Third edition February 24 – March 8, 2007 Walter Boudreau and Denys Bouliane, Artistic directors MNM & McGill University Montreal, Thursday 15 February 2007 - for immediate distribution. The Montreal International Festival of New Music is proud to have been associated, since its foundation, with the Schulich School of Music at the McGill University as its "great partner". With its international orientation and the priority that it accords to the integration of new technology, the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, under the dynamic direction of its dean, Don McLean, is at the forefront of developments in new music. The 2007 edition of the Festival offers ample evidence of this vitality, with four conductors, seven composers, five soloists and no less than eight ensembles directly linked to McGill, not to mention the four foreign composers invited for the occasion: Maura Lanza (Italy), Martin Matalon (Argentina), Manfred Stahnke and Moritz Eggert (Germany), or the 13 talks, lectures and master-classes. We are proud of this partnership with the University of McGill which contributes to the takeover of new music performance both here and abroad. Four conductors We would like to underline first the exceptional role of Denys Bouliane, conductor, composer, professor of composition and artistic director of the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME). Denys Bouliane has also been the artistic co-director of the festival Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques since its creation and has contributed in a major way to its establishment. A pillar of the partnership between McGill University and the Festival, Denys Bouliane remains at the heart of the development of new music at McGill and his role extends to both the national and international communities. Seven composers For a young composer only 32 years old, Mauro Lanza, visiting prefessor in composition at the University of McGill in 2004-2005, has followed an exceptional international career, taking in Paris, Venice, Strasbourg, Amsterdam, Montréal, Basle, Geneva, and Cuneo. His work entitled Cane, commissioned by the Fondation Daniel Langlois with the help of the Digital composition studio, will be first performed in the concert of the SMCQ on March 7. Five soloists: The cellist Matt Haimovitz is recognized as on of the most adventurous artists in classical music, being active also as a performer in chamber ensembles and as a soloist in recitals and concertos in the great concert halls, as well as in new forms of representation. Professor of violoncello at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, he will play a concerto with the McGill Symphony Orchestra, as well the Guerriers du violoncelle ("Warriors of the cello") with his own ensemble « Ucello ». Eight ensembles: Of the 23 ensembles in the Festival, eight come to us from the reputed Schulich School of Music at McGill University: (Capella McGill, Digital Composition Studio, Lloyd Carr-Harris Quartet, McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, McGill Percussion Ensemble, McGill Symphony Orchestra, Schulich Quartet, Uccello), evidence of the exceptional level of this University which is recognized world-wide. Thirteen talks, lectures and master classes: During the whole of the Festival the Schulich School of Music at McGill University will host a number of composers and performers from here and elsewhere, who will let us hear their music and who will have l exchanges with young composers in master classes. This will provide an unique opportunity to have in Montreal the German composers Manfred Stahnke and Moritz Eggert , as well as the Italian, Mauro Lanza and the Argentinian Martin Matalon. We may moreover discover or re-discover the musical personalities of Michel Gonneville, Chris-Paul Harman et Paul Frehner. These encounters certainly represent an ideal way of taking advantage of the presence here of these exceptional musiciants. -30- Source Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) www.smcq.qc.ca Attaché de presse : Alain Labonté communications : (514) 523-9922 [email protected] Conductors Bouliane, Denys Denys Bouliane is one of the nation’s best-known composers at the international level. Initially trained in performance and composition at Laval University (in Quebec City), he later continued his studies abroad, notably with György Ligeti in Hamburg (1980-1985). Currently dividing his time between Montreal and Cologne, he has been director of the New Music Society in Cologne of Ensemble Série B and composer- in-residence for the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. In 1995, he founded the Rencontres de musique nouvelle at the Domaine Forget, and subsequently co-directed the Québec-Musiques-au-présent Festival (1998-2000). In September of that year he was appointed professor of composition at McGill University and