you what I for­got”.
An-Lau­rence is an avid col­lab­o­ra­tor and believes the act of cre­ation is one of shar­ing and car­ing. A dar­ing per­former, she has col­lab­o­rat­ed with artists from var­i­ous dis­ci­plines (visu­al arts, cin­e­ma, dance) and thrives in set­tings that stretch the lim­its of tra­di­tion­al music per­for­mance. Com­mit­ted to her com­mu­ni­ty, An-Lau­rence has been a co-orga­niz­er of the Mon­tre­al Con­tem­po­rary Music Lab peer-men­tor­ship pro­gram since 2017, and recent­ly joined the Board of direc­tors of the new music con­cert series Codes d’accès.
Pho­to: Car­los Riobo

I had the good for­tune of attend­ing and con­tribut­ing to a CNMN Sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­ver­sa­tion in 2019. I felt a con­nec­tion with the organization’s val­ues and left excit­ed with the dia­logue and the knowl­edge exchanged. CNMN is pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive and excit­ing events that enrich our music com­mu­ni­ty. I’m hon­oured to be asked to join the board and am excit­ed to con­tribute and learn. 

Robert Thom­son is a musi­cian, music cura­tor, and per­former of Hai­da, Tsimshi­an, and mixed Euro­pean ances­try. He is the band leader of soul-pop project Sis­ter Says, an artis­tic pro­duc­er at Full Cir­cle: First Nations Per­for­mance and the music pro­gram­mer for the Talk­ing Stick Fes­ti­val and Múyuntstut ta Slúlum Con­cert Series. In 2019, Robert received the award for “Emerg­ing Per­form­ing Arts Leader” pre­sent­ed by the Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion for Pre­sent­ing Arts. 

Out­side of Full Cir­cle and Sis­ter Says, Robert is cur­rent­ly the elec­tric bass play­er in the projects SOLA, Logan and Nathan, a sound designer/performer/live loop­er in the exper­i­men­tal musi­cal Mor­ag, You’re a Long Time Deid (2020), part of the Indigifest (2019) artis­tic team, and co-curat­ed the con­cert, Giv­ing Voice (2017). 

I am always enthu­si­as­tic about con­tribut­ing to the influ­ence of new music in all con­texts. I par­tic­i­pate every day as a com­pos­er, artis­tic direc­tor and teacher.

An orga­ni­za­tion like CNMN is vital to the cul­tur­al ecosys­tem in which our music evolves. Many issues need dis­cussing and actions need to be tak­en. I cer­tain­ly mean to use my expe­ri­ences in cre­at­ing and pro­duc­ing events. I sin­cere­ly hope that the Que­bec region, and the east­ern part of the province in par­tic­u­lar, will be more involved in the actions of the network.

CNMN projects are excit­ing and the music field is dynam­ic. It is with pride that I agreed to put my shoul­der to the wheel by sit­ting on the board of directors.

Pierre-Olivi­er Roy prac­tices in new music cre­ation and audio pro­duc­tion, main­ly for live music, live music and sound design. His body of work includes cham­ber music (instru­men­tal and mixed) and elec­troa­coustic works. In his recent career, mixed music occu­pies a pride of place. In 2017, Pierre-Olivi­er Roy was cho­sen to con­duct a research res­i­den­cy for the cre­ation of an inter­ac­tive musi­cal work in the White House, based on the qual­i­ty of his work and his vision inte­grat­ing instru­men­tal com­po­si­tion and musi­cal tech­nolo­gies. His work Machine Music, cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with SAGA, was exhib­it­ed at the Musée de la civ­i­liza­tion between April and June 2017.
More specif­i­cal­ly, he explores the use of musi­cal tech­nolo­gies as part of the cre­ation & com­po­si­tion of mixed music in con­cert. His work Under a Fine Sky (elec­tric gui­tar, per­cus­sion, tapes, live video and immer­sive envi­ron­ment) was nom­i­nat­ed at the Opus Gala in the cat­e­go­ry Con­cert of the Year — Québec and was recip­i­ent of the Uni­ver­sité Laval Hom­mage aux Créa­teurs Mem­bres Award in 2017. In the sum­mer of 2018, The Time Frac­ture — Mul­ti­ple Times (20 per­cus­sion­ists and octo­phon­ic bands) was pre­miered at the Place des Fes­ti­vals in Mon­tre­al as part of Rythmopolis.
Pierre-Olivi­er Roy is very active on the Que­bec new music scene. Since 2015, he has been the gen­er­al and artis­tic direc­tor of the E27 musiques nou­velles. He cur­rent­ly teach­es at the Fac­ul­ty of Music of Laval University.

