The dawning of a new era?

This seventh edition of the Montreal/New Music festival is themed around an exploration of two “timely” current topics: the environment and new technologies.

Impossible to escape this, unless one is living on Mars and even then!

So what on earth are we to make of all this for MNM 2015?

Music or rather musical practices do not escape their period and reflect — each in their own way — the “contemporary” concerns of their architects. Over the past 25 years the contribution of new technologies in concerts and other musical demonstrations has been explosive, more recently developing (again) a mind-blowing rhythm. Electroacoustics, interactive videos, holograms, surround-sound, samplers, “virtual” instruments, sound processing software, etc., are only the tip of the iceberg, a profound transformation affecting our perception of the sound phenomenon reality.

Notwithstanding, we are literally plunged into multiple “environments” which appreciably modulate the profile of artistic expression, whatever their origin. MNM 2015 features some 40 concerts and activities. All — without exception — will make “dramatic” reference to these two thematic elements, be it Michel-Georges Brégent’s mythical Atlantide, referring to Greek mythology’s biggest ecological disaster, to Mauro Lanza’s Le nubi non scoppiano per il peso! with his machine that digitally replicates raindrops, not to mention Turangalîla-Symphonie, Olivier Messiaen’s large-scale work, where for the very first time, back in 1949, the electronic sounds of the “ondes Martenot” resonated!

Since its 2003 debut, each edition of the MNM festival has been unique and the 2015 edition is no exception. Despite its somewhat eclectic context, the festival has come into existence thanks to invaluable collaborations between the music milieu and with the support of diverse levels of government. Cultural architects, collaborators, volunteers and team members for whom this production has been a major challenge, but one rife with staunch patience and a wild will to succeed!

Finally, we hope that you will join us, in a spirit eager of discovery, through every stage of this singular journey that is MNM 2015, 10 days of a great saga with an “ecological” flavor!

Enjoy the festival!

Walter Boudreau
Artistic director

Aïda Aoun
General Director