general director of the Ensemble de musique contemporaine at McGill as well as a member of the artistic committee of the SMCQ. Bouliane has also garnered several Prix Opus, awarded each year by the Conseil québecois de la musique, in categories that include “Personality of the Year” (1999. With Walter Boudreau he was the artistic co-director of the colossal, multi-authored Millennium Symphony (2000) and organised the first Montreal/New Music International Festival (2003), for which he earned the award “Co-Artistic Director of the Year” (2003). Peter Niklas Wilson has described Bouliane’s music as “Music of Magic Realism, akin to a virtuoso game of criticism bordering on stylistic mystification, following in the footsteps of Jorge-Luis Borges, Italo Calvino and Boris Vian.” His œuvre consists of more than forty works, including the prize-winning Jeux de société (1982 CBC Competition for Young Composers Grand Prize, and the 1982 Gaudeamus Foundation Competition), and À propos… et le Baron perché? (Jules Léger Prize). Concert : 01.03.07 20:00 Metropolis / Retour vers le futur (CME) 5 $ Pollack Hall : 555, rue Sherbrooke Ouest | 514 398-4547 Concert : 03.03.07 21:30 Les (nouvelles) boîtes de Pandore ! (Quasar, Uccello, DJ Orchestra) 10 $ Société des arts technologiques [SAT] : 1195, boul. Saint-Laurent | 514 844-2033 Hauser, Alexis Winner of the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1974, Alexis Hauser has established an international conducting career with numerous appearances in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East. A native of Vienna, Hauser studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Universität für Musik, where he graduated with distinction in 1970. He also studied conducting with Franco Ferrara at the 1969 Accademia Chigiana in Sienna, Italy, and with Herbert von Karajan at the 1970 Summer Academy Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1977, he became the winner of the First International Hans Swarowsky Conducting Competition in Vienna. In Europe, Hauser has appeared as guest conductor with, among others, the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and RSÖ Vienna; the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Radio Philharmonic Hilversum; the Radio Symphony Berlin; the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow; the Orchestre National de Toulouse; the Bruckner Orchestra Linz; the Philharmonia Hungarica and Budapest Philharmonic (Principal Guest Conductor, 1991-1995) and the Budapest Symphony; the Zagreb, Belgrade and Ljubljana Philharmonic Orchestras; the Enescu Philharmonic Bucharest and Czech State Philharmonic Brno, in addition to concert tours in Germany, Scandinavia and Iceland. In North America, he has conducted the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Minnesota, Atlanta, Seattle, Rochester, Kansas City, Edmonton, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa; in Latin America, the Mexican State Orchestra and the UNAM Philharmonic of Mexico City, and the National Philharmonic Orchestras of Buenos Aires and Lima. Concert : 05-06/03.07 19:00 Zodiac, folklore de Masovie et conte de fée (McGill SO) 10 $ Pollack Hall : 555, rue Sherbrooke Ouest | 514 398-4547 Lavoie, Jean-Michaël Jean-Michaël Lavoie is assistant conductor to the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble. Since September 2003, he has conducted 14 premieres of young Canadian composers. Recipient of a Quebec government Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) grant in 2005, he will soon complete his Master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting at the McGill University Schulich School of Music. A trained pianist, he recorded recitals in 1999 and 2002 at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur for the Radio-Canada cultural channel radio programme “Les Jeunes Artistes”. Rehearsal pianist for the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal Choir in 2000 and 2005, he currently holds the same function with the Chœur de la Radio de Radio-Canada. In January 2006, he was invited by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra to conduct at the Annual Young Composers’ Reading for the Canadian Music Festival. In June 2006, he participated in “Entre le chef et l’orchestre”, a documentary presented on “Mélomaniaques”, an ARTV programme. In 2007, he will conduct McGill University’s large ensembles in Olivier Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum and Denys Bouliane’s Du fouet et du plaisir. Concert : 07.03.07 19:00 Méchants garçons ! (SMCQ) 25 $ | 12,50 $ | 10 $ Pollack Hall : 555, rue Sherbrooke Ouest | 514 398-4547 Schubert, Peter Artistic Director Peter Schubert has conducted The Orpheus Singers since 1991. He came to Montreal from New York City, where he founded and directed Opera Uptown and The New Calliope Singers, a group renowned for its commitment to modern