André Cormier’s work has been pre­sent­ed in Cana­da, the US, Europe, and New Zealand. He has writ­ten for solo, small and large cham­ber ensem­bles, as well as music for opera, dance as well as col­lab­o­ra­tive work with visu­al artists. His works have been com­mis­sioned from a vari­ety of artists in Cana­da, the US, and Europe. In 2008, he launched Édi­tions musique Sisyphe (www.emsis.ca), a pub­lish­ing house pri­mar­i­ly for exper­i­men­tal music scores; he also directs its per­form­ing branch, Ensem­ble Sisyphe. In 2011, after near­ly twen­ty years on the west coast shared between British Colum­bia and Cal­i­for­nia, André made his return to east­ern Cana­da, first in Mon­tre­al, and then in the sum­mer of 2012, he returned to his native Acadie. Today, André main­tains a busy sched­ule as a com­pos­er by ful­fill­ing com­mis­sions and pre­sent­ing work, all in an effort to greater under­stand what makes sound and silence so irre­sistible. He also finds the com­ple­ment of cacao and sug­ar immense­ly intriguing.

I have attend­ed the last CNMN Forum and was tru­ly impressed by the open inquis­i­tive space the Forum cre­at­ed. CNMN cre­ates a dynam­ic place for a new music scene that is con­stant­ly fluc­tu­at­ing, chang­ing and redefin­ing itself.  Because of the sheer size of our coun­try, an orga­ni­za­tion like CNMN brings peo­ple togeth­er in a unique way.

I am hon­ored to serve on the board of the CNMN. I have spent most of my adult life in the USA. I have con­tin­ued to be very active in Cana­da and have always felt pro­found­ly con­nect­ed to the cul­ture. I believe that my expe­ri­ence as an ex-pat might bring a per­spec­tive that will con­tribute to the organization.

Born in Val d’Or, Québec in 1957, Lin­da Bouchard lives in San Fran­cis­co since 1997. Through­out her career she has been an active com­pos­er, orches­tra­tor, con­duc­tor, teacher and pro­duc­er. Her works have received awards in the US and in Cana­da, includ­ing a Prix Opus Com­pos­er of the Year in Que­bec, Fromm Music Foun­da­tion Award, Prince­ton Com­po­si­tion Con­test, SOCAN Com­po­si­tion awards and res­i­den­cies from the Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion, Civitel­la Ranieri, Camar­go Foun­da­tion and oth­ers. Bouchard’s music is record­ed on ECM in Ger­many, CRI in the USA and CBC, Analek­ta, Mar­quis Clas­sics, RCI, Cen­tre­disks in Cana­da. Lin­da was com­pos­er-in-res­i­dence with the Nation­al Arts Cen­ter Orches­tra (1992–1995). She is the founder of NEXMAP.org, (a non-prof­it arts and edu­ca­tion orga­ni­za­tion based in San Fran­cis­co), and was the act­ing direc­tor from 2005 to 2015.  In 2015, Bouchard was invit­ed as a vis­it­ing artist at The Banff Cen­tre, she also received a Fleck Fel­low­ship at the Leighton artist Colony. Dur­ing the spring 2016, she was a Vis­it­ing Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Music at UC Berkeley.

For the past ten years Lin­da has been cre­at­ing mul­ti­me­dia work while con­tin­u­ing to com­pose music for the con­cert hall. Her works Mur­der­ous Lit­tle World, All Caps No Space and Iden­ti­ty Theft have been per­formed in North Amer­i­ca to crit­i­cal acclaim.  In the fall 2017, Lin­da received a mul­ti­year grant from the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts to “Explore and Cre­ate”. Her project titled “Live Struc­tures” will unfold over the next two years.

I am very hap­py and proud to serve as a board mem­ber for the CNMN. My first encounter with the CNMN was the forum in Hal­i­fax 2010. The expe­ri­ence of a com­mu­ni­ty of artists, pre­sen­ters and pro­duc­ers from all over the coun­try com­ing togeth­er to one place for three days to exchange, talk, plan, dream and make music was a true revelation.

On that week­end this huge coun­try – rough­ly the size of Europe but less than 5% of its pop­u­la­tion – start­ed to reveal a musi­cal iden­ti­ty to me, through all the peo­ple I had heard of but had nev­er met, all the com­posers, per­form­ers and pre­sen­ters I knew but had no per­son­al rela­tion­ship. The forums that fol­lowed have helped me immense­ly to under­stand the cul­tur­al life of Canada.

Through my work with Quatuor Bozzi­ni I have expe­ri­ence in net­work­ing, in tour­ing, in cre­at­ing new work, and in co-direct­ing a small and very active com­pa­ny: this is what I want to bring to the CNMN board. At the same time, I am look­ing for­ward to exchange with my Board col­leagues and learn from what they are bring­ing to the table. It is a very impor­tant time for music in Cana­da and for music from Cana­da, and I am hap­py to help devel­op­ing it.

Clemens Merkel’s uncon­ven­tion­al sound defines a new sen­si­bil­i­ty in con­tem­po­rary music, through its inti­mate puri­ty of tone, its set­tled under­stand­ing of micro­ton­al or uncon­ven­tion­al har­mon­ic lan­guage, and its unhur­ried sen­si­tiv­i­ty. He is well known for inno­v­a­tive inter­pre­ta­tions of Bach and John Cage, and is sought after by com­posers world­wide as an inspi­ra­tion for new reper­toire. His diverse col­lab­o­ra­tors range from the Wan­del­weis­er col­lec­tive to Montréal’s Musique Actuelle com­mu­ni­ty, and from emerg­ing exper­i­men­tal­ists to today’s most revered composers.

Since 1999, Merkel’s unusu­al sound has fused with that of the Quatuor Bozzi­ni, con­sid­ered one of the world’s lead­ing string quar­tets. Togeth­er they have men­tored an entire gen­er­a­tion of cre­ators through the Composer’s Kitchen; have released numer­ous crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed albums on their col­lec­tion qb label; under­take mul­ti­ple tours annu­al­ly to be fea­tured at fes­ti­vals world­wide; and main­tain a pro­found impact on the music scene across Cana­da and Europe in par­tic­u­lar. They nour­ish Mon­tréal audi­ences with unusu­al self-pro­duced events that bridge worlds and cross bound­aries of style, gen­er­a­tion and culture.

Fol­low­ing an ear­ly career in Europe, where he con­tributed to the continent’s lead­ing ensem­bles, Merkel has made Mon­tréal his home since 2000. He sup­ports and advo­cates for new music in Québec and in Cana­da, and is reg­u­lar­ly sought after as speak­er, cura­tor and advis­er. His pres­ence is felt in acad­e­mia as well, through arti­cles writ­ten for the Revue Cir­cuit, and through his teach­ing at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty. He’s a pas­sion­ate chef and lives in Montréal’s Por­tuguese neigh­bor­hood togeth­er with his wife Isabelle Bozzi­ni and chil­dren Félix and Béatrice.

http://quatuorbozzini.ca/

“I was pres­i­dent of CNMN from its incep­tion in 2005 until 2014. I believe in CNMN because I believe that musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty can play an impor­tant and pos­i­tive role in our soci­ety. How­ev­er, we need to work togeth­er in order for new music to have more impact in Cana­da. This is why we cre­at­ed CNMN – in order to have a place for the entire com­mu­ni­ty to work togeth­er: com­pos­er, per­former, ensem­ble, impro­vis­er, elec­troa­coustics, world, orches­tra, DIY, what­ev­er – it’s about musi­cal imag­i­na­tion and human expres­sion, not categories. 

A key issue affect­ing new music in Cana­da is con­nect­ing more effec­tive­ly to the Cana­di­an and inter­na­tion­al pub­lic, Since 2011 CNMN has been evolv­ing a new strat­e­gy called the Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive. We all know – with­out high qual­i­ty dig­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tions of our work out in the big wide world, we are invis­i­ble. As a board mem­ber, my main goal is to move this project for­ward. CNMN now has a sol­id infra­struc­ture and his­to­ry, so I will use my expe­ri­ence and con­tacts built over a decade of cul­tur­al pol­i­cy work with CNMN to get this Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive mov­ing. This is a com­plex and daunt­ing task, and made none the eas­i­er by the cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate, but it is crit­i­cal for the future of Cana­di­an music.”

2014 — Final President’s Message :

“Over the past nine years as CNMN Pres­i­dent, I have spent many hours think­ing about musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty, try­ing to define it to our­selves, try­ing to defend it to fun­ders and to the pub­lic, try­ing to artic­u­late why we believe that unfet­tered musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty is so vital to our soci­ety.  There is no sin­gle, sim­ple answer.  How­ev­er, at its core, cre­at­ing music for the love of the art of music is a strik­ing social and polit­i­cal action.  Cre­at­ing music that tries to encom­pass the scope and com­plex­i­ty of the human con­di­tion is a big job, but that is what we have cho­sen to do.  It is inher­ent­ly human­ist in approach, and is pred­i­cat­ed on a soci­ety where the val­ue of each indi­vid­ual is recog­nised.  Art, includ­ing new music, is pri­mar­i­ly about the human expe­ri­ence, not about the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit or polit­i­cal power. 

This is why cre­ative art is often viewed as a men­ace to exist­ing eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal struc­tures.  We live in a soci­ety which has, for the moment, a rea­son­able bal­ance between the two forces – the human­ist vision and the eco­nom­ic / polit­i­cal vision.  That bal­ance, how­ev­er, is con­stant­ly shifting.

I urge all CNMN mem­bers to remem­ber, every time you write a new piece, or step on a stage to do a con­cert, or talk about the impor­tance of music in our soci­ety, that you are part of the ongo­ing polit­i­cal and social dis­course that is shap­ing the world we live in.  New music has a role to play in this larg­er dis­cus­sion, and it is impor­tant that we, as a com­mu­ni­ty, take this role seri­ous­ly. I believe that CNMN is ide­al­ly placed to be a lead­ing voice in this dis­cus­sion.  I hope that my 9 years as Pres­i­dent has helped to build both a strong, cred­i­ble organ­i­sa­tion and to make the case for musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty as a pos­i­tive force for social devel­op­ment.”   [2014]

“CNMN is the best way our com­mu­ni­ty can move for­ward – by work­ing togeth­er. Since its cre­ation in 2005, CNMN has begun to cre­ate a strong, coher­ent voice for all forms of new music across Cana­da, and I hope to con­tin­ue this work by work­ing to improve our region­al new music net­works, by rein­forc­ing our nation­al net­work, by improv­ing the CNMN infra­struc­ture and by push­ing for­ward with tar­get­ed lob­by­ing cam­paigns at FACTOR, Her­itage Cana­da, Musi­cAc­tion, CBC and with a vari­ety of nation­al and region­al edu­ca­tion­al part­ners.  We can build on the suc­cess of our FORUM projects and cre­ate a pos­i­tive sense of what new music, in all its forms, has to offer the Cana­di­an pub­lic.”   [2012]

“As one of the found­ing mem­bers of the CNMN I believe that new music can play a more vital, dynam­ic, pos­i­tive and imag­i­na­tive role in the cul­tur­al life of Cana­da. But we can only do this if we, as a com­mu­ni­ty of cre­ative artists, work togeth­er to make this extra­or­di­nary music more wide­ly avail­able to all Cana­di­ans. The CNMN is the best forum for cre­at­ing this kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion, bring­ing togeth­er com­posers, per­form­ers, ensem­bles, impro­vis­ers, pro­duc­ers and edu­ca­tors to cre­ate a sin­gle, com­mon voice for the cause of new cre­ative con­cert music in Cana­da.”   [2008]

Tim Brady is a com­pos­er, per­former, artis­tic direc­tor and cul­tur­al activist based in Mon­tre­al. Work­ing as a free-lance pro­fes­sion­al artist since 1980, he has pro­duced 20 CDs, dozens of tours of Cana­da, the USA, Europe and Aus­tralia, and worked with major pre­sen­ters and orches­tras such as the Win­nipeg Sym­pho­ny, the Van­cou­ver Sym­pho­ny, the Orchestre sym­phonique de Québec, the Orchestre sym­phonique de Mon­tre­al, the Toron­to Sym­pho­ny, the SMCQ, VNMS, Fes­ti­val Vic­to, New Music Con­certs, le NEM, the Open Ears Fes­ti­val, The Hud­der­s­field Con­tem­po­rary Music Fes­ti­val, Topol­o­gy and the ABC (Aus­tralia) and Radio-France. He was pres­i­dent of the CNMN from 2005–2014.

www.timbrady.ca

As a per­former, edu­ca­tor, Artis­tic Direc­tor and advo­cate for the arts and con­tem­po­rary music in South­ern Ontario, my place on the CNMN board allows me to work with oth­er like-mind­ed peo­ple in the nation­al arts com­mu­ni­ty and to also raise the pro­file of the arts scene in my home com­mu­ni­ty of Kitch­en­er-Water­loo. I great­ly val­ue the work that the CNMN does. I bring my expe­ri­ence as a board mem­ber, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, and Artis­tic Direc­tor of local con­tem­po­rary music orga­ni­za­tions to this great orga­ni­za­tion. The con­tem­po­rary music scene across Cana­da is some­thing to be cel­e­brat­ed and through the efforts of the CNMN, we can help it to grow and thrive.

Kathryn Ladano is a spe­cial­ist of con­tem­po­rary music and free impro­vi­sa­tion and has per­formed as a soloist and cham­ber musi­cian across Cana­da and abroad on the bass clar­inet. Kathryn is heav­i­ly involved in both edu­ca­tion­al and cre­ative work. She is cur­rent­ly the Artis­tic Direc­tor of NUMUS con­certs, the Direc­tor of ICE (Impro­vi­sa­tion Con­certs Ensem­ble) and instruc­tor of impro­vi­sa­tion stu­dio at Wil­frid Lau­ri­er Uni­ver­si­ty, and the bass clar­inet instruc­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Water­loo. Kathryn’s debut CD “Open” was released in 2010, fea­tur­ing new com­po­si­tions and freely impro­vised music. He also released an album titled “…lis­ten” with her duo, Stealth, with per­cus­sion­ist Richard Bur­rows. She is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing her PhD at York Uni­ver­si­ty in Toron­to under the super­vi­sion of Casey Sokol. Her research inter­ests include impro­vi­sa­tion ped­a­gogy, and the rela­tion­ship between dif­fer­ent types of anx­i­eties and the prac­tice of free improvisation.

www.kathrynladano.com
www.soundcloud.com/kathryn-ladano
https://twitter.com/KathrynLadano
https://www.facebook.com/Kathryn-Ladano-72279177034/
https://www.youtube.com/user/bclarinet